ISP Academy - NEVER AGAIN
Please see my first letter I have written to the academy:
Dear Mr. Auffray,
I have just returned home from our family holiday in the South of France and take my first free minute to write you an email in regards to my daughters short stay at the ISP Tennis Academy.
I registered my daugther for a 1 week boarding camp, starting on Sunday, July 26th. I arrived with my family at the CIV campus with plenty of time to check out where my 11 year old would be staying. I have to say that WE WERE SHOCKED and very disappointed by the state of the accomodation. I was tempted to withdraw my daughter immediately based on the accomodation facilities but my daughter was eager to stay for the tennis. Please see details below of the major concerns;
Toilets/Showers
I have never seen such poor and dirty facilities before. The toilets had no seats and were covered in human faeces. I am not sure when they have been cleaned last. The showers were extremely dirty. The floors were stained and clearly had not been cleaned recently. I was also very surprised that boys and girls were required to share these same facilities.
Bedroom:
The floor of the bedroom had not been vacuumed or cleaned with a wet cloth in the last 6 months. The cupboards were covered in spiderwebs. There were also many varieties of insects in the room.
Overall housing:
The entire house didn't appear to have seen a cleaning team for months.
Food:
According to my daughter and other sources the food was extremely poor. I am surprised by this as it is very important for young athletes to eat good quality and healthy food.
Benjamin Cassaigne:
I was very surprised by the behaviour of Mr. Cassaigne. It appeared that he was not interested in the needs and wishes of my daughter. I had previously written several emails to him and also spoke to him on our arrival, regarding 1 hour private lessons with him each day for my daugther. The private lesson did not occur as had been scheduled on the first day. I was also surprised by his arrogance and lack of interest in dealings with him once my daughter had been signed up for the camp.
Group Lessons:
My daughter was allocated to a group with players of lower ability where she did not feel challenged.
Supervision:
Last but not least I am very upset by the fact that when we collected my daughter, at the gates of the CIV campus, she had been left there unsupervised. Parents entrust the safety and well being of their children to ISP and it is clearly unaccepatble for an eleven year old child to be left unsupervised outside the gates of the campus, particularly after 9pm in the evening.
Based on the very poor accomodation facilities, the fact that my daughter was not challenged in her group lessons and that the private lessons were not provided we decided to take withdraw my daughter from the tennis camp after 1 day and collected her at 9pm.
Our overall experience indicates that the ISP does not show too much interest or care for the children who attend the camps, considering the quality of accomodation, food, relevence of lessons, follow through on agreed schedules and attitude of senior staff members. It appears that this is all about the money.
My next action, if I do not get a satisfactory response from you, will be to have my lawyer write a more detailed account (including pictures) copying Mr. Jean Gachassin (president of the French Tennis Association) and Mrs. Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, (Minister of Health and Sport of France).
I would like to request a full refund of Euro 995 which was paid for the weeks tennis camp and boarding.
I am looking forward to hearing from by Friday, August 7th, 2009.