Swimming lessons are the process of learning to swim. In most countries there is a definition of a number of swimming levels that are reached in the process of the curriculum. The respective certificates of swimming tests are required for further training in aquatic abilities. Many countries have defined a minimum swimming level that children should reach by the end of primary education, in most cases with the help of school swimming classes being part of the normal curriculum.
Children are often given swimming lessons, which serve to develop swimming technique and confidence. Children were traditionally viewed not to be able to swim independently until 4 years of age, but infant swimming lessons are now recommended to prevent drowning and increase water familiarality. There are many different ways of learning to swim with swimming lessons. There are community center lessons, semi-private lessons and private lessons. Swimming lessons can support children with special needs through adaptive swimming lessons.
Infant swimming lessons
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends swimming lessons for children from 1–4, along with other precautionary measures to prevent drowning. In 2010, the American Academy of Pediatrics reversed its previous position in which it had disapproved of lessons before age 4, indicating that the evidence no longer supported an advisory against early swimming lessons.
There is an essential difference between the new infant swimming lessons and the traditional parent-child water play sessions. Infant swimming lessons, sometimes called infant swim recovery, teach infants and toddlers how to recover from an accidental fall into a body of water. Unlike traditional parent/toddler classes, which encourage the child's face in the water through blowing bubbles, infant swimming lessons instill in the child the skills to regain buoyancy from a submerged state and to tilt the head back, getting it out of the water to take breaths and cry for help. Children ages one to six-years-old learn advanced safety skills to roll to their backs to take a breath and then to roll back to their stomachs to continue swimming.
Swimming lessons reduce the risk of drowning by 88% for babies and children up to 4 years old.
School swimming
In many locations, swimming lessons are provided by local swimming pools, both those run by the local authority and by private leisure companies. Many schools also include swimming lessons into their physical education (PE) curricula, provided either in the schools' own pools, another school's pool, or in the nearest public pool.
The Department for Education in England includes learning to swim as a compulsory element in primary school PE curriculum. According to the department's website, at the end of year 6 (age 11), all children "should be taught to...swim 25 metres" (front and back) and demonstrate an understanding of water safety. Schools can decide when and where pupils will learn to swim. Many children in the UK learn to swim in lessons that are not provided by their primary school and can swim 25 meters by the age of 6. The National Governing body for Swimming is Swim England who train and accredit 80% of swimming teachers in England and Wales * [Ofqual statistics 2012-17] Advocates for school swimming lessons in the United States frequently cite the CDC estimate that 34% of 80%American adults are unable to swim 24 yards.
In Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, the curriculum for 11-year-olds in the fifth grade states that all children should learn how to swim as well as how to handle emergencies near water. Most commonly, children are expected to be able to swim —of which at least is on their back—after first falling into deep water and submerging their head underwater. Even though about 95 percent of Swedish schoolchildren know how to swim, drowning remains the third-most common cause of death among children.
In both the Netherlands and Belgium, swimming lessons during school time (schoolzwemmen, or school swimming) are supported by the government. Most schools provide swimming lessons. There is a long tradition of swimming lessons in the Netherlands and in Belgium; the Dutch translation for the breaststroke swimming style is schoolslag (schoolstroke). The children learn a variant of the breaststroke. In recent years however, most Dutch towns have abolished school swimming in order to cut expenses.