How many years of swimming lessons

[MeganM3]

I really find swimming lesson evening a pain in the arse.

My eldest has been doing lessons for almost 3 years. She has made slow progress tbh. She also has had some lessons with school and swims a few times a year on holiday or at the local pool.

I've had enough of it. The weekly swimming slog. She can safely swim and jump in/get out but doesn't have good technique.

How long did you continue with lessons for?
How do you know when it's time to stop lessons? It feels endless.

Well until they can safely swim. Then you just take them swimming to a pool for exercise.

We did 5 years, Dts had just got to the end of stage 7, then covid so never went back.

Mine did the course to the end. I’ve a feeling there were 12 stages when my dc did it, but I can’t remember for sure.

This is something my dd keeps asking me! Her brothers never got out of the babypool dispite years of lessons and then private lessons. My disabled child can swim better than they can. I originally said stage 4. But we are still going.

Swimming lessons aren't actually compulsory (well, some with school are). But you don't HAVE to teach a child to swim to a certain level. People don't tend to consider things like learning to ride a bike in the same way and tut if you can't cycle with no hands or fix a puncture. Or if you think about it more in the life saving skill capacity, children aren't sent to first aid classes for years upon years of bandaging and CPR practice. And isn't "good technique" arbitrary? Who is using butterfly outside of swimming clubs. A poor technique might be less efficient but if you are making progress across the pool and not drowning surely it's working.

What are you anticipating they will need to do that involves swimming? Able to safely go to a swimming pool with slides and have fun and get in and out of the pools safely? Able to engage in watersports that sometimes require a certain level of proficiency to take part? Be able to tread water for ten minutes and climb out of the pool without using steps, as some sort of in case of a boat sinking type scenario? Or do you actively want them to swim as a sport, in which case the efficiency of strokes and regular practice for years is key.

Our deal was end of year 6 or when they finished stage 7 which ever came first. All started on their 4th birthdays.

One voluntarily stayed in lessons until end of year 7, one did a couple of years of academy probably gave up around year 8, one stopped at end of stage 7 in year 5. Between 3 kids I spent the best part of 10 years at that pool at least once a week, often twice or even 3 times a week. Total pita but they can all swim well and are stronger than me, it's an essential life skill.

We just taught ours when we went on holiday one year and then practiced with them occasionally. Never did swimming lessons. It was one stress more than I could cope with.

My son struggled with swimming lessons - slow progress . Got him one to one and he was soon swimming well and much more confident. The class approach doesn't suit all - especially for children who find it difficult to hear , it's too noisy etc etc

I think swimming lessons can be a waste of time for some. I did lessons for years with ds1 from very young. With ds2 only took him myself to play and I think when he was 8 we did a crash course one summer and job done. Think they are both equally strong swimmers now and cracked it at the same age.

Dd completed all the stages pretty much, just had a few things to go over on the last stage; it was getting to be a bit of a chore getting her there so when Covid hit she never went back.

For me we stop when they can swim to a decent enough level or longer if they choose.
Not concerned about that having great technique

Our swimming consists of maybe a couple of family swim sessions in UK a year and 2 weeks abroad. As long as they can swim enough to be able to go in the pool everyday and go to the watermark that's good enough.
After being abroad for a week and practically living in the pool they are all so much better. We just don't keep it up in the UK. Not a fan of the leisure centre pool I have to say

I want my daughter to be able to swim a bit, enough to get herself out of trouble and participate in activities like canoeing, aqua park and so on when she’s a bit older (she’s 5). She’s been going since she was a baby and has just started swimming unaided. To be honest I feel she’s made more progress confidence wise on holiday with us by swimming every day than in a weekly lesson!! I now have another baby and I’m not going to bother with years of expensive swimming lessons with him as I don’t think it achieved what I’d hoped for with my daughter. We take him sometimes and I do some of the exercises I remember from her baby swimming and I think that will have the same impact to be honest! I'm not worried about good technique particularly. She’ll have a few lessons at school when she’s older and hopefully improve a bit more then.

We started off wtih group lessons, but progress was glacial and it was an expensive pita. So we did 1:1 private lessons. Each child took about 4-5 months to get from stage 2 to stage 6. We weren't relentless about every week - stopped for Christmas etc. It was so much quicker and the pool was quieter without the group lessons going on, so changing rooms were much less stressful. It felt expensive at the time, but I think cheaper over all than wasting time for years.

We stopped once our kids were confident in the water and good enough to get themselves out of trouble. My son is in Scouts now and if they're doing any water activities, they have to be able to swim 50 metres unaided.

There was a thread about this a couple of days a go. There are 7 learning to swim stages with Swim England. I’ve told my children they have to complete them before they can go swimming with their friends without me.