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?

It's probably not so much that the children are lying, but that they're minimising their part in the incident. One often sees the wide-eyed, "but all I said was..." reaction, when actually they're not getting (or choosing to downplay) why that is unacceptable behaviour.
The OP's son's "well, this is awkward" remark sounds on the face of it, quite mild. Put it in the context of a group of Year 6s all displaying rowdy "attitude" and it can become the final straw for a leader/teacher/volunteer to be arsed with.

Penggyn seems to be talking some sense here. I am also concerned to hear of the disproportionate punishment of leaving small children outdoors in near freezing temperatures in scanty clothing. Whatever the actual facts of this story, that amounts to some kind of abuse in my book.

Well, before we all start jumping up and down in outrage about children being forcibly frozen half to death, I should point out that we teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time before each break time in cold weather, insisting that they put on coats before they go out. Even if they initially comply, you'll see them lining up in their shirt sleeves by the end of play, having discarded the coat because "they're boiling."

I can tell you for a fact that no-one is boiling after having to sit still for an hour in near freezing temperatures. My son is quite happy to train with snow on the ground but if the children aren't kept moving they are in pain. Kids discarding their coats because they've been running around doesn't compare.
And I'm not sure what parents complaining about perfectly legitimate sanctions has to do with this thread at all (other than an excuse to have a good old moan about pesky unreasonable parents). This was in no way a reasonable punishment for ANY behaviour so whether the children have downplayed their messing around is completely irrelevant.

I would send an email saying my son won't be apologising and do NOT dare tell him off or even speak to him about this matter again and I will NOT be paying the £10 (take me to small claims court if you like i'll gladly explain there as I'm completely confident I will win!) and furthermore I'd like the £30 for the last months trains reimbursed as he didn't receive much training at all really certainly not £30 worth!

No Penggwn, I thought we were all talking about actual medals (!).

And forcing kids to sit for an hour in the freezing cold is abuse so anyone accusing them of lying is dismissing an allegation of abuse. And in fact the school haven't even dismissed the allegation - they feel that the punishment (and more) is justified due to the kids behaviour. Abusive practice is NEVER justified. There are people on here who would be handwringing if he'd walloped one of them round the head about how it could end his career and how the kids must have been really badly behaved for him to do that. It doesn't matter how badly behaved children are it doesn't justify abusing them ever!

Unfortunately Munchys, a parent cannot forbid a Head Teacher from speaking to their child about whatever they see fit. And most would give very short shrift at being told not "to dare" do something in their own school.
So good luck with that attitude.

OP!

Unfortunately you’ve attracted a tribe of MN teachers; a singularly entrenched breed who give all teachers a bad name.

Let’s hope the head has the sense not to scramble around for excuses for this incompetent “coach”, eh?

No wonder some people say that you can't say anything bad about a teacher on here! There have been a lot of posts from sensible teachers and ta's on this thread but they are completely drowned out by a minority who firmly believe that a child/parents place is in the wrong regardless of the situation.
The op is posting on here about the fact her child has been abused at school - something the school isn't even disputing and is in fact supporting. And all some people can say is 'the kids must have been really naughty for him to do that!' Absolutely disgusting!

We must be reading different threads, then bluemirror.
Not sure how you've arrived at that conclusion.

It doesn’t matter what the children did, punishing them by sitting them outside most likely in shorts in near freezing temps for 1 hr 15 mins is not an acceptable punishment.
The coach could have ended the session text parents and said come collect the children.
He could even have had them do laps, exercises to instil discipline.
Even better, he could have waited until the end and spoken to all the parents together and said “they did this please can you explain to your children why this is not acceptable behaviour. I will be speaking to HT.”

BlueMirror you are spot on. This was not a reasonable way to deal with bad behaviour. Our local professional football club provides coaching at our school as part of their community outreach programme. When my ds was in year 6, a number of pupils behaved really badly in one session. He completed the session and informed their parents if they were picking them up. He then rang the school, told them what happened and named the culprits. Those children were severely reprimanded by the HT, told to apologise and not allowed to play for the school in the next match. That's how you handle it.

Has anyone on here said that that was an acceptable thing for him to do?
I don't recall that they have.
It's appalling, and the school needs to act upon it.
As a SIDE ISSUE, parents need to acknowledge that SOMETIMES their child's account of an exchange between them and a teacher/other adult, isn't always quite as it's reported.

Lots of people get medals for doing their jobs. usually when they go above and beyond the call of duty. I don't think coaching a football team made up of preteen boys, when that is your chosen career fits going above and beyond.

FitBit this is why I believe in naming and shaming. When there's a blanket telling off to the whole group, some kids and parents will kid themselves that it doesn't apply to them. Name the culprits and specify what they've done.
Last season my ds's rugby coaches refused to run midweek training because the behaviour had been so bad. I was mortified and emailed to ask what ds had done. The coach said, no he wasn't one of the culprits. Ds told me who were the worst behaved and I guarantee, having known them for years, the parents won't suspect a thing as they think their kids are angels. Meanwhile my ds missed training despite doing nothing wrong.

My ds trains twice a week after school and it has been around that temperature with a wind chill making it feel much worse over the past few weeks.
The child had been sat for over an hour not moving in clothes designed to keep him cool running around.
I ask people again would it be ok far a parent to sit their child in a cold garden in January for over an hour in shorts for giving them cheek? Would people be concentrating on the 'side issue' of the poor parent having to put up with their child checking them? Talk about not being able to see the wood for the trees...

Of course it wouldn't be OK. Why do you keep asking that? No one has said it would be.

Because no-one had answered it.
It would be abuse at home and it's abuse at school. There are posters on here going on about this poor man having to put up with cheeky behaviour.
And going on about whether the child is lying about how severe the bad behaviour is implies there's a level of bad behaviour where that kind of punishment becomes acceptable. There isn't.

Yes and a parent who made their child sit in shorts for time out in a zoo for best part of 90 mins in cold January weather as a punishment would also be abusive!