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?

Maisie, you've left your sense of humour in bed this morning.

falmer
Probably. It is early after all. I need before I can function (not that it will improve my fat fingers(.

More amused with the idea that after giving perfectly reasonable advice about 6 times, now limited is trying their ebst to make it personal.

I don't really see what problen there can be with:
If an issue happens in a school and you need clarification or to raise a concern, contact the school.
Trying to claim from a few lines in a newsletter thay no child's care plan is followed, it's discrimination to some parents and that there's some sort of sector wide conspiracy which needs shedding lighy on is a bit daft.

Falmer
Scraap that! Because this thread had been so reasonable, when i came back this morning to it suddenly being personal, i qctually thought it was the ridiculous thread I was on yesterday.

Did someone say more

MaisyPops I wasn't specifically talking about any case you might mention or know of, I was talking more generally and I don't think there would need to be a show. Teachers get it wrong sometimes, big deal because they are human. I have known teachers who would get really defensive if a child pointed out that they made an error, maybe a spelling mistake or numbers transposed. I have known other teachers who would say, "Well spotted, have a sticker/house point or whatever"

I just think the second is better for everyone. I think the teachers who get defensive about that sort of thing come across as weak.

In the OPs case it is obvious this wasn't dealt with well, how great would it be if the Head said, "Your son shouldn't have been called a liar, he shouldn't have been left out in the cold and he didn't deserve another punishment. We will look at what went wrong." The Head has sort of admitted some of it and tried to defend others e.g. he wasn't called a liar but was lying." Just makes the Head look weak/silly and the parent roll their eyes.

The positive thing is that OPs son wasn't lying, he put his hands up to the giggling and talking and there wasn't anything terrible being covered up so well done to him.

granny
How did no one notice?
Perhaps it was a small and crowed pool like dds School pool. Or perhaps it was deep. Idk. Very sad.

MrsAdorable
That’s a really awful.

MrsBoys - I have just read up on it and now know what my friends wife has as she was fitted a pacemaker. Wow our bodies are complex!

Mummyoflittledragon I honestly don't know. It wasn't a small pool, 20 m or 25 m long I think (just going on memory for when kids did badges.) It wasn't very deep, well not at the end they were, I would say the average 5 or 6 year old could stand up in it at the shallow end so not one of those where you walk in like a beach (don't know if there is a name for that) and they took them swimming from 8. It must be incredibly rare but obviously not impossible. It wasn't the school pool by the way, it was a public pool.

My kids were all swimming early and good swimmers but it is still a worry. When my DD was pulled into a pool by one of her bullies it made me really angry that a teacher stood and watched that. If the Chair of Governors hadn't been there would it have been another unexplained tragedy?

Woah, back up everybody, OP - he lost a year 3 child and didn't know? The school haven't done anything? He was in kids club and they didn't realise he shouldn't be? Bloody hell I hope he's your youngest, and you escape this school this year. It sounds horrendous.

Yes Pig it's appalling isn't it.
Shadow using the phone as a stopwatch isn't a suitable excuse. There's a complete ban on mobiles for good reasons. I need a timer for my work occasionally and I get one from the maths resource cupboard because I respect the rule and understand why it's there.

Yes, the 2 serious incidents and yet he's allowed to continue coaching at OP's school! Don't get it?

I hope that parent is following it up. I couldn't let that go.

Oops sorry, just reread your post OP and she is. I don't think they can talk themselves out of that one.

Is there any point when a school has to report themselves to OFSTED or wherever for safeguarding issues?

Think they already have Pig because he's still coaching there. It's an insult!

It's truly shocking. I think I'd have to fill that mum in about what happened to your sons group OP so that she is aware you and others have already raised concerns about this coach, if she decides to take her complaint higher she has the information that the headteacher has brushed off concerns previously.

grannytomine
But there is a big difference between it's being reasonable to expect some sort of public sharing of information and a teacher making a mistake in a lesson

Today I was both convinced it was Wednesday and still January until p2 A student corrected me. We apl had a laugh at my mistake. All good.

Totally different to having a situation with a struggling colleague in a large secondary school and saying to a parent of a y8 student 'yes that teacher isn't handling student behaviour well' because the outcome there (in my experience) is parnet tells child, child tells friends and by 48 hours time kids in y11 who were already being PITA for that teacher say 'but apparently Mr Brown even told Sammy' mum that you can't control us'. Therefore one very reasonable concern about classroom management has now snowballed and is an issue in multiple classes with students saying they're going to get the teacher sacked/het their mum ij etc.

That's my point. Sometimes it's simply not appropriate to go into details.

The entire situation in the OP's case is a mess. I always think that what we see isn'r always what's going on behind closed doors.

granny
Assumedly there was a lifeguard then. That’s frightening. The swim teacher at dds school also doubles up as a lifeguard. A child sinking could easily be walked over dds small pool and not seen, I wouldn’t have thought that possible in a municipal pool.

That’s terrible. I hope the child was severely reprimanded. Water is extremely dangerous.

pigflew one of my very good friends is going to fill in the mum of the year 3 child of my dealings with the coach and check if she made a complaint (my friend has a child in year 3 and year 6).

Yes, it's my last child in this primary school thankfully, as all this business has dented my confidence in how the school deals with situations such as mine. 6 months to go.....

glasseson that's good that your friend can fill her in.
I would have lost confidence in the school too, and double checking every arrangement from now on

Maisy I think there is some misunderstanding between what I was thinking and how you have taken it. I don't think I suggested anyone else disclosing information about the teacher/coach. I was talking about teachers themselves accepting they get it wrong, like you did with the date. Some teachers see a child pointing out a mistake as being cheeky and I don't think that is reasonable.

If you thought I wanted information about the teacher who pushed my son into the locker then I can assure you I didn't. The rumour at school was he had a breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, I do hope that was kids making things up but I have no idea and never tried to find out even though I did know one of the teachers outside school so could have asked, of course they could have refused to answer but I wouldn't have asked anyway.

Mummoflittledragson, it was terrible and no one ever worked out how it happened or why.

With my own DD it is a sore point, she had a teacher who was very supportive of the girls who bullied my DD, told my daughter she had to be understanding as they were unhappy so no the girl concerned never got told off. I really think that when I get to my death bed the only person I will have ill feelings for are that teacher.

granny
Yes. I think I got thr wrong end of the stick.

I do think staff should generally dmit when they've made a mistake. Our studentd hate staff who refuse to accepy tiny mistakes.

I don't think schools should feel obliged to give information about staff if something is being followed up.

It sounds like we are on thr same page

Yes Maisy, I thought we were.

sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you'd grouped disclosing mistakes and what was happening with colleagues in with admitting day to day mistakes.

That's OK, we've sorted it now which is good.