Dean’s son requested a short game of football following his school drop-off yesterday morning.
Dean and his son found a spot to throw the ball around, until a teacher approached them and said the unthinkable.
“A teacher approached us, explaining that it was unsafe to be in that area, and instructed us to join the other children who were quietly reading before class,” Dean recounted to Today.
“I questioned the reasoning, and she mentioned it was due to lack of supervision… I informed her that I was supervising my son, hence he was indeed watched over.”
”She said, ‘No, it’s not safe to be here, and it’s unfair on the other children who don’t have their parents here at the moment to play with them.'”
Dean said he and his son were about 20 metres away from the rest of the kids on a patch of grass near a classroom.
A few minutes later, Dean separated from his son to put his backpack into his locker, and he saw the deputy principal approach his child to reprimand him about the incident.
“He gave him a bit of a rev up, apparently about being over there, passing the ball with his dad,” the Queensland dad said.
“That really upset me, I didn’t understand why he didn’t come and speak to me.
“[My son] was pretty shook up, he was visibly upset, he said, ‘Dad are you in trouble?’ and I said, ‘Mate, how could I be in trouble for passing a footy with you?’
“He just couldn’t understand why they were so worked up about nothing.”
Dean said it was an escalation of recent rules around kids playing sport after school unsupervised.
”I know that after school they don’t want kids playing sport… I think now the school’s pulled back,” he said.
“They don’t want kids playing on the playground. They don’t want them playing on the oval, on any grass patch.
“And now, they’ve come to the point where they’re not allowed to pass a ball to your dad.”
