School swimming

[GraceMC]

Hi, My daughter is 7 years old and she is in year 3. This term her school is doing swimming lessons, although she has been swimming in the local swimming school for 4 years(currently in stage 7), she is happy to go with her school as well.

She can confidently swim in each stroke 50 meters no problem. But her PE teacher pointed out she has two technical problems, the first one is when she is doing front crawl, she lifts her head up slightly at the front rather than from 30 degrees above water. The second problem is when she is doing backstroke, she doesn't use her arms at the same time.

Despite that she can swim 50 meters on each stroke, her PE teacher said she won't pass national curriculum because those two technical problems. I am very shocked to hear that because I had a look swimming national curriculum, there was no any indication about what kind of technical problem will make them fail.

And I really don't like the way she talked about my daughter. After the 1st lesson my daughter was in the middle group, some children were clearly not as good as her ended up in the top group. So I went to see the PE teacher and wanted to know why. She told me even my daughter is in the top group, she won't pass the national curriculum. I was so shocked and asked her:"so you won't let her pass?" She said: "no, I won't let her pass, but if she stays in the middle group, I will let her pass. "

I really don't know what to say and what to do, I feel I have been threatened by a PE teacher.

Swimming isn’t a pass/fail thing. They go, they swim. That PE teacher needs to wind their neck in.

Your daughter is learning how to swim. That’s all the matters.

Very interesting thread. My yr3 DD is asa level 5 as she started when she was 3. Shes not exceptional, but chugging along nicely at her own pace ( swimming is only one of 4 sports she does) so can swim lengths and is learning proper strokes.
Our school start state school swimming in yr4 and some kids haven't swam at all so will be interested what they do.

Schools cannot charge for swimming as it is a core national curriculum requirement.

School governing bodies and local authorities, cannot charge for:
• education provided during school hours (including the supply of any materials, books, instruments or other equipment);

They can ask for a donation.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/514619/Charging_for_school_activities.pdf

Head teachers or governing bodies may ask parents for voluntary contributions towards the cost of:
• any activity which takes place during school hours;
• school equipment; and
• school funds generally.

Children of parents who are unable, or unwilling, to contribute may not be discriminated against. However, if insufficient voluntary contributions are received to cover the cost of the visit, or activity, and there is no alternative method to make up the shortfall, then the school should cancel the activity/visit. It would be advisable to make parents aware of a possible cancellation to the activity/visit if insufficient voluntary contributions are received from the outset.

Hi, guys, just finished the meeting with the HT, I was surprised to find out the qualified swimming teacher had no NC training at all. So she had absolutely no idea what was the national curriculum minimum requirements. After I showed her the national curriculum, she said my daughter has met the requirements but also she still needs to improve her technical skills, therefore she will still stay in the middle group. And the HT completely agreed with her. So nothing is changed.

grace I didn't see this update and Ive inboxed you

Honestly? Why does this matter so much to you?

wips maybe grace feels her dd has been unfairly assessed??

If the LE teacher knew anything about coaching swimming she'd be coaching professionals, not a seven year old school gym class. As such her opinion is of little value and your daughter has no reason to be upset by it

Utter bollocks. Do you dismiss all teachers that way? If she knew anything about maths she'd be lecturing at uni?

There's a school in London that gets an outside teacher for their gymnastics classes. Including 7 year olds.

That coach is a national High Performance Coach with several GB squad gymnasts. But her opinion is likely to be of little value to you if she's teaching 7 year olds in schools?

You're that person who is rude to waitresses because if they had any worth they'd be doing something "better", aren't you?

Nothing has changed, because the appropriate place for her to get the teaching that she requires is the middle group!

It's good that the school teaches swimming, rather than doing the bare minimum NC approach (ie stop teaching them anything and save the cost of providing swimming as soon as individually they can just about tick the min. standard.)

The only thing that's changed is now the language explaining that to you requires less interpretation, but still your child needs to work on some technical skills, the place in that lesson is the middle group.

She's seven. It's not going to affect her chance of getting into oxbridge. Her mum making an issue of it sets a terrible example.

Why does it matter to you wips?

Because teachers have enough on their plate running a swimming lesson without a parent questioning their every move.

Never bothered me when a parent queried me. I happily sent them to be assessed by another teacher. It takes five mins at the end or start of lesson.

I would try it bother you wips as it doesn't directly effect you does it

Try to not**

Well I think I would just leave it. At least the teacher said she met requirement, so something has changed.
Which group she is in isn't such a big deal anyway, for school swimming lessons.
Just let her enjoy having fun with others in the class.