Re DS dunking child at swimming

[sezamcgregor]

DS is Y2. They are going swimming with school. It's on Thursday afternoons. There are 24 in his class.

The class is known to be "lively" with "lots of big characters". School have also identified Thursday and Friday afternoons to be hard work as children are becoming tired and harder to keep concentration.

So, children split into two groups of 12:

Group A - Non swimmers, armbands on in shallow end, swimming teacher plus two school staff members

Group B - Swimmers (can swim without armbands) at the deep end, swimming teacher

Two incidents occur towards the end of the lesson, one of which is DS pulling a child under the water as he over took her.

Pulled over by Head Teacher today and put forward my mitigation that a) there was one person to 12 children who school know can be challenging b) it was Thursday afternoon which school know is a difficult time slot.

HT totally dismissed my comments.

She said that she will also be speaking to the swimming instructor as she should have alerted school staff earlier that she could not cope with the group. (Surely school staff would have noticed if she were not coping and offered to help??)

DS is missing next week's swim as a consequence - which is fine. I have no problem with that and agree that there should be a consequence.

But AIBU to think that she needs to look at the whole picture? I have a kind of "well, what did they expect to happen" view of it

Perhaps she is looking at the 'whole' picture but has no reason to discuss that with you really does she - the consequences seam reasonable as well so really can't see what what your issues are ?

I think your attitude is shocking tbh. Your DS pulled another child under during a lesson, he should have been behaving and paying attention to the teacher. You should be speaking to him about his behaviour and not blaming everything else. It doesn't matter if they are tired he still did something he should not have done and he is not a toddler anymore!

Actually YABU, your son pulled another child underwater, she had every right to tell you and your attitude about it is rubbish. It shouldn't have happened at all, and not because the teacher "couldn't cope" but because the children should know to behave and do as they're told.
I hope you talked with your son and made sure he knows how dangerous it was to do that!

I'd expect Y2 children to not be pulling each other under the water. It really is a very naughty thing to do and not at all excusable by tiredness or it being a Thursday afternoon. I don't think you should be trying to blame anyone else other than your dc.

You need to take this a lot more seriously.

DD1 once dunked DD2. I gave her a serious bollicking for it. That just is NOT on. It is dangerous, and very mean.

If one of my DDs did this during school swimming, I'd be mortified, and really really cross with them. Not looking for excuses.

"What did they expect to happen?"

Personally I would expect my child NOT to be pulled under at school swimming lessons!

Perhaps you should have a chat with your son about not doing that instead of making excuses for him?

Your son is at fault. Sort it out.

I think that if you are pulled over by the HT for something like this, the HT does not want to listen to you making excuses for your DS, but is probably hoping that you will agree they behaved badly, and that you would support the school in talking to your child about this and trying to make sure it does not happen again.

Are you for real? Your poor child, what chance does he have with an attitude like yours. Have a word with yourself.

So it's the school's fault that your child pulled another child under water? WTAF?

I'd be furious with DS if he did something like that.

Really? YABU. Whether the child can swim or not is also irrelevant. If that had been my child that was dunked I would be furious. If my child was the dunker, I'd be even more furious with them.

Your child is old enough to know better

You're making excuses

Wow. Your attitude to this shocks me.

That poor child must have been terrified to suddenly be shoved under the water, what a particularly horrible thing to have done. Have you spoken to your ds about it at all? I can't believe you are trying to blame the school for this...at all!! Jeez!

YABU. Your son misbehaved and now has to deal with the consequences. The staffing ratios are well within the guidelines. If tiredness means he can't behave then consider an earlier bedtime. Stop blaming others.

Thank you for your replies so far!

I do understand how serious an incident it was.

The class apparently had been being silly with splashing etc and then toward the end of the lesson, these incidents occurred.

DS needs extra supervision with behaviour in the classroom anyway as he struggles to keep attention and to "do as he is told". They identified Thursday and Friday afternoons to be their worst time with him. They also identified that he struggles during waiting times to wait for a turn, which there is lots of at swimming lessons.

Your response is shocking bh. Awful attitude really. Your son did something horrible to another child and you turn around trying to shift the blame onto the school. You must be 'that' parent with a 'spirited' child who can do no wrong.
Sort your son out firstly before making demands on the school. You seem to think him missing a lesson is good enough, what about making him apologize to the child he did this to??

It might have been okay to mention your concerns about the swimming set-up to the HT in a different context, OP. There may well be issues.

But to do it just after your child has been really naughty, when he's done something totally unacceptable & potentially dangerous in the pool - well, that's not so great. It does sound like you're making excuses for him & trying to underplay what he's done.

He's broken the rules, you accept he should miss the next lesson, so that's fine. And you say the HT is going to talk to the swimming instructor about the wider picture. So I can't see what grievance you have? Focus on ensuring your son knows how to behave in the pool.

Maybe the children are becoming tired and finding it harder to concentrate because your child starts playing up from about thursday.

YABU - stop blaming everyone else. He was misbehaving - nothing to do with instructor and size of class. Take responsibility for what he has done and discipline appropriately.

YABU. If I was the parent of the "dunked" child I'd be very upset. I think you should be having extremely stern words with your DS. Tiredness etc is absolutely NO excuse for this.

If you were so very very concerned about ratio and the class in general why not bring it up prior to the incident with your ds??

Just looks like you are making excuses for his bad behaviour to be honest.

You shouldn't be looking at excuses.

Your child is in year 2. It doesn't matter on the size of the class, how many adults were there, the day or the time either.

What your child done was unacceptable.
If no SEN then 6 years old is old enough not to pull / dunk another child under the water.

If my child, he would have much more serious consequences than missing one swim lesson!!

OP does your child have any SEN? Or is he sometimes just naughty?

If he is misbehaving then you need to deal with it and support the school. "Thursday and Friday afternoons are a challengig time for him" is just crappy excuse.making.

Ok, is it possible SN are involved? Because this is the kind of thing my ds had a one to one for. He wouldn't have dunked anyone I don't think but he there are other remarkably thoughtless and incomprehensible things he might have done.