[KnightsofNi]

I have looked at their website, but I am still not clear how it all works.

Does it go for a week every school holidays? It mentioned $25 as the cost (but pool entry fees). Does that sound right? Seems rather cheap.

How does it compare to normal swimming lessons?

I am trying not to let me DD be over scheduled now that she has started school, but I still want her to learn how to swim, and thought Vacswim might be the answer. I am a SAHM, so taking her in the school holidays wouldn't be a problem.

[SeaPrincess]

We've done it once, I think it was $10 plus pool entry. It's run by the Education Department, so it's the same lessons they have through school (if your school does them).

Personally, I found it a right pain having to get everyone out of the house every day during holidays - the children (and I) want to relax during holidays. The classes were huge - at least twice as big as during our term lessons, and in some cases 3x the number of children. DS1 was put in a mixed level class with 3 different levels and a dozen or more children, and he didn't get that much out of it.

[iavy]

We did it and it was fantastic. Only 2-3 kids in a group. I liked going every day as it was a cheap thing to do over the holidays. My girls learnt a lot in the week. We will definitely do it again

[MakeLoveNotBacon]

We did it last summer holidays. We are in WA.

We paid $10 for ten lessons, 30 mins each, over two weeks. Very professional, teachers were very skilled and it was well run. More than the lessons I was paying $100 odd at the local council swim school I think. I believe it's government run? For school aged kids.

We did ours at the beach so no additional cost.

I'm not sure if they run every school holidays.

[Elemenopee]

Ours were $50 all up.
We are rural, so unlike SeaPrincess our classes were very small - 6 to 8 kids with an instructor and an aide. My girls have never had any other swimming lessons - VacSwim has taught them how to swim.

[KnightsofNi]

So it is cheap. But I would need to check on class size. DD would not get anything out of a class with 10+ kids in.

I suppose it would also depend on if I have to pay pool entry for DS and myself to, as that would make it nearly the cost of her current swimming lesson. The beach wouldn't be an option, she is scared of the beach, and winter is coming. Brrrrrr.

[SeaPrincess]

Ours were $50 all up.
We are rural, so unlike SeaPrincess our classes were very small - 6 to 8 kids with an instructor and an aide. My girls have never had any other swimming lessons - VacSwim has taught them how to swim.

Actually, we were rural at the time, and I thought that's what the problem was - not enough teachers for the number of children. But even at our current swimming pool, the Vacswim and daily Education Department classes are much bigger than term classes.

[Julie3Girls]

Check the details at your pool . Ours was slightly cheaper than regular term classes, around $10 a class I think, (compared with almost $12 a class normally).
Class size was same, up to 4 kids in a class. Every day, 30 minute lesson.
I found it a great jump start to swimming the one time we did it. The everyday classes means they retain more from one lesson to the next, because there isn't a week between lessons. Used to be you would book in for the full 2 weeks, but now they tend to run on a weekly basis, so you can do one or two weeksa, whichever you prefer.

[SeaPrincess]

Check the details at your pool .

In WA, the Vacswim classes are not run or booked through the pool - they will refer parents to the Education Dept. That reminds me that it is one of the reasons why we've never done them in the city - we have put more than one preference of pool, and we have free entry to our local pool, so I don't want to take the children elsewhere. Our pool runs their own (much more expensive) holiday classes as well.

[unicycle]

The only swimming lessons our kids have done( other than the appalling school ones... Grr still fuming) were intensive over the holidays ones ( to undo the stupidity of the school lessons on our son) and I found the regular tuition over a burst of time to be exactly what we needed. Lots of guided repetition. I could not undo the swimming teacher's mistakes and needed a pro for that. It worked. I stayed and watched and when the sessions were over, we went back to me being the teacher. Did I mention how bad the school program was? Let go, deep breaths... Should have posted in venting?.....

I meant to say: intensive is good, better than once a week, so long as teaching quality is good. At least you can be there to check, unlike school program.. Oops, I am venting again. Gonna Have a cuppa and a lie down