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?

Suits me, I don't see much point in engaging with someone so blinkered either.

And there's the flounce I mentioned before.

Not read the full thread.

I have to say though, if my son said “well this is awkward” in the context that your son did, I would be bloody cross with him.

It’s interesting, this kind of punishment (being left in the cold) in response to rudeness - no one would bat an eye in the private school system. All part of “character building”!

If you've noticed Pengggwn around you will have learnt to ignore her.

OP

wrt the coach always being on his phone.
At our school there is a phone policy, and teachers, support staff and visitors are not expected to have their phones out in class. In fact parents who help out in class are supposed to hand them in when they arrive.

The fact that the coach is on his phone is probably going right against the schools phone policy, and is in itself a safeguarding issue. There is the risk that he is photographing the kids for example.

I've always had to leave before P has flounced before, I didn't know that happened! That woman has stamina! I feel a lot less despondent knowing that she occasionally does quit a thread.

Honorable hari kiri would seem to be your only option, @Pengggwn.

Just stop posting would be an option, no need to announce it.

Y Y, you had the last word Peng. Byyee.

Pengggwn

Don’t make an announcement and just stop posting.

That would have done the trick.

Wow, my eyes and my head hurts from reading all this. I hope all goes well at the meeting today GlassesOn and i hope its a positive outcome.

Well that was an interesting read! Hope the meeting has gone well OP.

I would make a formal complaint. I also wouldn’t be getting my child to write an apology at this point. I’m normally not at all in favour of parents making school staffs job harder but they have handled this really badly. It’s important to me that my children know I will support the school as long as they are reasonable. No one has my unconditional support.

I think the key to persistent behaviour though is that there is a time period where it can be addressed. If parents are paying a lot of money but aren't being made aware their kids behaviour is becoming such that it's likely the school may ban them from the trip then there's a massive communication issue and the parents will be rightly upset.

This is a very good point on the last page ( sorry between copying and pasting I've forgotten posters name) which I think i would be bringing up in the meeting OP.

GlassesOn
It sounds like you're getting somewhere.
When i see posters like you listening to a range of advice and then raising concerns in a reasonable manner it makes me want to start a board on MN called 'Examples where reasonable parents have raised reasonable concerns appropriately' and us teachers on here could just copy and paste a link any time we get the usual school nonsense threads where its all:
I am fuming. I ak going to ofsted
you go girl. I'd make sure they were sacked
few posters - umm hi maybe be a bit more reasonable, be open to the idea you might not have the whole story and then try talking to the school reasonably. In our experience it gets a better resolution
eugh some people are think nobody should ever challenge teachers. I am SO glad my children don't get taught by you. That's it ypu can raise concerns but only ig you grovel
few posters - nope. We are just saying be polite, reasonable and appropriate whilst being aware there is a chance that your DC wasn't giving a detention for just asking for a ruler
mob continues to target anyone who is a teacher

I do think a single incident can be enough to cancel someone's place on a trip. There are many things which would leave me as staff saying 'i am not prepared to be in loco parentis for this child because x y z'.

Being disruptive at a football session wouldn't be it.

If it's a case of 'coach says there are ongoing issues and this was the final straw' then with my teacher hat on I would say the coach had a professional duty to inform you of concerns well before it hit this point

Hopefully the head is pointing this out to the coach.

I think the coach is the son of the HT's friend! Sleeping together? It doesn't make sense HT's reaction!!!

Jedimum1
It depends.
I've certainly given a very measured response to parents when there have been issues with staff. If there are known issues we have to be very careful.

No doubt some of those parents probably bitched about my handling of it (teaching and progress issue) but it wouldn't have been professional to go into details about a colleague with the parents, nor would it have been approrpiate to disclose the fact we knew already there were issues and it's across the teacher's classes. Lots was done to support and help. In the end we didn't renew their contract but everything had to be by the book.

Sometimes I think parents expect more information or details about specifics than it would be reasonable or professional for us to release.

Being that middle person between a memeber of staff anf parents with complaints is a tricky situation to navigate well.

Fucksake Peng - what the hell do you want?

Total abasement at the feet of every teacher and unquestioning obedience, from my reading of her posts.

I think people are going after pengg unfairly on here and it'e becoming quite a nasty, personal witch hunt with mob mentality. It's quite unpleasant.

It's one thing to disagree with someone, it's quite another for a pile on suggesting someone wants children to be deemed as perpetual liars who should never be listened to at all on anything.

Agree with you, MaisyPops. Whilst, from what I've seen of her on MN generally, I think Peng can probably fight her own battles, I also think there have been some vile comments aimed at her in this thread.