Teach children to swim? 9 May 2015 at 6:44PM in Sports & fitness MoneySaving 4 replies 771 views

beckstar1975

After rather embarrassing at Virgin Active today where we found out we need to be members before kids can have lessons (and after a trial lesson per child) we are looking at taking them to local school pool (£21 a month v £130 +£100 for lessons) and teaching them ourselves.They are 10, 8 and 6, eldest can swim but needs to learn strokes and improve technique, middle one can swim but can't breathe at same time. She's ace wearing mask and snorkel but not very practicable :rotfl:. Youngest can kind of propel himself but wouldn't quite call it swim.

We both work full time so can't take them to weekday lessons, and other than Virgin all weekend lessons are full with months long waiting lists.

Anyone done this and wants to share tips? Any recs of books/websites to help?

Thanks very much

tanith

Have you looked locally for a swimming instructer? Our local pool has several people who give private lessons as well as working with local school children.. it might be cheaper. Having said that I taught all my children and most of my grandchildren to swim.. we didn't bother much about style as long as they can swim a few lengths and save themselves if an accident happened.. of course they got better with practice and all swim quite well now .

PasturesNew

We were self taught - and my sibling now swims at national level. The main things are confidence and being able to float for an unlimited time .... beyond that, propelling yourself forward, then proper strokes, are just more efficient ways of "staying alive in the water".

10pence

Local school with a pool, near me where I teach junior kayaking have swimming lessons for children open to the public.
Some council swimming baths offer lessons at sensible prices.

I volunteer at a local primary school and attended them on the weekly swimming lesson: an hour out of school lends itself to two laps of the pool. Shame the children of today don't get the same level of swimming lessons I enjoyed as a child.
Because of the lack of lessons we often have to teach the kids swimming whilst kayaking.

sazaccount

Hi,

Have you had a look at local swimming clubs?? They are not all competitive!!

The only down side is they do tend to have larger numbers of children in there lessons than pool run swimming lessons. Like one of the others have said there may be private teachers available but it depends if the local pool allows them to teach in the pool.

A other option is looking to see if your local pool offers crash courses during the school holidays??