Should DC go on the school residential when he can't swim?

[Thoughtfulgolondrina]

The Year 8 Residential is coming soon and most days water sports/swimming is the activity of the day. Due to COVID shutting pools and stopping swimming lessons for a couple years of primary and then living abroad for a couple more years of primary, my son can't swim. We have tried to get him into swimming lessons now but all in the area have unending waiting lists or won't teach older children because he is outside the age range for the national swimming programme implemented in England. The end result is my DC doesn't want to go on the residential but will miss the fun with his friends on the other parts of the trip. For my part, l am worried about his safety. While abroad, he almost drowned at a beach. I don't feel his teachers really understand 'he can't swim'. Therefore, l worry about whether the vigilance will be there. Also, my DC, rightly so, wonders what he will do instead. There are whole days of water sport (boogie-boarding, surfing) and other days of hiking to a pool to spend the afternoon swimming. What should l do?

Not necessarily a protection against getting into difficulty in a lake though. Water can be suddenly cold, they may get tangled in plants, get cramp or hit their head on something. Perhaps a non-swimmer would stick to splashing around well in their depth.

can't you just take him yourself? swimming lessons help with form etc but at the end of the day it isn't rocket science. Billions of people have learned to swim over the centuries without ever having a formal lesson.

go at a quiet time so he won't be embarrassed and just hold him up, then use the boards to practice kicking etc. He doesn't need to have perfect form just to be able to keep himself afloat.
Ask one of the lifeguards at the pool if they'll give you some pointers, or a family friend who is a good swimmer, or whatever.

If you're blaming covid, if he's 12/13 now, he would have been too old for the standard lessons aged 7-9 anyway, because most children start much earlier, so it's not really an excuse. Were you just expecting the school to teach him, because that would never have worked even if covid hadn't happened - there are very few children who are literally taught to swim in the 10 half hour sessions in year 3 or whatever - they've all either been learning for years or just splash around the shallow end.

Even if you have spent the past two years (really?) trying to get him lessons with no luck (I can't believe that there are literally no private tutors near you that would do 5 hours with him), you could have been trying to teach him yourself while you searched.

Swimming family here…. I recommend you reach out to your local competitive swimming club and ask them which of their coaches also does private lessons on the QT. They will have access to pool time and will be really strong teachers.

Another possibility is to find the nearest private school to you that has a swimming pool. They will have teachers and coaches who do private lessons on the side. You need to phone them and speak to the person in charge of swimming. Don’t just rely on websites and google searches.

You may have to pay as much as £50/hr but this is an absolutely essential life skill.

Do you ever go on holiday? You may well find that in other regions there will be week long learn to swim courses during the school holidays.

I was astonished when a teacher told me there were lots of non-swimmers in my DC’s 14 year old cohort who couldn’t join in on activity weeks. This is terrible.

@WhenYouSayNothingAtAll Are they fuck proficient swimmers by 7/8. When we start in y3 with school lessons we have a lot of children that have never even been in a pool

well, there is something very wrong with that. You can’t rely on school lessons to teach kids to swim, and I don’t know of a child who didn’t start lessons way before starting school. They start with water familiarisation classes, most before they can walk so they are comfortable with water on the face, being submerged, then the monkey walk etc. Lessons start at 2yo so they are well into it before starting school! Sure, you pay but it’s a non-negotiable safety issue. Just like car seats, no one hands those out for free but everyone gets them because it’s a non-negotiable safety issue otherwise.

ETA - just remembered we didn’t need to pay for our SN kids, the swim school had reimbursement deal with government if you met a SN criteria until they reached a certain level of proficiency, then it cut out. One of mine had 1:1 for about a year until they were able to transition to a class setting (still with their dedicated teacher), and that was free. It was just ungodly hours for anything 1:1 as it had to be outside normal swim school hours so you were at the pool to be in the water by 7am on Sat/sun, which was a real bitch when DH and I worked around each other (usually only one parent home at a time), so all the kids had to be dragged out of bed and off to pool even though their lessons may have been several hours later. But that’s what you do so all of your kids can swim!

I genuinely didn't know people relied on the compulsory school lessons for their children to learn to swim until this thread. I thought everyone sorted lessons before their child started school.

To me, covid and then moving abroad are very poor excuses, when the child was approx age 7 or 8 when lockdown started.

Every day? Round here council pools are wall-to-wall swimming lessons from 3.30 to 6, and then into lane swimming, women only swimming, 60+ swimming etc.

I think the whole thing is bullshit anyway.

A Year 8 residential which will take place within the next 7 weeks of the school year yet the OP hasn’t signed up/ paid deposit? Rubbish!

And she’s at pains to say how conscientious she is as a parent but as has been said, why didn’t she organise swim lessons way before Covid? He’d have been 7 or 8 by then.

no response when people asked what general area she lives in so they could try to help.

no response when I asked about all the other Year 8s who would have had the same covid restrictions and the same 2 year wait lists for private lessons!

And quite frankly if her son almost drowned and needed resuscitation then she’s being highly irresponsible as a parent to even think he could manage a water based residential with surfing and boogie boarding

You must know enough people to know that many do private lessons and start them early but lots of people don’t. Unless you live in a middle class bubble.

my son is year 3 and about 50% of the children in his class couldn’t swim during swimming lessons.

So you’ve been back in the UK for 2.5 years?

How many times have you taken him to a pool in that time?

I get the issues around lessons and being abroad etc. But he needs to be going to pools frequently to understand swimming and floating and safety.

forget the residential. Get him swimming at local pool with you. There’s no reason why he can’t go on the residential if you actually expose him to swimming before then.

You could join a David Lloyd (if one is local and a pricey option) or look for hotels with pools.

this option would take effort but sometimes desperate times…

You need to post on every local Facebook page to find a 1:1 swimming instructor.
It seems such a shame that he’s having to miss out and it will do nothing for your guilt levels.

Had you not heard of poor people before?

The OP isn’t poor though. She’s said she will throw as much money at it as is needed and that she is willing to travel any distance that she can do there and back in a day for swimming lessons.

I'm not in a middle class bubble. I didn't know people that waited for school for the swimming lessons. They're not enough for kids to actually properly learn to swim, surely? I'm not being middle class, I genuinely had no idea.

Our local council swimming pool costs a couple of quid.

I'm sorry, I do believe that swimming is incredibly important and I hadn't considered that people just would rely on the school lessons. Sorry if this offends anyone that I had no idea people did that!

I agree completely. We started with mum and baby sessions in swim nappies at the local council pool which wasn't expensive and went ourselves in between lessons.

of course school lessons are not ideal but it’s not a reality for so many children.

My daughter is in year 6 and I’m just thinking of the children in her year. One girl keeps bouncing from her mum’s care to foster care, twins whose mum has bipolar and has left them and their 3 young siblings with their dad and they haven’t seen her for months, one boy’s family were evicted from their flat and it was being emptied while all the kids walked past after school, one girl cares for her mum with MS, her dad is publicly struggling.

These are a few examples of why swimming isn’t a priority. In almost all schools there will be children going through similar. This is a school in a south west village.

Neither of those around here, in fact the only private options are pools in schools, which have limited opening times. No private gyms with pools at all.

Only on mumsnet are 7 year olds competent swimmers to advanced for swimming lessons….

• Toddler swimming lessons around here are at 10 or 11 in the morning, so only accessible for SAHP with an only child/access to childcare and money to pay for it (£50 a month).
• Actual swimming lessons give priority to kids who have done toddler lessons - so again for SAHP. For everyone else waiting lists are years long, and they get annoyed if you can’t do the 2pm slot on a weekday for a 5 year old….
• There are less places for actual swimming lessons than toddler splash, making the situation worse.

in short, swimming is easy for children of well off parents with a SAHM. And they get massively judgy if your 6 year old joins at beginner level. For everyone else it’s not at all easy.

“And they get massively judgy if your 6 year old joins at beginner level. “

Who cares if they’re judgy? You need to get your big girl pants on and show some resilience. “I let my child drown because someone was judgy when I tried to take them to swim lessons” ?????

Our local pool offers free swim lessons for those on benefits. All swim clubs will have a hardship fund for those in need.

If you can’t access any swim lessons then write to your MP and ask for help/support. It is too important to just let this go.

Genuinely having no idea IS being in a middle class bubble. Kids living in poverty, or in toxic/chaotic households, or abusive homes , or being young carers are just a few of the circumstances where swimming is not a priority or even an option.

Some people really , really don’t have that extra couple of quid, especially not on regular basis. Or were you unable to imagine that as well?

This is a fantastic initiative to make swimming more accessible for all school children. Makes it more possible to teach all year groups and not just some lessons for one year group at the public pool. Can sometimes be funded through PTA etc or something like Jack Petchey Foundation.

https://www.eliteswimming.co.uk/pools-to-schools

So join a gym. A 13 yo that can't swim and is missing out on school activities is a priority really.