Swimming Lessons

[Littleredwagon2308]

What to expect from swimming lessons? I'm thinking of switching lessons.
My 6 year old has been in the pool since a baby (expect during the pandemic) and is now learning the strokes. She's not got much muscle mass or natural buoyancy and is a little slower than others in her class, but seems to be doing well. We encourage swimming for safety reasons and because we know how much fun it is to confidently enjoy the water. She seems to thrive when the teacher is making an effort to be engaging. I happen to be in another pool in another town when a lesson was taking place and I saw the instructor in the pool with students about my child's age. Is this normal to happen in all lessons? What is the gold standard of swimming lessons? I wouldn't mind paying more for a quality lesson.

Definitely pay for 1:1 lessons for a while if you can, much more efficient and effective. Then she could go back into group ones to build up stamina etc. We wasted so much money on large group lessons, it really would have been quicker to do private ones.

A teacher or assistant in the water only usually happens at stages 1&2 (or the duckling stages), although DDs did have one teacher for stage 5 & 6 who occasionally got in to demonstrate a stroke or skill performed well (usually butterfly!). Having someone in the water is linked to stage not age IME - what stage is your DD in?

1-2-1 lessons are great, but incredibly expensive. Could you take her yourself between lessons to give her 'in the water' help and let her put her learning into practice? The most effective way to get faster progression is more pool time. They develop a great feel for the water when given unstructured time to play and explore.
My DCs are 8 & 10yo and swim competitively now, but I still take them to a public session every so often when they want to work on particular sticking points of technique. I correct their position whilst in the water or watch what exactly is going right/wrong under the water to feed back (our club isn't big enough to own fancy underwater analysis cameras). I'm a coach, and this isn't something we would do with our swimmers during a session for safeguarding reasons (and even with the very littlies in the Learn to Swim programme, physical support should only be used sparingly when floats aren't possible), but as a parent it can be a very effective way to get the penny to drop.

DC both had a teacher physically in the pool with them until they achieved their stage 4 badge. When they were working towards stage 5, the teacher was occasionally in the water but not every week.

Definitely worth paying for smaller group and teacher being in pool at the earlier stages until they’ve learnt all strokes

I don't know what stage she's in just that she's in Ducks. Before that is was Fishes.

Do they follow swim England?

In our local council lessons the teachers or pool side. In our private lessons the teachers are in the water until stage 5.