school swimming lessons

[gemini67]

could anyone please tell me what the position is for opting out of swimming lessons. My ds is asking for £30 described as "self funding" She already has had private lessons for the last 3 years at the local pool. The school has just started this now for yrs 3 +4 surely it should just be for non-swimmers.

Honestly - if you can afford it, let your DS go. My DS had his 800m badge by Yr3 and part of ASC. It wasn't about him learning to swim, but I wouldn't of wanted him left out when the rest of his class were going. Yes, they literally let him swim lengths and practice turns etc, but it didn't do any harm.

It's another PE lesson - maybe you can think of it as exercise? They are generally grouped according to ability so will all benefit.

I certainly wouldn't withdraw a child.

How many lessons does the £30 cover?

There are threads on this every year... my view is they are a complete waste of time and money for those who can already swim, and I begrudged every bloomin penny, but the other option was for my kids to sit in on a younger class doing colouring for an hour and a half, rather than have fun with their mates.. so we went with it...

I agree with above posters-- my 2 (now year. 3 and 5) are reasonable swimmers, and class of 30 split into 2 groups. I helped a couple times, and group seemed to be non swimmers and swimmers. And within the 15 swimmers, there was a massive variation - and in half an hour between 15, I did not feel DS learnt anything ... So I kept his lessons going.
On the plus side: he gained in confidence by being seen to be the best at something in his class (very quiet and under confident at school 2 years ago) and it was 30 minutes of exercise!
He did not like swimming before that, and we'd stopped lessons. Now in Year 5 he has just asked if can start lessons again -- could have knocked me down with a feather!
So if you can afford the £30, perhaps see it in terms of confidence and exercise? Rather than improving their butterfly stroke ;-)