CHILDREN in a primary school are being asked to sign contracts to allow them to play football in the playground.
With 17 separate clauses set out in the documents, pupils at Forthill Primary School in Dundee are banned from hogging the ball, foul tackles, using chants or being a sore loser. Any breaches mean they face a ban for the rest of the term.
The school sent out the contracts to its primary five, six and seven pupils with the list of rules branded “ludicrous” by parents.
Both pupils and their parents have been asked to sign the contracts, which also contains instructions like “I will not deliberately chase on the pitch or swipe the ball from anyone”.
Ryan Finnegan, whose son Jamie, 12, is in primary seven, described the contracts as”political correctness gone mad”.
Mr Finnegan, a Level 3 SFA coach, said: “We couldn’t believe what we were reading.”
“The staff have taken this totally out of proportion. Some children might be a bit over-boisterous but they’re just kids.
“It basically says that children can’t tackle each other. It also says ‘don’t hog the ball’. Could you imagine if Messi or Ronaldo had that in their contracts?”
Stewart Hunter, convener of children and families services, said he would be speaking to the education director about the matter, adding: “It’s not a council-wide policy. We give head teachers autonomy to make these types of decisions and to run our schools. There may have been a series of events leading up to this.”
A Dundee City Council spokesman said: “The letter has been issued following a number of issues that have occurred this school year during break and lunchtime football games.
“These then, at times, have been carried into the general playground or into teaching time.
“Children were directly involved with staff in suggesting the contents of the agreement.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel