School charging for transport cost for swimming as part of curriculum

[Julietta05]

Hi,

My child is in a primary school, this year they are meant to have swimming lessons as a part of curriculum. I agree with teaching children swimming but in the first week we received a letter from school informing us that parents need to pay for transport to and from swimming pool. This is £81 from September till 1st February. That caused a lot of upset as nothing has been said about patents covering the cost of the transport previously. I also don't think that previous years had to cover that cost either.

For those parents that had children attending swimming lessons as a part of curriculum, did you need to pay for transport?

I'd love to know if anyone has actually learned to swim from school lessons.

Our local primary seem to do a term or two of swimming. Then maybe take the ones who can't swim a bit more, but those are usually the children who would benefit from being in the lessons they miss to go out for swimming.

It's really sad, and children drown every year as a result of not learning to swim. I've no idea what the answer is.

The solution might be to replace child benefits by a state contribution to schools.
A direct contribution. We might not be able to trust a local or national agency to manage the funds, but if headteachers were receiving the current children benefits directly (as well as, not instead of their current funding) everyone would benefit.

In that case, they probably ate struggling for budget. Schools are majorly underfunded. In the end it's your choice, pay or don't pay, mine loves it as a chance to go with her friends even though she's a good swimmer.

My child can swim unaided 25m. I was happy for him to continue swimming with school. Then parents raised the issue of transport costs, whether it is possible to opt out if they can swim but apparently not. School had not mentioned that it is voluntary payment and it is bit naughty for me.
On top of that there are some children with earnings that apparently go to the same pool for paid lessons and it is ok but not during school lessons! (For whatever reasons they cannot take them out and school will not accept plasters over earings). So those kids need to sit and watch others swimming.

I think we do so much as parents to fund raise: bring chocolate day, bring bottle day, raffles, tombolas, buying my kids artwork several times a year, paying for nativity tickets that it takes a bit of a micky not to be transparent with parents to say that that either be expected in the future or it is voluntary.

Well my dc's primary school didn't give swimming lesson to those who could already swim. There were about 4 children in the lesson.

The curriculum just says children need to swim 25m. If they can do this, you don't need to teach them to do so. If a child can already do the 3 times table, I don't teach it to them again, I move onto the 4s.

I agree with you Op.

My dc has passed stage 5 swimming in his private swim class which covers all the aims of the National Curriculum. So the school lessons are pointless.

But I suppose if he opted out someone has to stay behind in school to supervise him and the school still has to pay to hire a whole coach.

I feel sorry for schools - budgets are so tight.

School had not mentioned that it is voluntary payment and it is bit naughty for me

That isn't just a bit naughty. It is wrong. The school is required to make it clear that this is a voluntary contribution. No-one should feel under any pressure to pay, particularly if they can't afford it.

Depends on the area you live in. More like £5k in some areas. Many schools are struggling financially

My school has charged for the coach for years. Coaches have got really expensive and they really struggle. Essentially there isn’t enough money into schools at all.

Schools seem to be having to skirt around quite annoying restrictions re charging and voluntary contributions that aren’t really voluntary. realistically if the government won’t fund schools properly, schools need the option to charge and parents need to accept there will be some cost associated with the child’s education.

You shouldn't have to pay for something that is part of the curriculum. Transport to the swimming pool should be part of that. It's like school saying "we'll teach them maths but you need to buy them the table and chair to sit at while we do that". If they're teaching them to swim (questionable with the short time they get in the water, but hey) getting them to a pool should be part of the package.

I dont actually think swimming should be on the curriculum due to it being substandard at every single school I've ever heard of though. Clearly not working.

I very much value swimming as a life skill and have put my DC in swimming lessons since age 3 as a priority. I'd rather my money went there.

I also think the earrings point is moot. No primary aged child needs to wear earrings and if they got them pierced near the end of the holidays it’s their own fault if they can’t take them out. Both of my children’s schools are quite strict about this and expect piercings at the beginning of the holidays.

I’m intrigued by the notion that school swimming is inferior to stages swimming outside of school. Do other areas do it differently to mine then? Mine…

1. exactly the same teachers teach both school and stages
2. exactly the same pool is used
3. far less children in the pool for school swimming
4. far smaller ratios of children to teacher for school swimming
5. imo - a better set of objectives - I think the life savings skills on school curriculum are better than learning to swim fly for example.

i teach both. School swimmers get a better lesson, the stages are with private companies whose bottom line is profit.

Strikes me schools can’t win! I’m sure they love to have funds available to support all aspects of the curriculum but don’t and some parents would moan if the school didn’t do swimming. If it’s an issue to pay why not think about starting a PTA to raise money across the year to allocate for lessons?

They can't force you to pay. But they will try.

I’m sure you’re right re lessons potentially being pretty good and in my experience it’s been the same teachers as the leisure centre anyway. However, I think a lot of the moaning about school swimming is because it’s often just a term. For kids like mine who are strong swimmers, it’s not adding that much but is just a fun session. For the children who are weak, doing 10 sessions and then stopping for a year before doing another 10 seems like it doesn’t do much. If schools could do consistent weekly swimming for multiple years it would feel more effective.

Not all parents have £81 to spend. Isn't that hard to understand.

Ok, thank you @Bunnycat101, it makes more sense if posters are referring to the total duration rather than the quality of the actual lesson.

I also don’t get the ‘it’s no value because my dc can already swim’ comments! It’s exercise, the value is in doing it. Same as running or going to the gym. You don’t cease to do it, once you know how. Otherwise learning how would be futile.

With regards to whether just a term works for those children who don’t ever go swimming outside of school. As a swim teacher, I can tell you anecdotally.
it’s hit and miss. For some kids (assuming they’re around 8- 9-10yo when they do school swimming) normally those with no fear, they are learning to swim, sometimes all the way to 25m, in a handful of lessons. It’s wonderful. Those parents have saved thousands. For other kids, generally those who are petrified, they get almost no where, as it’s been left too late and their fear just increases as they realise how far behind they are. These children will possibly never learn unfortunately.
we see children now - which I’ve never experienced before in twenty years - who don’t even know what swimming is. Never seen it, never heard of it. You ask them ti try and the first thing they do is try to run through it. Or to kick and they do a karate kick.

The lessons DD2 got at school were better than the Swim England council lessons we paid £30 a month for.

The group that could swim (most of the class) were taught life saving, survival skills, and first aid while the non swimmers got 2-1 tutition from a teacher.

We paid towards the coach, but PTA paid half.

That school was very good at fundraising. They rented the hall out to a Church and the school really benefitted from the money that brought in.

On the first page of this thread, you'll see someone talking about how only 4 children could go in the pool at once at her school and they ended up with 10 minutes swim time.

and the money to fund everything needs to come from somewhere, how hard is it to understand?

Yes. It comes from your taxes and voluntary contributions, not from illegally charging parents. How hard is that to understand?

I did see that, I commented then that I would think that very rare. I’ve never known that in my 20 years teaching swimming.

Although interestingly, due to all sorts of potential reasons - the reality is children’s attention span is far lower than previous, and as a teacher you have less time now to hold their interest than a decade ago. I understand in Australia for young children (3,4 yrs of age) they offer ten minute lessons more frequently as the optimal way of learning. Kids don’t get bored or cold.

It’s a tricky one. DD’s school asked to pay contributions and we paid. Not all parents paid so PTA fund covered the rest.
I wouldn’t argue for the sake of arguing as if school paid for this they would run out of money for something else. So it’s no win game imo.
I would look if you could afford to pay and if it’s beneficial for your child in general.