School want a letter of apology

[GlassesOn]

My year six son got picked for his schools football team, the team train one day a week and sometimes have matches on those days too. (We all pay £30 per term).

The football coach is quite young, a bit impatient, never speaks to the parents, even after a match, quite dismissive when the boys try to talk to him and I’ve seen him mostly on his phone during training pausing to look up to comment how rubbish they’re are playing is one example.

There have been a few incidents that I haven’t been completely happy with and I told my son I didn’t want him to go back to the team after Christmas but he said he wanted to stay on the team because he had friends in the team etc

First day of January training my husband turns up to pick our son up at the Astro turf pitch (in the school) but no one was there... my husband was confused and went round the school to find them, as no notice had been given to us that training would be held in another place.

After 5 minutes, he found our son in the after school ‘kids club’ because training had finished early (for no reason we’ve heard yet,) he was placed in there as he wasn’t allowed to hang around on his own to wait for his dad, we were told we were being charged £10 for this.

My husband explained to the kids club manager about the training finishing early and if the training had finished at the advertised time on their website then our son wouldn’t have been put into kids club, she agreed to leave off the charge.

Last week my eldest picked her brother up and was told no training had taken place at all, as during the warm up some of the boys were laughing and joking and as punishment they had all been placed on benches in the playground and sat there for over an hour.

My daughter said my son was freezing cold and I phoned the kids club to clarify what had gone on as I was still at work.

I was advised to email a complaint as she wasn’t in charge of the after school clubs, just the kids club which I did.

I received a phone call the next afternoon while at work and got a barrage of attitude by the after school clubs manager, she told me she had investigated the incident throughly that the coach said the kids were acting like animals and put them on the bench until they were ready, I told her I would accept what you’re saying until I’ve spoken to my son again when I got home and if this was the case why didn’t he make them all run around or do some sort of physical exercise as their ‘punishment’? That’s what his old coach used to do if one of them played up, (run around the pitch 3 times etc as that soon made them calm down.“)

It was near freezing that evening and if I stuck my son in the garden for an hour and a half to sit on a bench as punishment I’m sure social services would be called by the school.

I then asked about the previous incident of the coach just packing up whenever he feel like it and she said reconsidering it now she would be charging us £10 for that, as my son wasn’t signed out until 4.50pm even though it took 5 mins for my husband to find where our son was as no note had been left to say training had finished early or moved to another area, but she didn’t want to discuss that.

The head teacher also pulled all the children into her office and told them that they are lying about the incident and it hadn’t been just giggling and that the coach said that they were really naughty.

They have been instructed to write a apology letter to the coach, they also miss their playtime on Monday and are barred from playing on the Astro turf pitch for the rest of term.

So even though all of them say it was just a bit of giggling they are being punished for weeks on end and that’s (after the original punishment of sitting in the cold) & missing their training. Oh and they’ve also being threatened by the head teacher that their year 6 PGL place may be taken away from them (we’ve paid nearly £400 for the trip).

It’s basically the boys word against the coach and the head teacher has decided that the kids are lying.

Am I being unreasonable to ask for clarity regarding the two incidents? I’ve told my son he isn’t going back to training but this time he is also okay with it.

Or should I just let it drop? WWYD?

Our school has an outside sports coach who does in school lessons and the after school sports clubs and my dd tells me is often kicking a ball around it's the children at lunch time. A previous poster said the same, so unless they're a parent from our school it's maybe not that uncommon. He is a paid sports coach, not a volunteer. Our clubs cost a similar amount to OP. I can't imagine they are paying for a club run by a volunteer.

Also I cannot imagine a primary school head teacher acting how Pengggyn describes, extremely authoritarian and completely lacking in the necessary people skills I would want a headteacher to possess. My children would not be staying in any school led like that.

Letter from ds:

Dear HT

You have requested I write a letter about recent incidents at football. Following conversations with my parents I am unable to write and apology at this time.

Please contact my parents urgently to discuss this matter. My mum can be contacted on (insert telephone number) to arrange a meeting. Preferred date and time would be.....

Many thanks
DS

I would not be paying the after school club - you didn't request they care for your son so quite honestly they can do one.

is your school in a village in Herts?

Just rings some bells...

TBH if it were me, I would get my ds to write a letter to shut the headmistress up then I'd go in all guns blazing about the safeguarding issues here. The one that absolutely winds me up is the coach having his phone out. No adult should have their phone out when working with children. God knows what he could be doing with it. Secondly, he is responsible for those children until collected by their parents. He doesn't just get to walk off. As for the children who are allowed to walk home, if they are released early and something happened to them on the way home, their parents wouldn't know because they weren't expecting them home yet. Finally, no matter how bad children behave, you don't ever use language like 'animals'. He clearly doesn't know how to handle children. I would be asking about his qualifications.
Put your complaint in writing to the head, chair of the governors and whoever is responsible for safeguarding at the school. If you are not satisfied with the response, go the to the LADO.

Just to play devil's advocate, I can imagine the alternative view of events:

Him:
Took the kids out onto the Astroturf, but it was cold, and they were clearly not up for the training that day. They didn't want to warm up, and starting to complain and generally play up. I struggled with them for 30 minutes, but they were getting cold and grumpy, so I sat them down and gave them a talking to. Eventually taking them back into the school and explaining to the school about the situation and behaviour. I left them in the care of the school, which was by then hosting their after school club.
I left the premises, as my presence was no longer needed and the conditions outside were deteriorating and starting to get dark.

Father shows up can't find them outside, finally finds them inside, the kids are miffed from being cold in the first place and say 'he sat us down outside in the cold for almost all the lesson (1hr 15 lesson), and we were doing nothing wrong, other than laughing.

Mother complains, and the HT says 'there were messing about and rude to the coach, who handed them over to me, and given the weather circumstances, we took care of them. Your husband didn't turn up until 10 minutes after the allotted time, therefore we would like to charge you for that'.

Suddenly, it all looks a little different?

Again, it's playing devil's advocate, but this stuff can happen.

m0therofdragons
Letter from ds:

Why? the OP could simply make an appointment with the HT.

Pengggwn you also said they would call the police, and would walk out at the end of he day saying "night Mrs x" rather than seeing them. I would expect a head teacher to realise that for a parent to be prepared to take time off work and sit and wait to see me until I had time to see them they had serious issues to be talked through. Even if those issues were not immediately life threatening or whatever you said, the parent is important. Our head would, and frequently has, dropped anything not immediately life threatening, to talk to upset parents or children. It is not petty to expect an adult in charge of a school to have understanding of parents and children. But then you wouldn't be able to be constantly goady if you accepted that.

The letter stems from the request for the children to write an apology letter to the coach.
This suggests the HT believes (or actually witnessed) some of the ill-behaviour - we're not quite sure.

Either the HT has taken the coach at his word, or has additional reason to believe his account is more accurate. I know when I was a kid in a group of boys, we could be absolute swines when we wanted to be. We'd never have admitted it afterwards, only 'we were messing about a bit, but that's all'.

TheBrilliantMistake but the two incidences were separate and the HT was not involved (beyond yelling at the kids the following day) so your "devils advocation" is irrelevant as it doesn't cover what actually happened.

Session 1: OP's DH went to collect DS from football and nobody was there and no information as to where they had gone and had to wander around the school to find him in ASC. The coach ended the session early and left some of the children there and let other children leave. The ASC wanted to charge parents for their children being in a club they never signed up for, weren't aware their children were even at and did not agree to.

Session 2, OP's elder DC went to collect DS and found that he had spent over an hour just sitting on a bench outside in close to freezing temperatures because they had been messing around during warm ups. The coach did not make any attempt to inform the guardians (in this case the OP's elder child) who were collecting the children of the supposed bad behaviour nor the punishment given out. Surely if the children were so badly behaved as to require such a harsh punishment then the coach should have been speaking with the parents to make them aware of the issues?

Where does it say the HT wasn't present in the school in Session 1? it doesn't
Where does it say the HT wasn't present in the school in Session2? it doesn't

It does suggest that the ASC leader may have witnessed some of the events, as she's confirmed they were acting like animals (but that may have been as told to her by the Coach, it's not clear)

Because DS is stressing saying he must have a letter tomorrow.

Honestly I'd go in in the morning and ask to make an appointment.

We do not know if the coach is responsible for informing the guardians. If he's hired by the school, to carry our the activities on behalf of the school, the school are still responsible for them and they are the ones with responsibility for informing parents if there's a change of plan.

If the school don't hire him, and simply allow him to use the premises, it's a different matter, in which case, yes, he should be informing the parents and taking care of them until their parents (or guardians) arrive.

TheBrilliant no matter what happened the coach cannot just walk away before the end of the session. They are his responsibility. Furthermore they can't just be left at the after school club either. They have limited numbers and not all children are registered with them so they won't have the parents details or medical information. I can't believe the ASC people even agreed to it. No matter how bad the children behaved, the coach can't just flounce off.

TheBrilliantMistake
The letter stems from the request for the children to write an apology letter to the coach.

Yes it does, but lets not create more of an issue when there is a more mature way of dealing with this.

It would be a shame for things to turn sour in a football team. Most kids love being in a team like that, and would be very upset to be omitted from it, for whatever reason. They may not be so keen on the training on cold winter afternoons though!

MissEliza

We don't know what the criteria is for ending a session early, why he did it or what the procedure is for such an occurrence.

But my other question is why a paid sports coach would lie about kids' behaviour. I'd expect most of them just want to make their money and go home.

Because he's snapped at a minor incident and gone completely over the top? Either he's realised this when he calmed down, or when he was told there had been a complaint. He wouldn't be lying exactly, more putting a spin on it. His own behaviour sounds better if the kids were "behaving like animals" than if they "giggled a bit". The lack of precision compared to the kids' account makes me more inclined to believe the latter on the evidence so far. But yeah I'd still be in fact finding mode.

They are two different issues in my eyes.

The finishing early is annoying but dealt with and you shouldn't have been chargedm

I'd avoid speculating about phone use. Lots of fitness people i know store their workout stuff in apps, time intervals on their phone etc.

The issue with the benches, my gut instinct is that it is more likely to be a middle ground. (E.g. yes they were messing on and it was probably more than a little bit.) Equally , he handled it poorly (time out or a lap of the pitch til they'd calmed down would have been better). That said, kids even good ones can exaggerate. (Last week one of my students tried to claim me keeping her in past the bell at lunchtime meant she missed half her lunch and didn't eat. I pointed out that she was released 3 mins after the bell and the kitchens don't stop serving until 30 mins into lunch. What she did after i let her out wasn't my concern and she better think twice before selectively presenting a tale to me).
It is worth considering that you know what your child did, but other children the group may have been much worse. Not all childreb un the group are instigators.

If it was me, I would have my child write an apology for his actions during the session, including his attitude 'this is awkward'.

I would then contact the head separately to arrange a meeting to discuss the operational procedures of the club (e.g. times of clubs, expectations for behaviour and sanctions, adult supervision, procedures for finishing early etc) and would raise concerns about the club leader using the afterschool club as backup supervision when he feels like clocking off early.

In terms of getting a resolution, I think that would be the best approach.

Yes MissEliza, we agree on that, but now it's the Coach, the HT and the ASC all messing up isn't it?
Or the account isn't quite as accurate as we think.
We don't know who the Coach is, or who runs the ASC. If the school is hiring the Coach, and running the ASC, then yes, he CAN hand them back to the school earlier than advertised, as they've always been under their duty of care in the first place. There will be a procedure in place if he's taken ill - pretty much the same - to hand them back to the custody of the school. Both the coach of the school have a combined duty of care, but since it's ultimately (we assume) organised through the school, they have the ultimate responsibility.

As someone who coaches kids in scenarios like this, I can say that this person is absolutely out of order and not in the slightest way professional. The same goes for the coordinator you spoke to on the phone. I wouldn't allow a child of mine to attend classes run by these people. They are not positive promoters of sport. Exercise should most certainly not ever be used as punishment either. I'd leave!

Highly, highly unlikely that a volunteer or agency after school sports coach is using the online systems for recording behaviour, or following up with detentions or loss of class points or whatever. It's an extra-curricular activity. Particularly if it is a volunteer, they aren't going to have access to such sensitive information, and the expectation that they will be entering data on kids' behaviour after running a session is bonkers, frankly. No volunteer is going to do that, it's not their job.

Not highly unlikely in my school. School policy means everyone. School policy ensures that pupils and all adults have clear rules and procedures. This is to embed consistency and fairness.

Logs aren't online either, a paper folder that all of my staff write in and I analyse overtime. Shows reoccurance of individual behaviors and of aspects of school, lunchtime, particular lessons, staff members, so that we can target improvement and ensure impact of support.

In this case, this adult would be guided through the policy with extra training added, he would be monitored overtime until his behavior management improved or he would be asked to leave/put through a formal support plan/ the company he works for informed to support his development. (depending on his employment status within the school)