Private coach cancelled school match

[oshitradio]

AIBU to be annoyed that my DC’s private badminton coach emailed his school PE teacher to cancel DS’s attendance at a school match without speaking to DS or us first? He runs a popular badminton club and has no connection with ds's school whatsoever.

The coach has scheduled a special training session at our badminton club and expected DS to help coach some of the younger players. We hadn’t yet decided whether DS would attend his school match or help at the club as the timings overlapped, both straight after school.

His coach actually went ahead and emailed the school to say DS wouldn’t be playing at the school badminton match, without checking with either DS or me beforehand.

Is your son playing at county level and considering a career in badminton? Or is this all at club level?

In my experience, the counties run fantastic training programmes, are very professional in managing youngsters, and there would not be a clash like this. If he's not yet involved, but keen, find out if your local county holds open trials early in September.

If he is staying at club level, I too would be considering whether to continue with this coach. You need to talk to the coach about the fact that for your son school takes priority and that you will be letting them know that. But talk too about the coaching that your son is expected to do with the youngsters. Is he being paid? How often will it be? Does he need a form commitment to a certain number of sessions a year, and how far in advance? Is there opportunity to gain coaching qualifications (if this would be of interest to your son).

A quick word with whomever he emailed at school (reception?) would be a good idea too, once you have sorted out the variables.

And finally, depending on how old your son is, have a chat to him too! Depending on how old he is, he will need to learn to manage some of this himself soon.

Hth

As a sports coach for young people it is very concerning that he does not realise that this behaviour is innapropriate and has such little awareness of safeguarding. The school will have disregarded the email as he, as a coach, has no parental responsibility! Why would he not also be aware of this? Would he allow unvetted adults access to children he is coaching?

I wouldn't be letting my child anywhere near a coach who behaved like that

And I would be reporting the coach to their regulatory body or employer

He needs to hire someone else to coach the younger kids ask him not to do this again and inform him you we’re still making a decision on which event your son was attending. Your teen had another commitment that day it was his /your choice which to attend and that’s really concerning that this Man did that. Is he a narcissist? Regardless he was massively overstepping to get his own way I would not let him do this again. Also speak to school and inform them that they should have disregarded this email he has no rights to change plans for your child they were also at fault and should have returned his email telling him he doesn't have any rights to make that decision.

That's outrageous.
I'd contact the school and tell them what happened and that all decisions about whether your DS will attend school events or not are to be made by you and that they should (as they indeed did) ignore any correspondance from the badminton coach because he does not have authority to act on your behalf like that.
I would think that a match for the school should take priority over a training session by the coach where your DS was being expected to coach others rather than being trained himself.
And then you need to talk to the coach about it. He massively overstepped the mark and it mustn't happen again. I don't care what his reasons were.

Why would you say this signals lack of awareness of safeguarding?

He's claiming responsibility that he doesn't have. He is making decisions for the child without parental involvement. He's claiming to have authority over a child that he doesn't have. He's witholding information about the child, their activities and their location from their parents.

Simply making arrangements to have the child in one location when his parents think he will be another should flag an investigation by the governing body child safety officer.
There's a lot of safeguarding red flags there.

He has no more authority to tell school what your DS is doing than I have.

A member of the public contacted the school and tried to make arrangements for child when they have no authority to do so.

What did the school do? I've seen you said they didn't respond to the coach, but that it created an awkward situation for DS, in what way?

My concerns would be a) did school do anything that indicated they were taking the email as a legitimate instruction? Did they take him off the list for the match or anything? Because it could have been anyone, making any arrangement and if they either don't have a policy of only taking instructions from authorised adults / didn't follow that policy it's a worry.

B) the coach absolutely overstepped. He has no authority to make those arrangements with school - even if you had agreed and told him so, it would need to come from you and not him. It's worrying that he thinks school would listen to him. That would make me wonder if he would act on instructions from random people regarding the children when they're with him.

For instance, if a random person turned up and told him 'I'm Freddy's new piano teacher, I'm collecting him today because he's got a lesson now' would he just cheerily wave Freddy off without a care?

It shows such poor judgement that I would have concerns over the coaches ability to make appropriate decisions regarding safeguarding

How did this situation work out OP? Hope the coach received some consequences?

Does your DS want to coach or play in the school match? He gets to choose.

You can thank the school for letting you know and confirm that either.. yes, he is pulling out of the school match or no, his original commitment stands.

With the coach:

Mike, there seems to be a misunderstanding on your part. DS has committed to the school match and wishes to honour his commitment. He would love to coach the younger players and if there is a future opportunity, I think he will be very keen. In future, please let me know if there is a conflict and I will communicate directly to school. If you need to talk to me about this, you can call me. I would hesitate to put in the first communication that he has overstepped. But if he responds defensively, I would ask for a call with him and tell him that it was inappropriate to contact school on your behalf.

That is crazy not his place at all and worrying he felt that was ok.

i don’t know what your schools policy but ours make it a strong policy that school teams take priority. If he was playing for county or country they would consider but you couldn’t miss a match to train other kids my child would be in trouble for this. Saturdays although they no longer run formal lessons they make it clear it is still a formal school day and if your presence is required for a match you need to be there there is no choosing between events.

Speaking as both a coach and a parent I agree with everyone else - that is completely unreasonable.
My son was on his sport's national governing body's talent pathway when he was at school and there were times when his coach asked him to drop out of school or club commitments, in circumstances like the run up to big events or if she was concerned about a niggling injury. There was definitely an expectation that in sports terms the talent pathway would be his priority and if I recall rightly there was something in the agreement he and I signed to that effect. But there was also recognition of the fact that he was still a kid with other interests and commitments and all discussions about what he should and shouldn't be doing were held with him, and if necessary, me. There is absolutely no way that his coach would have contacted his school or club directly, certainly not without our permission.
A coach doing that is a massive overstep and suggests to me that he is unclear about the extent of his role.

This 💯

It is completely inappropriate for him to have done that. Does the club have safeguarding policies in place?

Because this is an adult who,presumably, does not have any responsibility for your child that school are aware of. He could be anybody trying to access your child. As a coach of children the coach should be aware of how this could be taken. Did school contact you to inform you of this email, or ask about it? Apologies if you've already answered that question.

Does he have your son's phone number?
Also how old is your son?

I would speak to the coach saying it was inappropriate for him to do that citing the awkward situation if needs be. Although you are all very flattered that he wishes your son to be there, remind him that you are his parents and as such it is your place to make such decisions and handle such matters.

Would a childminder keep a child from school without consulting the parents? In short no. This is the same thing in essence!

Oh dear lord. Conflicted avoidant and lack of understanding that what he has done is a safeguarding matter…

you are the parent, yes conflict is not pleasant but are you seriously telling me that to avoid an awkward conversation you’re not prepared to challenge this, quite frankly, outlandish behaviour of the coach. The coach knew what they were doing because you seemed to also be dithering about making a decision - so the coach has, unacceptably made it for you.

youve now said that your child is in an awkward position with the school. Why? This could have been solved simply.

im assuming you have spoken to the school to clarify and the coach to tell them they have massively overstepped and your son should now do the school activity?