How long is a piece of string? This is one of our most commonly asked questions and there is no definitive answer. This will depend on many things and just like with all sports and activities all children progress at different rates. If your child is very nervous when starting lessons it will most likely take them a little longer to learn to swim unaided whilst they build their confidence.
We often find our new preschool children may take a couple of weeks or so to settle in and get to know ourselves and the lessons. It is not uncommon for the children to be tearful at first and we are very experienced in dealing with this and helping them to settle in and enjoy the classes. Perseverance is best in these cases.
Children cannot support themselves in the water in order to take repeated breaths and swim unaided until around the age of 3. As a very rough guideline we would generally expect children of school age starting lessons around 4/5 years of age who are confident in the water to take anywhere from 1-3 terms to swim a width (5m+ unaided with good technique.)
We could teach the children to get themselves from point A to B unaided quicker but would then have to spend a lot longer correcting poor technique in order for them to be able to progress any further. We often find children who have learnt elsewhere may need to take a few steps “backwards” to correct their technique before they can progress forwards. This is why we always take the time to get things right from the start.