Reply With QuoteBoth of mine learned with the penguins swimming group,don’t know if it’s still going now tho,was a good few years back.
One of my boys is home with the flue and he's watching SAS - Who dares wins episodes on the telly in the living room and I'm watching with an half eye. What amazes us both is the fact that there are always a few guys (and now girls) who can't swim.
Is there a swimming lesson program for kids in the UK? Or...?
(Every Dutch boy or girl learns to swim at the age of 5 or 6 y/o. That includes training how to get their friends out of the water in case of emergency. It also includes learning how to rescue yourself from under the ice. That has been going since the end of WWII so it's a part of our way of living. The number of kids drowning is very low - mostly only under 5 y/o or kids coming from other countries where learning to swim has no priority).
Menno
Both of mine learned with the penguins swimming group,don’t know if it’s still going now tho,was a good few years back.
tends to be a private thing at your local pool or through a company like Swimtime. Our daughter has been going for about 4 yrs every week. She can swim but can get better. It's 30 mins and she can play with her friends after. i told her that one day she would be invited to a 'pool party' with her friends and she would be sad if she couldnt swim. When she did get invited she had a rip roaring time so she saw the value of the lessons
The Dutch model is a great idea.
When I was a kid at school we were taken to the local swimming baths to learn. Freezing but I guess it worked!
In my Grammar school we had a swimming pool but there were still kids who couldn't swim.
It seems now that unless parents actively seek out lessons for their children quite a few could miss out especially as many children are far less active nowadays.
We would go to the swimming baths for a cheap fun time with friends - I wonder how many do that now?
Cheers,
Neil.
Local council pool is always cold. private gym where my daughter has her lessons (I'm not a member) is always v.warm so it's a pleasant place for her to learn
Our most local pool is also so cold my kids don't want to go. The next closest is a bit better.
My eldest had one term of swimming lessons at school, which or him at least was ineffective.
Learning to swim is a life skill. Not ensuring that your child can swim confidently is a dereliction of your parental responsibilities.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Agree 100%. At our kids' state Primary, they dis a year of swim classes for every pupil in year 4, with the aim of getting everyone to swim at least 25m unaided by the end of the year.
So that's about 26 weeks of 30 min lessons (1hr on site, 30 mins in the pool with changing either side).
Mine both swam anyhow, they could do it before they started. During the lessons they played water polo with the other swimmers while the non-swimmers were taught.
No cost for any parent.
But I was absolutely shocked how many did not reach the 25m unaided target by the end of the year. At least 10 (out of 60) in each year group.
I gathered there was quite a lot of absenteeism on swim days, and also quite a lot of kids just refused to do what the coashes asked, so never learnt.
You can't get everyone over every hurdle.
D
Skipping swimming lessons here is more or less considered 'bad parenting' in the Netherlands...Originally Posted by Saint-Just
There are municipal swimming pools, some inside pools, open 365 days/yrs. The open-air pools open around mid-April until mid-September and they're heated as well. Swimming lessons hours are always un-godly hours... parents and kids are in the pool around 6 AM, 2x/week, sometimes after-school hours or on Saturday/Sunday. Learning to swim takes about a year... We have 3 levels A, B and C. And most kids achieve all levels.
Reading Saint-Just's thread: all parents I know have no problem when their kid tell "I'm going to the swimming pool!" Swimming in the sea is another matter. There's a lot of current just off the Dutch beaches. Most parents are very, very aware of their kids swimming and playing in the sea. Unfortunately, every year people drown. Adults and kids. But in almost all cases (2019) it are people from other countries, not used to the Dutch conditions.
For us, watching SAS; Who Dares Wins and seeing grown people unable to swim is a very, very odd thing to see.
Last edited by thieuster; 13th December 2019 at 18:53.
I think swimming lessons are part of the curriculum here but, as has already been mentioned, the goal isn't set very high. When he was in year four my son did one lesson a week for two halves of separate terms.
He has been having lessons since he was four months old so is very much at home in the water. The lessons are at the council pool (run by an outside firm) and cost thirty quid a month so I can imagine that would be out of reach for people on low incomes.
I don't think the lack of skills is anything new. My Dad did his national service in the Navy but couldn't swim very well. I suppose that is why they have ships.
Tapatapatapatapatalk
I remember swimming lessons when I was in school. The disinfectant 'foot bath' on the way into the pool is the most prominent memory!
We've been taking my daughter 'swimming' since she was a few months old. Now she able to swim well enough and still really enjoying it, so that's good. It's the only extracurricular activity that I wouldn't let my daughter give up if she didn't enjoy it. Agree with others, that it's a life lesson.
As for the cold municipal pools, as an avid swimmer they are best cold. I hate swimming 2km sessions in pools that are as hot as saunas!
I had many swimming lessons throughout the schooling and, to this day, still can’t ‘swim’.
I’ve been snorkelling off the back of a boat in the Red Sea and diving in the Aegean but find it impossible to consistently and reliably propel myself forward.
Recently I have spent time with a well regarded triathlon coach and videos showed up issues caused by a couple of injuries many years ago.
Well, it's 40 years ago now but I did weekly swimming lessons at my state primary school (<11 years old), throughout my career at that school. We were taught the basics of swimming with a scale of certificates. I might even have my first (10m?) certificate somewhere!
There were also life saving lessons but somehow I seem to recall I never did this in detail. Not sure why not. (Certainly I seem to remember thinking that gaining higher certificates was for other people, not me, but that was most likely due to my innate standoffishness and outsiderness when it comes to group activities).
Regular weekly swimming continued with my private secondary school too and I learned some basic life saving techniques there (recovery position, in-water recovery). I felt that it would have been very useful to do basic first aid training too but the school wasn't set up for that at the time.
At no time was anyone I know of at any school taught about under-ice skills, though. It's not commonly seen as an issue here, from what I can see.
Is swimming really not taught in the UK now as it was for me at primary level?
Last edited by markrlondon; 13th December 2019 at 20:35.
In my experience it is.
That's good.
It wasn’t at my school - we didn’t have a pool, but my mum took me every week and I did a couple of competitions with Sea Scouts.
My kids are at school now and they don’t have a pool or a mini-bus but they do have swimming on the curriculum, unfortunately it’s only a few lessons as the school needs to pay for a coach to get kids to the nearest pool and funds are always tight.
Both our kids love the water and playing in the sea so we’ve had private lessons for them.
Interesting, thanks.
My primary school certainly didn't have a pool or a minibus (or even anywhere to eat lunch![1]). We were taken by hired coach to the nearest council swimming baths for swimming lessons each week.
Footnote:-
1: Seriously: The school was too small to have onsite eating facilities. The entire school would walk about a quarter of a mile to a fairly large church hall for lunch each day. The church hall was also used for PE lessons.
Same here with village primary school. Not enough funds for regular swims.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Not being funny, but I taught my lad to swim, spent a day in the pool in cyprus, mind it was a long day, but by the end of it he could swim
I was at primary school in the 1960s, we had swimming lessons at the age of 8 or 9, can’t remember exactly, and I hated it at first. I’d never been in water deep enough to swim, parents couldn't swim, so never got taken to the local pool. I was a slow learner but eventually became proficient, at the age of 10 I went to the local pool with a friend and his younger brother on Saturday mornings, we all caught the bus together. We loved it, getting thrown in the deep end by the older kids happened sometimes but generally a good time was had by all.
I agree with previous comments, everyone should learn to swim as kids, I’ve never been a great swimmer but I can’t imagine not being able to. Years ago I used to swim twice/ week and do a mile at a stretch (slowly) but I was pretty sharp at running and I found the swimming more of a challenge. When I met my wife in 1996 my male pride took a beating when I realised she was a better swimmer than me, after busting a gut keeping up with her twice I conceded, and I’ve never tried since.
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 13th December 2019 at 22:16.
Spot on.
When I was younger in the 60s we went with the school that’s where I learned
I took both my daughters to a swimming club and they are now good swimmers, they in turn take their kids to our local Nuffield Health club as we are all members. I still swim every morning and then on Friday alongside the grandkids while they have there lesson.
Last edited by hilly10; 14th December 2019 at 08:16.
I learned around P6 I think. We got bussed the 3 miles to the Senior High School pool facility in the area for a lesson a week.
On our own - If we went to the pool in East Kilbride or into Glasgow, my parents gave me the money for that and the bus - additional to the regular ‘pocket money’ each week.
My uncle took me to the pool as a nipper, I got thrown in and learnt to swim. As SJ stated earlier I think it's parents responsibility to ensure their children can swim. ( or an uncle).
In my experience school swimming in Central London is really hit or miss, mostly miss. The schools often don’t have the time or money, obviously that depends on how you prioritise things. If parents do not take the children to after school lessons or at least take them swimming themselves the children are unlikely to become proficient.
Excerpt from Swim England website
“Each pupil is required to be able to do the following:
Perform safe self-rescue in different water based situations
Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
Use a range of strokes effectively, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke.”
“Research has consistently shown that only half of pupils meet the required standards.
There are many reasons why primary schools struggle to deliver swimming and water safety lessons. These include cost, time out of lessons, lack of confidence and a lack of understanding of the outcomes.”
The way the current 25m standard is often measured in real life is a bad joke!
In the U.K. 585 people died from accidental drowning in 2018 (male to female ratio of 7:1). Make of that what you will.
I dare say there are plenty of parents who aren’t involved in any activities with their children.
Looks like the staples of previous generations: Crossing the road safely, and riding a bicycle on the road - have also fallen by the wayside.
Some of the kids I know can’t spell, count and grammar is mum/dad’s parent, no phones in the pool so the chances of them getting in the pool are slim, Jings it would fuck up their hair and make up.
Same here Paul!
Cheers,
Neil.
When I worked at Phoenix, the RNs survival school, we were amaised at the number of sailors who could not swim.
The goal is that kids here need to swim dressed in normal clothing, including shoes. Granted, that can be sneakers. But it's the sensation of being in the water with clothes on.
If I recall correctly form a session I did together with the PLA and RNLI the vast majority of those are drunk young males returning from a night out that happens to go along or near a body of water.
Posting Permissions
