Am i wrong to refuse to pay for my childs school swimming lesson.

[sep1712]

My DS is in yr3 and about to start swimming lessons.The school want £55! I already pay for lessons at our local pool and he meets the levels for key stage 2. They get a total of 20 mins in the pool with the school. I really dont feel like its value for money. The school say the cost is for travel but they could walk there in 10 mins max!
Should i just pay up and not say anything or stand up and say no?

My DC school only send the children that don't meet the requirements. The rest of them don't get to go.

IMO id stand up and say no in your case. My dcs schools do swimming too and it only works out to be approx 20-30mins in pool by the time theyve got there, changed, changed back etc

They go to a pool about 2miles away by coach and we get asked for £5 a term towards it. I think £55 is utterly ridiculus and I certainly wouldnt be paying it. lessons(hr long) outside of school are only £42 for a term

Absolutely outrageous! We pay 60p a session. They also only get 20 minutes in the pool but for 60p we don't mind a bit. It's a poor area, but by walking the children to swimming and back, the school keep the cost right down and therefore, much better compliance from parents when it comes to paying.

A ten week swimming course costs the parent £6 per child and it's worth every penny. Tell your school to look at budgeting or your child will not be taking part!

Thanks everyone, a nice letter has been written to say i'm not paying!!

The school can only ask for the cost of transport to the pool, not any kind of entrance fee because it is in school time and on the school curriculum / timetable.
The transport fee is a voluntary donation and if the school is not making this clear then they are wrong. As to the cost, it does seem excessive, but how long is the course for?

Ours is 70-odd quid. That's for a term and a half and I think they get more than 20min in the pool. But it is for a pool 18 miles away so the transport must cost a bit.

£55 is for what, the term? Ours charges £3.10 per lesson, that is for transport.

We are lucky with our school as it is £10 for the year. The swimming pool is next to our school though (joins to a secondary). You could ask for the split between the travel and the pool cost and see if the school could build in that parents take turns in walking with the children (to maintain whatever the ratio should be) - if it is travel! Is it £55 for the year or the whole time while he is at the school?

I thought school swimming was free?

I pay for council swimming lessons on saturdays so there is no way I would pay for school lessons -they don't even use swimming teachers!

Our school swimming lessons are free.

Oh, and he gets to go once a week all this year (y5) and the majority of year 6. He also went in the last term of y4.

£55 is for a term and is only meant to cover the cost of travel. I think they should make them walk!!!

Do you know why they don't?

They ought to be able to walk all the children there if they have parent volunteers helping them. Do they get parent volunteers? Otherwise, I guess it doesn't matter how far the pool is, paying for transport is always going to be expensive - and only gets slightly more cost effective the further away the venue is (ie the school may not be able to reduce the cost, however careful it is in trying to find ways of getting the children to the pool that don't involve volunteers helping).

Since the school aren't allowed to make a profit on what they request in voluntary contributions, and aren't allowed to request a greater contribution from the parents willing to pay when others refuse to join in, any refusal to pay simply means a decrease in the available budget for other activities, facilities and school trips. Schools are obliged to provide swimming lessons for children, so they will have to keep wasting their money on something un-needed and unappreciated for as long as they can afford it, I expect, even if you don't want to waste your money. Basically, not wasting your money is wasting the school's money, instead, which is not hugely to the benefit of your child, as it may mean trips he would have liked to take part in will no longer take place at all, because the school is obliged to lose its entire school trip budget on taking children to swimming lessons they don't want.

Well put rabbitstew. Could it be covering the cost of coaching?

Go on a bus to a pool in walking distance? What about healthy living and exercise they are meant to promote. Our school walks them everywhere.

DS is starting swimming lessons next year (Y3). I was not aware we have to pay for it. Is that usual?

In your case I would make a stand and talk to the school as you are not getting good value for money. Either they walk to the pool or you stick to your private lessons which seem better value.

Ask them why walking isn't an option, thus reducing the costs entirely.
DD's school used to have a coach but the costs were ridiculously high to hire them, so they stopped doing so.
It can be a pain in bad weather - sometimes the swimming lesson is cancelled if the weather is too bad to justify walking down there - 10 minutes or so walk.
And for some of the little ones - they start in Y1 - it can be a long walk back up the hill after a tiring lesson - but overall it is far better.
They also walk down to the same place for other sport's lessons at times, or use public transport to get to another sport's club they use.

The cost will be the cost of the coach hire. This can be very expensive. If it is a term and half I assume about 15-20 weeks, so it's about £3-3.50 a week for the coach, which is entirely likely.

Ours are free and they do 10 lessons a year in key stage 2 and pool is 6 miles away. I pay for lessons in Saturdays and they're £41 for 10 weeks.

The school DD will (hopefully) go to has its own outdoor pool. We have to pay a fee per term but the lessons are compulsory so your child could be the next Mark Spitz (shows age) and you'd still have to do it.

The lessons are free but the school is allowed to ask for payment for transport. DD1's swimming is costing £1.50 / wk which I have paid through gritted teeth

I'm not aware of there being a difference between the transport costs and the swimming lesson costs when it comes to asking for voluntary contributions from parents. Both the transport cost and the cost of swimming lessons are likely to cost the school money (I don't think swimming pools are obliged to offer themselves up to state schools for free). They are entitled to ask for a voluntary contribution towards those costs. They are not, so far as I'm aware, allowed to charge for either (ie insist you pay whether you like it or not), as both take place during school hours and are for the purpose of providing the children with an education (since swimming lessons are a compulsory part of the curriculum), so are not optional extras for which a charge can be made.

If the school is asking for voluntary contributions, it's because it has a very stretched budget and if you refuse to pay for something it has to provide, you won't be offered something nice in future which it doesn't have to provide - like other school trips - because it won't be able to afford to offer them.

Ask to speak with the teacher / head to understand why they are asking for the contribution. Most schools don't insist if there is hardship and if you are a conscientious objector there is no reason for the school to know that, is there? Budgets are stretched at the moment and perhaps, as some other posters have said, this is why you are being asked. It would be helpful for schools to explain this in advance though if that is the reason.

That it truly outrageous! DS's swimming lessons are free and the kids walk to the pool and back. I've never heard of being charged. I wouldn't pay it. The schools ask for so much money per term for various things I think it's starting to get daft.