“Forced to do sets of abs!”: after-school time in the blind spot of violence suffered by students at school

Sur les réseaux sociaux, SOS périscolaire recueille les témoignages de parents dépassés par les situations vécues par leurs enfants. – DR

Deux parentes d’élèves répondent aux questions posées par les parents et à leurs témoignages publiés sur SOS Périscolaires.

SOS Périscolaire has been collecting testimonies of violence during after-school time since 2021. What observation was this collective born from ?

Initially, it was a collective of Parisian parents who wanted to be above all a whistleblower. They created an Instagram account that today brings together nearly 5,000 followers and Facebook, and hundreds of testimonies on France, in after-school time, receptions, daycare, lunch break, and what we call TAP. Not all of them are published. We check them.

You are talking about a systemic problem. Is the situation alarming?

The system is abusive. There is opacity, a high turnover of facilitators and the teams are rarely introduced to parents. When a problem is reported, no follow-up is given. A Montpellier facilitator says she is shocked, for example, to see children being taught vulgar songs, being sworn at and being hired in five minutes. The BAFA is unsuitable. Professionals sometimes resign or end up with burnout. Inexperienced facilitators are lost when it comes to emotional management and conflict resolution. Children are put in front of screens, they are shouted at…

We punish, we hit, we create serious trauma.

This ranges from neglect, for example a mother who comes to pick up her son and is told that he was never registered, and who she finds wandering the corridors, to verbal and psychological violence: threats to lock them up, being forced to finish their plate, insults like “little shit”, “you're just a sissy”, confiscation of glasses, inappropriate games, introduction of points-based licenses, etc. They hit their heads with forks, pull their hair and ears, form a circle around a crying little boy and the others chant “it's a baby!”, force them to do sit-ups, to walk on all fours, etc. It's pure perversion, beyond incompetence. All these facts are difficult to denounce and deal with. It is even discouraged from doing so, because of the "administrative burden".

How to stem this problem ?

The problem comes from the fact that these times are not the responsibility of National Education, but of town halls, from the very large city to the small town. Which makes national standards very permissive, and not always applicable. But what does not change and is not negotiable is that the child is "a subject of law", not a feeling! There are laws, conventions, charters. No one has to judge what is good or bad. We do not hit, we do not mistreat. Stop.