Child being 'punished' for a choice I made

mumps

balletshoes wrote: »

I think the OP said they don't have their own teacher who does the swimming lessons though - he/she is hired in?

So organise his time better. As an example one of mine was a really good swimmer, another was a good swimmer, two swam for fun. They all had appropriate lessons at school. Two parents, there might have been more, were swimming teachers one at a local pool and one at a club. They both ran lessons as volunteers at school. There were lessons when mine would carry on with lessons and lessons where they were taken out of class. I remember my one son had his lesson at lunch time. It is possible but does require the school working with parents.

mumps

Person_one wrote: »

I don't think school swimming is where olympic champions are made though, that's what the clubs are for.

School swimming is about making them safe and less likely to drown isn't it?

In maths and science you can stream the children more easily and cater to different abilities more effectively. There isn't the time or the facilities for that in school swimming.

Inter school galas aren't about making children safe, they aren't really about Olympic champions either. The OP has made it clear the swimming teacher isn't involved in any way in the galas. Just like my daughter representing the school playing piano in a music festival even though she did not learn piano in school a good swimmer could be chosen for the gala.

mumps

Dunroamin wrote: »

Unfortunately, we often do exactly this. Many children who go to school already able to read do very little for the first year or so while the others catch up. This is one reason why so many teachers don't like this situation, because it's much easier to teach a class who are all bumbling along at the same level.

This rings a bell with me. As you might have noticed my children varied in their interests and abilities and I tried to support them all, even though some of their interests were torture for me to go along to every week (I'm not sporty or musical but I have one of each).

When my DD was due to start school we went along to see it. We were looking at a class in June, she was due to join that class in the September so they were nearly an academic year ahead of her. When I looked at their books I commented that she would find the reading very boring as she was already well ahead of what they were reading. I was told in no uncertain terms she would start with reading readiness books, i.e. books without words, and then work through the scheme. Now this was a little girl who was reading the sort of novels for 8, 9 or 10 year olds. I asked if she would be assessed and moved through the scheme quickly. Again I got told she would go through like everyone else. Now I know people will say teacher's can't cater for every individual child but can you think of something easier than reading to do this with? All they needed to do was assess her and direct her to the appropriate section of books in the library and get on with it. She didn't go to that school. Unfortunately she had areas she struggled with, particularly physical co-ordination, and we never found a school that coped well with that.

Lifeisbutadream

mumps wrote: »

But do you think that Rebecca Adlingtons school said she couldn't be in the school gala? I would be surprised. I remember seeing the diver, Tom something?, his school were supporting him, didn't seem like they had a huff because he did his training somewhere else.

This is very true. My DD (Y9) is also an excellent swimmer and sports all-rounder and the high school she goes to fully supports her training (she sometimes has to have time off to get to competitions) and they have her helping with extra curricular sports for younger children.

My opinion is that as a school with its own swimming pool, really my DS primary school should be making the most of it.

FBaby

I think if this thread is representative of so much grief for so many parents, schools should just not bother with the galas. If parents want their kids to be competitive rather than just learning a life saving skill, they can stick to clubs and leave the schools to do what they are meant to do, teach skills.

fedupnow

Lifeisbutadream wrote: »

This is very true. My DD (Y9) is also an excellent swimmer and sports all-rounder and the high school she goes to fully supports her training (she sometimes has to have time off to get to competitions) and they have her helping with extra curricular sports for younger children.

My opinion is that as a school with its own swimming pool, really my DS primary school should be making the most of it.

This suggests your problem isn't really about your son specifically, but about the schools attitude to swimming on the whole.

I guess they have limited funds (almost certainly if they're asking for donations) and have to prioritise. Perhaps swimming isn't one of them.

Dunroamin

fedupnow wrote: »

This suggests your problem isn't really about your son specifically, but about the schools attitude to swimming on the whole.

I guess they have limited funds (almost certainly if they're asking for donations) and have to prioritise. Perhaps swimming isn't one of them.

But surely a school which has it's own pool must have a lot of resources tied up in it with upkeep etc so you'd think that they'd make sure that they got the most out of it.

The problem here seems to be the person who teaches swimming and her attitude to it. As I said earlier, the fact that she doesn't even bother going to the swimming galas where her pupils will be competing is the most telling thing I've heard on this thread. Let's face it, wouldn't we all be shocked if the person who taught most of the music couldn't be bothered going to a school concert?

fedupnow

Dunroamin wrote: »

But surely a school which has it's own pool must have a lot of resources tied up in it with upkeep etc so you'd think that they'd make sure that they got the most out of it.

The problem here seems to be the person who teaches swimming and her attitude to it. As I said earlier, the fact that she doesn't even bother going to the swimming galas where her pupils will be competing is the most telling thing I've heard on this thread. Let's face it, wouldn't we all be shocked if the person who taught most of the music couldn't be bothered going to a school concert?

Yes, possibly. But that isn't what the thread was originally about.

I agree it does seem odd if a person selects a school on the basis they have their own pool, then one would expect swimming to be a priority and winning a 'must do' and keen teachers etc.

Running a school and it's budget must be pretty tough, I reckon. Particularly with parents who want certain subjects or sports to take higher priority than others. If there were a vote, I wouldn't mind betting the majority of parents would want more spent on Maths or English studies rather than a better swimming teacher.

Lifeisbutadream

fedupnow wrote: »

This suggests your problem isn't really about your son specifically, but about the schools attitude to swimming on the whole.

I guess they have limited funds (almost certainly if they're asking for donations) and have to prioritise. Perhaps swimming isn't one of them.

The swimming problem has never been about my son specifically. Only this particular issue.

It costs around £1000 per month to run the pool and they do all kinds of fundraising for it. I was on the fund raising committee until 2 years ago because I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall, we were doing all this fund raising and then the school was hiring the cheapest teacher possible and not taking swimming lessons seriously (im not talking about making them all olympic standard, just recognising that you cant teach a whole group of kids the same thing, I had lots of suggestions at the beginning, including getting a swimming teacher to talk to the head.

TBH I have moved on now and focus all my efforts on the junior footy club instead, they at least appreciate it and I am not wasting my time !

ETA: the pool is also hired out for private lessons, they dont raise £1K a month from parents !

jem16

mumps wrote: »

Again I got told she would go through like everyone else. Now I know people will say teacher's can't cater for every individual child but can you think of something easier than reading to do this with? All they needed to do was assess her and direct her to the appropriate section of books in the library and get on with it.

Your last sentence unfortunately typifies the misunderstanding of most parents as to what the teaching of reading is all about. The actual reading of words is only a very small part of the teaching of reading. The majority is about teaching comprehension, prediction, inferential and lower/higher order skills. Some of these skills are only acquired on reaching a certain maturity level but all would never be acquired by simply pointing the child in the direction of the library and telling him/her to get on with it.

I think you will find that most teachers of children just starting school will very quickly find out what a child is capable of and set the work accordingly.

As to the swimming part of it, no matter what you do there will be parents who will criticise the choice. I taught in the same primary school that my sons attended. Both were also in the local swimming club and team, where I also helped out. I was asked to organise a school team for a gala for local schools as I knew what the children were capable of through school swimming lessons and club swimming. I knew my son was the second best swimmer in his year group so he was chosen along with the best swimmer.

Of course I still had a complaint from a parent that my son was chosen simply because he was my son, despite the fact that he had completed a length by the time the other child had barely reached half way.