So what would you think if your primary school says it requires volunteers to teach swimming?

[daftdame]

Just that really. Our primary school says that swimming lessons may have to be cancelled if they don't get enough volunteers to help. I know they have to teach this, as it is part of the national curriculum, although I know the guidelines do not stipulate much in terms of how many lessons they are supposed to teach. I do not like the emotional blackmail aspect though...what do you think?

Swimming activities and water safety

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. pace themselves in floating and swimming challenges related to speed, distance and personal survival b. swim unaided for a sustained period of time over a distance of at least 25m c. use recognised arm and leg actions, lying on their front and back d. use a range of recognised strokes and personal survival skills [for example, front crawl, back crawl, breaststroke, sculling, floating and surface diving].

I don't think the school is expecting every parent to volunteer! We have 2 parents for Reception, Year 1 and year 2 swimming-so six in total- who give up an afternoon a week to help out. We usually have plenty of volunteers and the PTFA sort out a rota.

Well I suppose time will tell...

What year is your child in?

Does it make a difference spanieleyes?

Not to the swimming problem, no!
But I wondered whether this was your first experience of school requests?

No, my opinion is the result of years of school requests...bit sick of it. Parents drop and run if they can!

Oh dear. Thankfully we don't have that problem, it's hard keeping our parents out of school!

Great for you, how do you manage it? At our school a small core of parents have to do the lions share of the volunteering. All grow weary from time to time.

Small rural school, very "family" based, very active PTFA . Just lucky I guess!

Well I don't know how you could go about changing children's families, our PTFA has had problems getting volunteers before and going by previous threads here that's not so unusual...problem still remains.

We dream of a rota system...(but not of scary reps!)

omg. parents are getting in the pool to teach! swimming teachers are not supposed to get in the pool to teach!

Oh and on our area all teachers/tas have a basic swimming qualification or their children don't have lessons. the teachers will take the top group so that we can focus on the weaker children.

it is useful having teachers on poolside, they know the children's names and can help keep control in an emergency. parent helpers are there for the walking to and from the pool, they are not allowed on changing rooms or on poolside.

I don't understandwhy you are so angry about this .
It appears your school has been fortunate enough to have been offering a lot of swimming, and now it's having to look at it's budget and one idea is to ask if there are parents out there who might be prepared to help. It's totally feasible that amongst the parents there are some real skilled swimmers who want to share their love of swimming with the children, but I expect the school will be pleased with volunteers to help with changing.
If you can, and want to, then volunteer.
If you can't, or don't want to, then don't.
I genuinely don't see what the problem is.

Do you get this worked up when they ask parents to hear readers ? A lot of parents have never been trained how to do that you know, and they won't be having someone giving them instructions throughout.

BackforGood, I'm not particularly angry exactly, just a bit tired of the badgering. I have volunteered on many occasions and enjoyed it. This is not a sudden request or a sudden budget change, it's a constant feature of primary school life. What I do not like is the emotional blackmail as it suggests there is a feeling of entitlement from staff (or management, whatever). I also do not like comments that suggest assisting or the teaching of swimming is a waste of time for TAs / teachers when it is part of the national curriculum. This rabble, community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/381051.aspx?PageIndex=2 , don't help either.

When I took classes swimming the trained swimming teachers taught but I couldn't take 30 children on the coach alone, it simply isn't safe. I had to have parent volunteers. The stark reality is that if you can't get volunteers you can't go.
And swimming is an essential life skill - of course they should go. Some children never get taken by their parents.

The reason schools employ/pay swimming instructors is because teachers and TAs aren't experts. Some can't swim! They don't know any more about teaching a child to swim than you do. It's a specialist role just like teaching a child a musical instrument.

mrz, not ideal I know, but they are paid and have unions. Parents, as many have pointed out to me, can chose not to volunteer (duh!) but that doesn't get the job done does it?

So do you also think your GP or practice nurse should be able to perform surgery?

In your OP you said Our primary school says that swimming lessons may have to be cancelled if they don't get enough volunteers to help.
as people keep pointing out this doesn't mean the school are asking you to teach children to swim.
If you can't or don't want to help then don't.

mrz, lots of GPs do perform surgery as do other non surgeons, ones that are qualified in one type of surgery only. I'm not saying this is right or wrong but I doubt GPs require volunteers to assist the surgeons / nurses or say that they could not provide medical care without volunteers! I do sympathise with teachers but would just like parents to receive the same degree of respect teachers expect.