One of my sons (age 9) is extremely creative (I'd call him HC+ if there was such a designation), and suffered from some of the same things you've described about your daughter at the same age, at school and elsewhere. He could never pass a swim test and would spend the whole swimming lesson bouncing around.
It seemed to be going the same way last summer. They put him in a Level 2 class initially (translation: "We're pretty sure you can get into the pool by yourself, but we'll work on that skill over the next two weeks.") By the end 8 weeks of lessons, he had passed Level 5 (end of level test: do a racing dive into the deep end followed by five laps of four different strokes, including back crawl and butterfly). He had taught himself how to do the racing dive the summer before and could swim to the bottom of a nine-foot pool when he was seven. But he just wouldn't pay attention during lessons until last summer.
As he's matured a bit, he's become much better at this sort of thing. He still has a way to go, but we've seen a lot of progress. It can be frustrating and difficult, but I think that with him, at least, he needs time for the right circuits to form in his CNS.
