Everyone's Invited website - why so much mentioning of LUS?

The kids don’t have parties at school, in fact the results of these schools would somewhat indicate that a certain degree of study might be going on. Yes, the children can be monitored and coached in school, in fact I read further up that Latimer delivers all the parent events, and more, to their kids in an age specific way every term. A culture of parties of this nature (fuelled by booze, drugs, ultimately someone’s cash), clearly points to no appropriate parental control out of school. My daughter goes to parties, I’m always there, front and centre, watching. As I’m responsible for my child and the others. When she goes to other parties, I vet them, we talk about it before and after, there are boundaries set.

Parents have ALL the levers around controlling their kids behaviour and actions out of school, no matter what the ‘culture’ might be in school.

Sounds like London is catching up to Sydney a few weeks ago. This has been an issue for weeks here (well years but weeks in the press). Hopefully there will be significant changes to consent education but the bigger issue is the parenting to be honest - the parties and the raising of young men with significant issues around entitlement and lack of respect for women (and hopefully I can say that as a parent of boys at one of the schools involved in Sydney).

www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/13218674

Sorry meant @Moppetsgalore

In response to amongst others Moppetsgalore - and not specific to any school - of course parents are accountable for their children’s upbringing and social education. Goes without saying. So are their school’s where they spend 7 hours a day 5 days a week and acquire their friendship circles. No number of ‘parents events’ put on by a school will educate students as to how to truly feel and behave. Social development and the culture of a school lies at grass roots - day-to-day interactions with friends and teachers, an unspoken immersive culture (every school has one), which areas of students’ development are prioritised (there is always an order). These are the things that differentiate schools - and why families chose one private school over another.

The sad testimonials - and some of these comments undermining their authenticity and how they reflect - or rather don’t reflect..? - on their schools encourage me to post for the first time

I am an LUS parent and my DD says she has never experienced anything like what some posters describe, nor have her friends

Surely these incidents have to be investigated properly to know exactly what happened and to whom in order to take remedial action. One cannot help anyone until the details (and exactly to what extent the responsibility lies with the school itself) are understood

How do you know the schools haven’t issued formal replies or apologies to the girls in question if they have contacted the schools? I can’t answer for the other schools but can say that the LU have issued many formal statements to current pupils, parents and former pupils in the last few days and are taking all the allegations extremely seriously. I would also say that they provide a massive amount of education to their pupils on these types of things. Many of the posts relate to things that happened in all the schools a good few years ago. I think things have changed in the last few years and hopefully things will improve more.

I work in a London school in a pastoral capacity and we’ve been handling complaints like this from traumatised pupils for years. It rings very true.

Well said, @JessiePhillips. There is another article in The Times mentioning more schools directly, including Hampton.

Disturbing for the parents?! what about disturbing for the girls that had these awful things happen to them ! The school have not issued any formal reply no apology to these brave girls that step forward. It’s always worth remembering the girls will have that memory in their head for the rest of their lives while the boys forget. I think a massive issue is the school not providing enough education to these children on these topics. Because if they did they would not do this. I think the school really need to step forward here

And it will be a small group of hard partying kids from all these schools going to the same parties together. Most kids aren’t involved in it and aren’t interested in it but they are all suffering from the negative publicity etc. It’s upsetting my DS and his friends that people may start making assumptions about him if he says where he goes to school when he loves his school and is proud of it and its forward looking ethos.

I guess it beggars the question, where were the parents during these ‘Latymer parties’, most of the kids aren’t old enough to go out ‘partying’ legally on their own. Where is the money for drink and drugs coming from? What are the parents doing? All of this can’t be laid at the doors of the/any school. If a school is doing as much as it can to break a cycle and educate the kids, then further to that it’s the parents job to intervene, bring up their children properly and supervise. Didn’t the school expel 10 or so kids just a few years ago for suspected drugs? Seems like they take a no nonsense approach to that kind of behaviour in school, maybe the parents should be taking a stronger stand out of school.

I have no association with Latymer at all, it just bugs me when kids blame their problems squarely on their school for not ‘telling them how to behave’ as a decent person.

I feel sorry for all the kids that have suffered as victims, all over. However parents need to step up and get a grip on this behaviour, which is clearly, the n the majority it seems from the testimonies, originating/occurring outside of schools.

[quote XelaM]@Moppetsgalore Sorry but parents who work full time (to pay the huge school fees) can't attend every parent event the school lays on. It's hardly an indication of their commitment to their children's health.[/quote]
Agree. When not working, my time is better spent with my children than at their schools networking/gossiping with other parents. Lots of us don't attend these events, not because we don't care, but because we're already well educated on these issues through our own work or having older children

Sorry, did not mean to post twice- had not realised first message went through.

Many of us with children at secondary have multiple schools, so attending these events at each school along with working full time and trying to be at home for aforementioned supervision is indeed truly a struggle. And I am sorry but I don't personally know of one teen who doesn't have social media?! But the real issue here is that this school is indeed mentioned loads. I had heard about drugs and girls being pressured for sex acts at Latymer parties over the past ten years from friends with DC at the school and from my daughters who have friends at the school (mine are at at another local girls school). The fact that this cohort seems to grow up faster than other area schools is one reason why we didn't apply. Of course it is true that these things happen everywhere but wow, the Latymer stories are more pervasive than others it has seemed for years and it seems now. For me, the absolute worst bit is students talking about things that happen AT SCHOOL at LUS in a number of cases, and that also it is said that (even with parent complaints), in many instances, issues were glossed over or not taken seriously by the head and team.

Many of us with children at secondary have multiple schools, so attending these events at each school along with working full time and trying to be at home for aforementioned supervision is indeed truly a struggle. And I am sorry but I don't personally know of one teen who doesn't have social media?! But the real issue here is that this school is indeed mentioned loads. I had heard about drugs and girls being pressured for sex acts at Latymer parties over the past ten years from friends with DC at the school and from my daughters who have friends at the school (mine are at at another local girls school). The fact that this cohort seems to grow up faster than other area schools is one reason why we didn't apply. Of course it is true that these things happen everywhere but wow, the Latymer stories are more pervasive than others it has seemed for years and it seems now. Regarding the parties, from what I have heard (because I would ask the same question!) the parents seem to be in the houses in most cases, but kids in a basement or another area of the house- so parents not in the same room as the kids. The boys seem to expect gratification. For me, the absolute worst bit is students talking about things that happen AT SCHOOL at LUS in a number of cases, and that also it is said that (even with parent complaints), in many instances, issues were glossed over or not taken seriously by the head and team.

@Alwaysfrank in The Times article it said the woman who started the site went to Wycombe Abbey & I think a school in Hampstead, so not LUS. It's definitely not just one school that is the problem, or just private schools. A lot of it does seem to be happening at parties where this kind of behaviour has been normalised. A few concerning stories about teachers' behaviour too.

I am an LUS parent and my DD says she has never experienced anything like what some posters describe, nor have her friends.
I find it hard to believe that the incidence of sexual harassment is higher than at most other schools.

Feel sorry for the boys and girls that have experienced the horrors of assault or harassment.... reading through it seems that a lot of them have happened outside of school. In my kind that raises questions around where the parents were when this was going on? Poor kids. Where was the supervision of these parties and occurrences?

Not making excuses but LUS is a massive school, about 180 children per year, so there are going to be incidences than at smaller schools.

Private* not probate.

I’m following the story with interest as I work in a related department at another local authority outside of London.

Our local schools put on events like these too, and we actually find it’s the local probate schools that do the best job. Two privates in our area actually advertise their events/speakers to local state parents too, which we actively support, as a local authority we simply don’t have the budget for it.

@XelaM, I mentioned this elsewhere, but the PP was saying the whatsapp group of LU kids had received a screenshot of another group of kids which were actively posting fake testimonials on the site as a competition. A very immature response to a serious issue, which muddies the waters for people like my colleagues to have to find the true victims.

Just like you have, quite innocently, taken another posters message accidentally out of the context, these posts on social media can be just as hard to interpret.

Sadly the type of schools that have fallen foul of this, are generally regarded, amongst colleagues, as schools that do try hard on all of these points, and have the most successful outcomes for their young people.

What we need to address here is the elephant in the room, which has been illuminated by this website. The fact that there are societal issues and parent-school relationships that need to be looked into.

Comments attributed to Latymer pupils made up a significant proportion of what I read on the website and I do wonder if the person behind the Instagram account and website was a Latymerian? The Daily Mail has focused almost exclusively on Latymer in their write up. I have received letters from three independent schools about this. I don't think it is particularly helpful that LU is the focus of the debate.
As a previous poster said, these things are happening outside school at parties and gatherings, and I couldn't agree more with the "where on earth were the parents" sentiment.