Is swimming compulsary /part of nc for year 3?

[puffin84]

Heard a rumour that children will not be swimming in year 3 due to fact that walking to pool and back wastes a morning.
Obv not sure if right but could school do this? I think they only go for a term anyway.

I think they have to do it sometime during KS2, as children are expected to leave primary school being able to swim 25 metres.

TBH they are not going to learn to swim in one term. They either can already swim because they are already having swimming lessons or they are going in the beginners' group with limited prospects (given most class sizes) and potential for teasing/bullying. I would rather make sure that my dc have lessons outside school hours than relying on school to teach them swim tbh.

DS's school (Y3-Y6) no longer offers swimming due to the school being a distance from the nearest pool making the cost prohibitive. Not got to that stage yet but rumour has it that parents of children who can't swim are given money for private lessons. I also wasn't sure how this fitted with the NC ...

Exactly dikkertjedap - I have no idea how one term of lessons can take a child from complete non-swimmer to being able to do 25 metres.
NC swimming requirements here

See what I mean - no chance, unless child has already had lessons.
Our school does do the lessons, in Yr4, not Yr3. The confident swimmers get instruction from someone qualified to teach swimming. This is great for my DDs, who both went through the ASA system and are very good swimmers. DD2 is doing them now, and she's refining stroke technique, learning basic lifesaving techniques and improving her diving and underwater swimming. DD1 learned tumble turns when she was doing lessons at school.

As I said, great for my DDs - not great for the non-swimmers who, IMO need the qualified input more than mine do. The whole NC swimming thing sounds like an add-on to me, which schools fill in as they see fit, or not at all.

Ours do 1 term of swimming a year from yr1-yr6. There is a 'voluntary' contribution of #40: the pool they use has a big pool, and a learner pool which ds is in his depth for and he isn't quite 2. The less able/non swimmers go in there, which I think is too shallow to teach a 4 yr old, let alone a 6yr old. I only paid because dd1 was able to go in big pool. They have private lessons anyway and felt that lessons in water which is too shallow would be counter productive. I guess if they start early at school less likely to be scared but for our family I wish they didn't bother, having lessons in a class of 15 didn't do much to improve her strokes.

Swimming is normally done in Y5. They def don't have to do it in Y3.

Round where I teach, it is normal for most junior years to go swimming every year for half the year (small schools, so take everyone Y3+ once a week for 6 months).

My children (much bigger primary) get 8 weeks of swimming every year from year 3 to year 6. Classes go in pairs e.g. 1x Year 4 + 1x year 6 to give a good spread of abilities. DS reports that no-one in Year 6 is still in the shallow end, and I know that many children who started in that bottom group in year 3 don't have private lessons, so it does teach everyone to swim up to the national expectations.

Seeming as the National Curriculum is all about to change swimming will probably be cancelled for all children except those whose parents have their own pools. There will be no money for schools to take children swimming and council pools will all be sold off to supermarkets to cut costs. Cynical, moi?

I should also probably say that, of the c. 40 kids i took swimming last week for the first time this year, half had never had swimming lessons and never would except for school. 2 children had never been to a swimming pool of any kind, ever. 5 more had been once or twice. Another 6 had been last year with school but had never been before and have not been since.

Swimming is one of those things where it is worth the 'haves' putting up with something sub-optimal for them because it is SOOOOO critical for the 'have nots' ... I mean, our 2 top groups do do stroke development and they all do progress but the REALLY important group (and the one we use a professional dedicated pool instructor for) is the non-swimmers.

teacher see, that is where I think DD2's primary school is going wrong. My DD could do with practice, but that can be done under the supervision of the class teacher with a little preparation on her part.

It's the non-swimmers who really need the support. I am also recognising the proportions you are describing. I insisted on swimming lessons for the DCs because I'm from the west part of Holland (lots of canals) and feel that it's a life skill. It helped that prices where we live are really reasonable (though that probably won't last with all the cuts, I feel for parents going through it now).

And last, but not least, swimming is something lovely and fun we can do as a damily.

Pointy, I do think that our system works really well. As a school we would probably do swimming even if it was cut from the NC because we are somewhere very rivered and floody, and we are very well aware of the significant minority (mainly, but not all, a locally significant cultural / ethnic group) who would never have any alternative way of gaining water confidence, let alone learn to swim

One of the most important skills a child can have is the ability to swim. In my dc's school , swimming dtarts in year one and they have swimmming for a term

until year 6. However, I still pay for swimming lessons for my children.
I would advise parents to take their children swimming as soon as possible