The school that prefers to lose sports matches – UPDATED

 Thu 12:15 pm +01:00, 5 Oct 2023  18

posted by Tapestry

My son attends a private school where he was complaining about a teacher hitting him, kicking him and dragging him by the collar, as well as shouting at him.  I told him that next time the teacher does this , to stand back and shout at him ‘you kicked me’ or ‘you hit me’ in front of his classmates.  It is the sports teacher or  Sports Director actually, and witnessed by twenty other boys, he attacked again the very next day, and my son duly carried out his instruction to complain and refuse to take part further in whatever was going on.

We filed a complaint with the school immediately.

They said they would investigate but first would report the incident to the Local Authority who decided not to investigate after two days without speaking to us.

The school investigation took place a week later and my son was put through several meetings with the accused teacher present at each, profusely apologising, and we were told the school thought that the incident was accidental, or rather unintentional.  We were asked not to talk about it again, and we wrote to the teacher accepting his version of events to let our son have some peace as he was looking very worn down and depressed by all the meetings, held without proper support for him.

We were assured that there would be changes by the Deputy Head, and that we need not worry about further assaults on our son.  What more could we ask for?

Since then, there have been no further assaults, but there has been continued shouting at pupils on a regular basis from the same teacher, and we have noticed our son being strangely dropped from sports teams usually after a brilliant performance.  He was dropped from the school football A team, and the cricket B team in the summer.   This seems to be connected to a general anti-boy pupil policy by the school, which gives girls priority over boys in many ways.   But in sport, the better the boys are at their sport the less likely they are to get into the school team.

I warned the headmaster what was going to happen when my son was dropped with two other talented players as the school’s first team is generally weak.  I predicted a loss of at least 5-0 in the next game when I saw the Head at morning drop-off.  In fact they lost 7-0.  The team entered a contest at Shrewsbury School two days later, played 6 matches and conceded 20 goals to zero in the day.  Next match was lost 8-0.  That’s 34 goals conceded in a week versus zero!!!!!

The year before in the Under 11’s the school made the Final, and won a competition at another school.

Similar things are going on in cricket.  My son scored fifty runs and bowled a hat trick, taking four wickets in two overs hitting stumps (only two overs per bowler).  Next match he was demoted from the Bs to the Cs when he was wondering if his performances might put him into the As.

In football, he played in the Under 13 A team aged 11, when they won the match 2-1 and he was mysteriously dropped the next game, along with two other boys who were among the stronger players.  Why?  It was a crazy decision, which since then gives the B team easy victories every match and the A team gets hammered.  The As are endlessly depressed while the Bs have games that are too easy and can be a bit boring

My son is actually relieved not to be in the A team as he says there is no shouting from the coach in the B team and it’s actually fun, and there is always shouting from the Director and no one can relax or laugh.  He says the games though are a bit boring, especially as he’s been demoted as regards position.

The Director is also the one who chooses the positions on field.  And he’s put my son as a fullback when he is  normally a fast left winger.  He’s put the striker at left wing and they normally work as a pair.  And they score time and again.   Now there is effectively no left wing and the team attacks on the right or down the middle, with no one far enough forward on the left.  If there was the victories would be even bigger than they are.

I am at a loss to understand what is going on, and I can find no rationale which makes any sense.   The Director has to stop the Bs winning too easily, I suppose, or his system of reversing the teams won’t work well and people will start talking.  Whatever it’s all about, no one has any idea.  The Bs tell me they would defeat the As but the Head of Sport never arranges a game like that for obvious reasons.

In his club my son is acknowledged by the coach as the best player in his year, winning man of the match over and over.  I’m a parent.  I’m allowed to say it like it is.

I have spoken to other parents.  It seems there is a pattern to the teacher’s behaviour, with star performers barred from playing for the school.

One told me her elder son never played even once for the school’s first team despite being possibly the best player in  the school.  He and his father pleaded with the Director asking what he needed to do to be chosen.  At Shrewsbury School he went straight into the school side (100 boys in a year against 25 at Prestfelde) and has played there ever since.  It seems we are not alone.

A hockey player at the school right now has been selected to play for Shropshire but has yet to be given a game for the school.  His family cannot understand why and are also asking what more they need to do to be chosen.  There is definitely a pattern in the Director blocking people who could win games.  He is the only one I’ve ever come across in my longish life who does this – a freak.  I checked out with a colleague of his from his former school Birchfield and they said he was exactly the same there, running only with a group of favourites, and no one else got a look-in.  This person knew him extremely well.

The role he plays at the school leaves scars.  Old boys I have played cricket with for Shrewsbury Cricket Club say things like ‘I hate Mr X’ (5c years after leaving the school) or ‘Mr X hates kids’  and ‘Mr X has no common sense’ and ‘No one likes Mr X’, although strangely my son says he is a good classroom teacher with biology, but goes mental when it comes to sports.  He is obviously not of low intelligence so you can’t say he doesn’t realise what he’s doing.

Maybe those in the favoured sporting inner circle think he’s wonderful.  I’ve no idea.  It can’t be much fun losing 34 goals to nil in a week.  It will be interesting to observe how he moves from here.

Prove me wrong in the comments below.

We agreed to be part of a cover up when asked to keep quiet about the physical assault, in order to protect our son from more ‘meetings’ and we agreed to not talk about what happened, as long as the abuse stopped.

In my opinion it hasn’t stopped and we are again concerned at the situation.  Barring players from teams without justifiable reason is abuse.  Putting them to play in wrong positions to stop them scoring goals is another form of abuse.  All the boys are suffering from the situation with As having to face heavy defeats week in, week out.  B team oppositions find the team far too strong and I feel sorry for them.  One or two in the B team seem happy to be winning matches.

If you recognise anyone anything in this text, you are entitled to tell me I’m wrong or add your thoughts in the comments below.

To try and give this story a happy ending, here is my son singing and playing keyboard.  He’s got two more years at this school, as he likes the music staff and all other teachers, has many friends and doesn’t want to leave despite the freak show going on in the sports arena.  He describes the situation as ‘being in jail’.   Isn’t that where one of the staff ought to be?  He says ‘I’m in jail, but it’s my fault Dad as I choose to stay at the school’.

(Please let it end!)

I’ve been invited to a meeting next Thursday at 4pm by the school, and will see what the school has to say then.

I see silence as the most dangerous course of action when dealing with abuse against children, and of course silence is all the school wants.

The bully is gaining in confidence, and is re-establishing himself after the investigations fade away from his memory.  He is failing in his duty to put up sensible teams into competition, and seems to be attempting to inflict more damage on children to boot in his usual manner, albeit at this stage, that it’s more psychological than it used to be.  Psychological is sometimes worse for the victim than physical, as I can testify from schooldays long ago.  You can get over being hit fairly quickly (depending on the severity of course) but not constant manipulation designed to break your confidence.

Vigilance at the school seems poor, and supervision is not apparent.

Do they even think they have a problem?

I’ll find out next week.

UPDATE AFTER MEETING

The Deputy Head of the school told me that my son would not be selected if he had to choose the top eleven football players in the school.  He added that he considered I was not treating him with respect.  As he was the primary leader of the fake enquiry into the Head Of Sports’ abuse of my son, I informed him to consider the anger that abuse of a child creates in a parent.  He seemed unmoved.

Prestfelde does not need this mistake to go on any longer.

Our family has kept quiet for a year.  We are not going to be quiet any longer.

Sean is not leaving the school.  He will be there nearly two more years by his own choice.  My lawyer tells me not to bring legal action against a school where my son is happy..

In the picture below (removed after family request) he is looking happy after the tournament when he scored nine goals in one morning in July 2023, when his team yet again won a series.

Hello Prestfelde?  Apparently not interested….

UPDATE 2 – Saturday –  Happy days.  A glimmer of hope.  A different teacher took control of today’s Under 12s game, thankfully.  He is younger and has no freakery about him.  Sean was back at left wing, and they won another game of football – as is the norm – this time at 5-3.  He was taken off for two minutes and in that time the oppo scored 2 goals.  He was brought straight back on after the second goal to launch an immediate reply score.  Yes I’m biased as a parent but how many times does it happen that the opposition scores when he’s subbed off?

 

UPDATE 3 –  Thanks for all the messages of support.  None of an opposite persuasion.  Some are very supportive indeed saying the story is well explained.  One or two parents are very angry indeed.

The problem will be if the school digs in and can’t understand what the situation is.  They live in a different reality where parental viewpoints are sidelined, while their minds have been reframed to the point that they accept the unacceptable.

We are accused of being the ones having wrong perception.

It is they who have no grasp on what is really happening.

Or the school secretly approves of psycho abuse especially of boys.  It does seem to be the case.

I know of no girl sports stars blocked from teams.

In the playground girls rarely or never get detentions.  They can assault or annoy a boy (cunningly so no one sees it).  He retaliates and the boy cops it. Same in the classroom.  There has to be a reason for all of this.  Some teachers never discipline girls but hand out detentions to boys with regularity.  It’s like they want the boys humiliated in every way they can think of.

The school symbol is the four corners of heaven, same as Starbucks cafe has, and some others, which signifies the Pleiades.  That’s where the reptilians are said to come from……..

As for the phallic sword through the ring, you couldn’t make a better representation of anal rape if you tried.

 

The worst thing of all of this is that Sean a tiny boy of 11 stood up to his abuser with enormous courage, shouted back at him, and told his parents what was happening, but then the school covered up.  They never invited us his parents to come into the school and give our side of the story, then or since.  They dragged him through meeting after meeting with his abuser, until he caved in.  The headmaster seems a nice man but he is so far showing little strength, as yet, in dealing with all of this, and I have explained to him what I believe to be going on.  He should have got rid of the abuser instantly.  The fact that the Headmaster and Deputy Head Teacher covered up the abuse and protected the abuser is to their eternal shame, as I told them.  The Head was very new in position.  Maybe he knows more than he has so far admitted to knowing.  I still feel some trust for him as a person, but not for many others in this situation.

This is a Church Of England school and the church after all are the experts in stopping exposure of what’s going on abuse wise.

The lesson for the headmaster is if a child has the courage to speak out about abuse, don’t use all the tricks in the book to crush him down again.   Don’t do what your employers hiding in the background are telling you to do.  Follow your own instincts as to what is right or wrong.  Put your job on the line to protect the children in your care, not your salary or any staff who have become perpetrators.  Don’t obey evil that hides in the shadows.  Headmasters and headmistresses  are appointed by people that hide.  They are chosen for their weakness as much as their strengths so the networks that abuse children can prey using teachers that are carefully allowed into place.  The parents trust the nice smiling face that meets them every day at the school, but they only work for others who they never see.

Sadly Sean’s headmaster got it wrong, so far, and he needs to shape up.   He is possibly being naive as to the depth of evil that is all around him.  For him this could turn into a tragedy.

The Headmistress of my other son’s school had it right.  I asked her how she saw her role.  My job, she said, a Catholic nun in her eighties heading up another church school, is to keep the paedophiles away, she said.  Keep them at bay, and let the children play.  That school was the most successful that I’ve ever known, and she took no shit from anybody.

The rest are riddled with a core of secretly abusive and pedo teachers, or even headteachers.

A teacher at Prestfelde was netted by a Police Online Child Porn Operation a few years ago, and was dismissed.

BBC NEWS | Education | School ‘had checked’ child porn case teacher

Many of the school heads are regular family men and women who often have absolutely no idea as to how the pedo networks operate.  The music teacher at Sean’s last school was trying his luck too, abusing him with humiliation (handing sweets to every child except him and making dance as a ballerina in front of his classmates while they laughed at him – sick or what.  He won the school All Star singing competition, but was the only child not asked to perform again for the Seniors) and barring him from the choir and other musical opportunities, but luckily we got him out of there and at least at Prestfelde he is now allowed to sing, and is properly encouraged.  This is simply a pattern we see now, especially abuse against boys designed to keep their confidence low, and we know exactly what we are up against.   Wise up parents.  Your children are not as safe as you think they are.  Schools will get glowing reports from the Inspectorates but that’s only because they don’t rock the system’s boat.  There are some rotten teachers in place harming your child day by day, and you need to become active to defend them.  Try asking them what is going on.  You might be amazed and shocked at what you hear.

UPDATED sunday8.10.23  Talk of shuffling players after another heavy defeat at 11-0 for the A team.  Teacher admits it is getting embarrassing.  B team told to play for positions in A team.  Let’s see what comes next…