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?

OnionKnight, Why is she "meant to be working?" She might be part-time.

It's very concerning, if Pengggwn is indeed a teacher.

I think that MaisyPops has it when she says that she is charitable when it comes to children's replies.

I think that most teachers are, but (yes there it is) all issues/complaints tend to be investigated and the truth is something that some parents are not prepared to accept.

I have met with some very irate parents that have been told half truths about what has gone on, in most cases the truth comes out when the child is faced by both their parent and the teacher.

But then I have seen children continue to lie when they have seen video footage of themselves doing wrong.

It should never be automatically be assumed that a child is lying but then the same should be said for the teacher.

It should always be about finding out the truth and this can be done without keyboard warriors shouting ofsted, governors, or go to the papers to inflame the situation.

You need a full account from the coach of what happened and why the style of punishment was imposed. The Head too needs to provide an account of why he feels the actions taken by the coach were appropriate and why he feels justified in cancelling the trials. If nothing forthcoming take to Governors or L.A.Education Service. Seems coach has issues in controlling the boys and applying poor discipline. There should be guidelines for what should happen if coachng is cancelled or cut short for safety of children

Forget the HT go to governors this really is a safety issue if the kids are supposed to be in the care of an adult for a certain time and the parents are not told that this care stops before the alloted time then they are putting the children at risk. As for charging for the care of a child who was "abandoned" by a teacher no way should you be charged. I would go down the lack of care and safety of your child by a responsible adult. Really the chair of governors should be pulling up a teacher who disappears leaving young students when they were entrusted with their care

*BlockRockinBeats

Reading some of the teachers' attitudes towards safeguarding and punishment on this thread, it is no wonder people like Jimmy Saville and Cyril Smith were allowed to get away with horrific child abuse for so long. If some people in authority automatically assume a child is lying and the teacher is right, what hope do children have of speaking out and being listened to? The trust is gone. What a message to be sending out! Have no lessons been learned at all from past events where children's voices were ignored?*

@BlockRockinBeats I posted something very similar a few pages back and was told “DFO” by Pengwyyn. I just shook my head and decided not to respond.

Love your username, by the way :)

Thank you BoneyBackJefferson

I also have had to deal with similar situations to what you've outlined.
It should never be automatically be assumed that a child is lying but then the same should be said for the teacher.

It should always be about finding out the truth and this can be done withoutkeyboard warriorsshouting ofsted, governors, or go to the papers to inflame the situation.
This ^^

What irritates me sometimes lots on school threads is that there's always some people who are so busy enjoying having something to fume about that they love to think they are some kind of radical who doesn't have to follow procedure.
So instead of 'speak to the coach / class teacher / head of dept /head / other approrpiate person' to start with, it's all turn up and DEMAND a meeting with the head!! What a disgrace. I'd be complaining to thr governors. No i'd go to the CHAIR of the governing body. That'll make it seem like you are really serious. When you complain make sure you make it very clear you will be going to Ofsted if it isn't resolved in a way you are happy with (and usually that means a witch hunt against a member if staff). Club together with other parents and have a united front after all if there's more of you then it's 6 against 1. Contact ofsted now because that will force them to bring the inspection forward and it'll mean the school has a black mark. Thry won't want that.
Aka people talking complete and utter nonsense on how to resolve an issue.

Same when people say 'be mindful that it is possible students can underplay their actions' turns into This is worrying. This is EXACTLY how child absue happens. No wonder some children hate school when there's people there who seem to forget how Jimmy saville got away with it.
Aka. Abandoning all common sense and trying to whip things up.

Neither are terribly helpful in terms of getting a resolution and it's all too easy to sit being fuming abd whipping up anger/going for the shock factor when you're sat behind a screen and the situation doesn't affect you.

Yeah, I think bringing up Jimmy Saville was beyond the pale.

The point with the saville comparisons are that dismissing what a child says and assuming the adult is telling the truth has had disastrous consequences in the past.

goodbyehollyjane
But doing it in a tasteless and sensationalist way which has little to no relevance to the OP's situation.

Suggesting that teachers being aware that kids can (and do) minimise their own behaviour when in trouble is absolutely in no way shape or form saying 'i would ignore a child who made a safeguarding disclosure' nor is it saying 'i would ignore other signs of abuse or neglect'.

I think the coach handled the situation badly. I think a complaint needs to go in about the operational oversight of this club. I think there need to be clear procedures in place.

But you don't get that by bringing up jimmy saville, going for shock tactics, saying go straight to ofsted, advocating a mob approach against a member of staff etc (all things people have advocated on this thread).

Allegations of abuse are completely different to ‘I wasn’t giggling, only Sam was’, and you know it.

But this post isn’t about one child giggling when the other was. It’s about something rather more serious that might not be sexually abusive but is certainly inappropriate.

Allegations of abuse are completely different to ‘I wasn’t giggling, only Sam was’, and you know it.
This.

And unfortunately there hits a point on quite a lot of school threads where actually helping the OP get a resolution goes out the window in favour of keyboard warriors trying to whip up a fuming mob (who thrn eventually turn on anyone claiming to be a teacher who tries in vain to point out a way to actually resolve the issue).

Issues can and should be raised.
They should be handled properly (likr thr OP is doing)
Trying to go for shock tactics and bringing in other things just to sjock or anger people doesn't help get a resolution.

goodbyehollyjane
So needs to be investigated properly with due procedures, not having people going 'yeah but jimmy saville' on the internet.

It's like the example i gave last week where a student claimed i had taken half their lunch off them so they didn't eat. I took 3 minutes and then they chose to go for a walk.
If the coach has said 'you are going to sit there outside for the hour' then that's not on in my opinion. If he's said part wya through the session 'i can't do this session whilst you are being silly, igniring instructions and not listening. Everyone sit on thr benches and once you've calmed down i'll begin' and then the students chose to continue being silly on thr benches then it'w entirely their doing that they didn't get back ti playing. He needed them sensible to train them. If tjry chose to sit there laughing or mucking around then that's their doing. They can't then say 'sir made us sit there for an hour because we ONLY laughed'.

As I mentioned earlier, I was a child accused of lying about a teacher and was punished for it, and it was something thst has stayed with me all my adult life.
The feeling of powerlessness and shock still comes back to me.
The teacher who didn't believe me in that case was a nice bloke otherwise and I'm sure he would probably say exactly what youre saying.

Most of us do understand that it is bloody hard being a teacher, and that children do frequently lie and it's damned difficult. We know you're human and get it wrong some times.

But having otherwise lovely teachers assume we're lying because kids do sometimes has had devastating consequences for both me and other posters, and it would be nice if the teachers on this thread could quit being so defensive and understand why we feel so strongly about this.

It's not just the past either. I'd like to be able to have confidence that if my son went to a teacher today and told the truth, he wouldn't be punished for it.

I genuinely thought the culture of not believing kids had changed. This thread is making me lose faith in that and that is profoundly upsetting.

Oh and this is really not just about abuse allegations. Children remember the little injustices the ones that you probably think on balance aren't inconsequential and not being believed on the little things makes it even harder for them to speak up about the big stuff.

We do get that it's hard and kids do lie, but there are consequences here. I know. I've felt them.

No, it's really, really not.

Believing a child when they tell you something - especially if they're visibly upset - is not that difficult.