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School swimming lessons are a statutory requirement as part of primary PE provision and will typically take place at some point during KS2. Swimming is in fact the only statutory sport within the PE programme of study as it is the only physical activity which can save your life (which is the main reason learning to swim is non-negotiable for our family)! It is expected that primary age children will be taught to perform “safe self-rescue”, to “swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres” and to “use a range of strokes effectively”. For Amy, this means she will have 1.5 terms of swimming lessons with school in Year 3.
Of course Amy isn’t new to swimming, she has been learning to swim with Puddle Ducks and Swim Academy since just before her second birthday but Puddle Ducks pride themselves on being a very different swim school and I was worried about how school swimming lessons and Swim Academy would sit side by side with one another.
(I should say, the pictures in this post are quite old as Amy doesn’t have a teacher in the pool with her anymore, but they are the most recent ones I’ve had – hopefully I can’t update the post with new pictures soon!)
Ben and Chloe obviously had school swimming lessons alongside their council lessons and this wasn’t an issue as it was the same style of teaching in the same swimming pool. It was basically just a bonus swimming practice each week which allowed them both to progress a little faster with no extra effort or expense on my part. Amy however has been learning to swim with Puddle Ducks and Swim Academy for six years – her swimming lessons are SO different to a council swimming lessons – the way the strokes are broken down and taught is very different and I was really worried that actually her school swimming lessons could do more harm than good. I emailed the team at Puddle Ducks Greater Manchester to see if they had an tips for me but they said not to worry to much and that Georgia (Amy’s current Swim Academy teacher) would be able keep an eye out and address anything that went a bit wonky as a result of her school lessons . . .
I chatted to Amy and explained that her school swimming lessons would be very different and that she might find it quite hard, she said, “It’s OK Mum, I’ll just have to sit on the side and watch!“. Obviously I explained to her that it wouldn’t work like that as learning to swim was part of her PE lessons and PE was a legal requirement for her.
I told her I didn’t want her to worry about it or feel like she couldn’t swim as we both knew she could and that it was just a different way of doing things. I said she should do as she was told in her school swimming lessons and to try her best but to remember that it was Georgia’s lessons that were the most important as that’s what she would be working on long term. One of the things Amy was actually most nervous about was how cold the swimming pool would be at our local leisure centre as she’s obviously used the the luxury of the heated hydro-pool at Aqua Nurture!
From what Amy has told me it sounds like she’s in the “middle” group – of course some children will have never had any swimming lessons at all and others, like Amy, will have been swimming for years. Ben and Chloe were both in the “top” group when they did school swimming lessons but, as I mentioned, they had been doing council swimming lessons since the age of three so their skill level and swimming style would be very much aligned with the school swimming lessons. It didn’t really surprise me that Amy hadn’t been assessed as being a more capable swimmer as she would likely not have ticked the boxes they were working towards.
What did really surprise me though was that they had stuck arm bands on her! Now Amy has never swum with arm bands in her Puddle Ducks lessons – this is a key part of the Puddle Ducks difference, whilst a variety of flotation devices are used during the Puddle Ducks journey – arm bands are not, in fact the only time she has used them is on holiday on slides, and even then we preferred a swimsuit or jacket with floats in. Amy earned her 10m badge back in March and definitely doesn’t need to be using arm bands. Of course the temptation was to go storming in and demand that she is allowed to swim without them – but I didn’t want to be “that parent” and had decided to just leave well alone until I spoke to Ali Beckman, Director at Puddle Ducks and Director / Trustee at the STA . . .
Ali explained to me that, with Amy being in Level 3, this is a particularly crucial time for her Swim Academy journey as it is where “the magic happens” – the last six years of swimming lessons will start to come together into fully formed strokes and Amy’s school swimming lessons – particularly putting her in arm bands – could be really detrimental to her progress if we don’t handle this correctly.
Children who learn to swim with Puddle Ducks and Swim Academy do this without fixed buoyancy aids (arm bands / float suits etc) to develop an independent “flat swim” position. Ali explains that, “When arm bands are added, they change the position of the body in the water, lifting the chest. As the chest rises, the legs drop and the head is then naturally brought out of the water for a head up swim position” she goes on to explain that the use of arm bands puts the arms into “an unnatural position – they end up above the water rather than under it and the arm bands do not allow the arms to get close to the side of the body as they would when naturally swimming. The more the arm bands are worn, the more a child starts to learn negative muscle memory. . . “
Having spoken to Ali, I decided that I really did need to get in touch with school and be “that parent” after all. Luckily, Amy’s teacher totally understood where we were coming from and said she would do her best to get the arm bands removed. I explained that I knew Amy’s swimming style and skills would be very different to what they were teaching her in her school lessons but that as she achieved her 10m badge back in the spring, I was confident that she really didn’t need to be wearing arm bands – I asked that, if they really felt she needed buoyancy aids, that she be allowed to use a woggle instead. From chatting to Amy’s teacher, it transpired that Amy had been quite nervous in her first couple of swimming lessons too (and perhaps even downplaying her swimming skills so she could stay in the same group as her friends!). I had a stern word with Amy about this – I can understand her feeling nervous about swimming in a very different setting, with unfamiliar adults – however, we talked this through and agreed that she really needed to sort herself out in the next lesson! I haven’t had chance to catch up with her teacher since, however Amy told me that her arm bands had been removed and that she was going to be allowed to use a woggle if she needed support!
As things stand, we haven’t seen any negative impact on her Swim Academy lessons – in fact in her most recent swimming lesson, Georgia was super impressed with her breast stroke skills and how hard she was working! However we’re less than half a term into this and Amy has had to miss a run of Swim Academy lessons recently.
Whilst Amy is doing her school swimming lessons, I’ve promised her I won’t book any catch up sessions with Swim Academy as I think expecting her to swim three times a week is a stretch – however, having a store of catch up lessons means that once her school swimming lessons have finished, we can double up for a few weeks and concentrate on fixing any non-Swim Academy habits that have been picked up!
Have you had any experience of school swimming lessons clashing with your private swimming lessons? I’d love to know how you dealt with this, and will of course report back on how it’s working for Amy at a later date!
Amy swims with Swim Academy free of charge for the purposes of review. All thoughts and opinons remain our own.
Follow our full Puddle Ducks / Swim Academy journey here!
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Our clash was potentially moving from waterlilies which was all wiggles, moving to normal kids lessons age 4. Because he couldn’t touch the floor they use swim belts round the waist. Starting with 6 foam bars reducing them til they’re swimming without. N wasn’t a confident swimmer anyway so the float belt helped and although I was worried it was better for arm movement than wiggles. And kept the body position flat. I was pleased he had that teacher as the other teacher used to have the young ones in a belt and arm discs. You could see the difference in position. Her class were much more vertical swimmers with poor technique than N’s lesson. By the time he started swimming with school he was Y2 and in stage 4 so although they put all yes in the lower group, he got moved to middle group pretty fast. Then top group for his y3 and 4. They swim for 3 years with school at theirs, but the extra session each week really helped his swimming come on.
Glad you got Amy’s lessons sorted. I class arm bands in the same category as stabilisers on bikes. Pointless and holding back kids’ progress.