Child Abuse by Teachers at Colet Court, Southbank, etc...

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Do the reports of abuse by teachers at Colet Court, Southbank, etc... deter you from sending your DC to these schools? I am registering my DS for school exams and I wonder at what point do you decide it is worth the risk because a school has had such a successful track record?

ipd, leaving aside the abuse issue it's extremely inaccurance to say you chose over St paul's "schools that encouraged freedom, responsibility and a sense of curiousness about the world". In my experience the most academic schools the more they do exactly that and parents whose children were not bright enough to get in hold a grudge against those schools who rejected their precious little darlings.

No parent with children at Colet C is against any investigation at all nor any parent in any school but it does not have to be an opportunity to knock on other grounds one of the best schools in the country.

I can't believe a parent thinks it's acceptable for a teacher to have "inappropriate material" at a school let alone try and distinguish this from inappropriate sexual conduct. Nobody is questioning the intellect of the boys at CC. Prospective parents are questioning the quality of the pastoral care and the openness of the current management and administration. Nobody should be afraid to question child protection practices and no headmaster should be too important to question. I would not forgive myself if my DS was abused and I knowingly put him in a school that was known to have a culture of secrecy and higher risk of abuse.

JaneParker, please, I beg of you, tell me you're winding me up!

No smear here. Harbord was questioned for suspected grooming of a pupil. He had been first reported to school authorities in the early 90s. Yes the police didn't prosecute. Does that make him guilty? No. As a parent should it give you pause for thought? Yes, without question. Fuggle was caught with indecent material on a school computer. Does anyone think this was about how to make a bomb? Anyone claiming this scandal is just about these two men and a cache of historical incidents (in their thousands) is guilty of gross naivety or wilful misconception. The scale of the historical abuse and the recent ness of these last controversies paints a deeply disturbing picture of an institution in on going crisis. Every utterance from the school is designed to make it seem otherwise . Mominatrix you sound more like a lawyer than a concerned parent. Yes in the eyes of the law and the press we are all innocent until proven otherwise. As a parent, why would you prioritise the schools reputation over any potential risk to your own or someone else's child? As I say let the investigation run its course and then let parents decide on the fitness of this place for their DS in the modern world.

Jane Parker
When victims of abuse stand up after many years and bravely recount their ordeals why do you feel a greater need to defend the perpetrators, or the institutions that enable them over and above the victims?
Are you defending yourself ? Your choices ? Your aspirations for your children? What, and who are you defending - and why?
The only worthy aspirations a parent can have for their child is the welfare of their child and the majority of victims who are coming forward, in dealing with their abuse are also trying to navigate their children, and indeed others, away from danger.
Everything that happened, can happen again. Everything that happened remains unresolved and therefor is an ONGOING & VERY PRESENT reality. If St Paul's were built on an old grave yard would you not ask where all the corpses went?
18 teachers are under investigation. Times that number by 10, at least, and you'll have as many teachers who turned a blind eye, who were guilty of other atrocities, who enabled the abuse.
Does that kind of a legacy vaporise with a display of red tape and new age pastoral care

Jane Parker
This sums you up, your own words:
"Leaving aside the abuse"

Obviously you can 'leave it aside'
It gets in your way

What an abusive suggestion

It is hard to understand whether some of the vitriolic posts are from concerned current parents, concerned prospective parents or from curious on-lookers. Prospective parents clearly have a right and responsibility to ask questions about pastoral care and about the extent to which teachers and administrators might be distracted from teaching by the on-going investigation and, of course, current parents have the same right and responsibility (and have ample opportunity to ask questions at public forums and/or through private meetings with school officials -- who are doing everything possible to make themselves available to parents).

Many of the posts above presumably from the curious? are repeating speculation either from the press or from other anonymous "sources" that might or might not have any underlying truth. The historic allegations are clearly horrifying. To my knowledge, there are no current allegations (i.e. of recent years) of any abuse of students. The pastoral care and "safeguarding" systems seem very robust and very effective.

The historic allegations seem to be a tragic reflection of the times in which they were committed not only at SPS but at many other schools. Just about everyone I know in this country who was educated in the 70s and before has a story about horrible or at least very odd behaviour from teaching staff. The fact that "it" happened in many schools does not condone "it" from happening anywhere, of course but I do think the problem was endemic to British society at the time. I can only wonder why the press is focused on SPS at the moment, rather than on the many other schools where similar or worse "stories" could be found.

I do wonder where the parents were when children were suffering and why they ignored their children's distress. Sadly, it was an era (from what I've read and been told) when parents did not speak with their children and were not as "in tune" with their children as we are expected to be today. A father of 4 adult independently educated children told me recently "I have no idea what happened to my children when they were at school and I don't want to know". Perhaps the author of the Daily Mail article should ask his own parents if they're still alive why they neglected to pick up on his distress during his many years at the school.

Before anyone shouts at me for "accusing the accuser": I don't mean to suggest that the author is at fault for anything that happened to him when he was a child. However, if his own parents were unaware of his distress, it's not surprising that caring teachers at school also were unaware. Fortunately, children today and, I hope parents are much more aware of what is acceptable and are much less likely to tolerate various forms of abuse. The sorts of things that happened in the 70s are less likely though, of course, not entirely unlikely to happen today.

Posadas,

Other than to point out that the heads of both schools are aware of recent allegations of abuse, which absolutely would result in the teacher(s) being instantly dismissed, although perhaps not prosecuted, I won't stoop to your level by responding to your other comments.

Posadas
1/ there are to date 18 teachers currently under investigation - St. Paul's qualifies therefor not just as a school harbouring the odd individual case, but in fact a legacy of child abuse. Had you read all the articles thoroughly you would have perhaps picked up on this. There are many more teachers who were emotionally psychologically and physically abusive. Indeed the school enabled and supported the abuse in so far as it either turned a blind eye or 'dismissed' abusers under false pretences, giving them fresh records to go on and 'teach' elsewhere.
2/ again if you read this article thoroughly you will see how Benji, the author, wanted to protect his proud parents from the extent of the abuse. As a child under these circumstances one is also terrified of retribution - it has been documented how students were punished for raising any alarm bells.
3/ how on earth another commentator can miss the current and ongoing investigations into recent allegations suggests one or all of the following

• they haven't thoroughly read up on the case (judging by what I have said above I imagine this is more than likely)
• they don't want to believe it happened recently because they have current interests in the school either as parents, stake-holders or the like
• somehow historic abuse is more palatable: it happened then, back then when people didn't have wide screen Tvs and England was grey and gloomy and teachers wore sandals.

I could go on But I fear posadas will have a wall up, a wall as high as the one the school have had up, historically and currently; a wall behind which the real heart of this narrative - the victims - have suffered.

lpd and urbaned

What are the sources of your information regarding "recent allegations"?

I have read all of the articles in the Daily Mail, the Times and the Evening Standard. I have decades of experience with the media to know that not all that I read is accurate. If your information comes from the press rather than from independent sources it is likely you have only partial truths.

I have no "wall up" and certainly no desire to defend anyone for committing crimes or covering up offences.

Unlike others on this thread, I have no "axe to grind" and no vested interest. The OP asked whether to re-consider applying to the schools because of the investigation of historic abuse. My response was that prospective parents should explore whether the pastoral care and "safeguarding" mechanisms currently in place are appropriate and effective (it seems to me they are) and also should explore whether the investigations are or might distract staff from focussing on their mission to educated pupils (I don't know the answer to this question).

Jordans Solicitors appear to have some information up on their website indicating one more recent allegation (unproven), along with the fact that a few of the teachers named in the past sexual abuse claims were still teaching at the school until the last year or so.

posadas - I have to say, some of your comments (eg that kindly teachers at the school would have less opportunity to notice things their colleagues were doing than parents who weren't at school with their children every day) seem somewhat innocent of how child sexual abuse works and how it affects its victims.

None of that is to say, however, that St Pauls and Colet Court do not now how far more robust systems in place and a very different attitude to that of the past. I would know nothing about that one way or the other, I just hope they don't have your attitude to it all, posadas.

Thank you, rabbitstew. I just looked at the Jordans website and find it somewhat odd to see a law firm repeating press reports in a "blog", along with offers of "no win, no fee" representation. I continue to wonder what are the non-media sources of information used by ipd and urbane to support their repeated comments about "recent allegations".

Re your second post: What is it about my "attitude" that you hope others don't have? In case I was unclear: I was attempting to say that many aspects of British society in the 1970s were different from today. This statement by no means condones anything that happened in the past nor suggests that people should not be held accountable today for actions committed in the past. The fact that communication between parents and children and between teachers and children are much more open now together with a legal framework that is much more supportive of children means that children are safer now at school than they were in prior decades. Is that an inappropriate "attitude"?

What concerned me was your attitude that it wasn't surprising that other teachers at the school did not notice the abuse if the parents weren't aware of it. Clearly one of the accusations against the school is that the school was an awful lot more aware of it than parents were and chose not to disclose relevant information when moving teachers on. I don't for a moment believe all staff were entirely unaware of the peculiar behaviours of the colleagues they worked with.

I do agree with you that society was very different in the 1970s. One of those differences is that people were in the past generally more deferential to, and trusting of, people in positions of authority and taught their children to be, too. Parents might well have been more inclined to believe authority figures over the word of their children, and abusers would most certainly give the children that impression, if not going even further and implying that their parents would be very disappointed in them, or even disgusted by them, if they said anything. Children might even have thought they were protecting their parents by not talking about the things that were happening to them and might well have blamed themselves for it happening in the first place.

Children may be technically more worldly wise these days and parents more willing to doubt authority figures, but the reality of something happening to you that doesn't seem quite right feels very different from the theory, and is extremely confusing. Even today, I don't think most parents' first thought if their children's behaviour changed, would be that they were being sexually abused at school and it would be a colossal shame if it were - we need some degree of trust to exist between people! Those in the position of trust have a real onus on them to show that they understand the level of their responsibility, to guard that trust, live up to it and never abuse it or turn a blind eye to it. They should not be allowed to turn around as you did higher up and say that the foolish, trusting parents of those children were more to blame for sending their children into the situation and not noticing the effects.

I've no axe to grind on this thread at all. I'm not a Colet Court parent but I am surprised by the comments suggesting parents are negligent still to consider CC or St Paul's.

CC/ St P is one of the best schools for boys in the land. If some parents don't think so that's fine too - go elsewhere.

I don't think it's at all negligent to consider CC or St Paul's. As others have said, they really aren't the only schools where this sort of behaviour has occurred. And they'd hardly be good places for paedophiles at the moment, anyway!

It does show what happens, though, if you are found to have abused peoples' trust - you have to work very hard to earn the trust back.

Wise Rabbit.....

Rabbit -- I agree with much of what you have written. However, I did not mean to suggest (nor do I think I did suggest) that "foolish, trusting parents are to blame" for abuses suffered by their children.

posadas - I'm glad you didn't meant to suggest that. You do need to be careful how sentences like, "I do wonder where the parents were when children were suffering and why they ignored their children's distress," come across.

(or aware of how such sentences may come across to others!).

Janeparker

Since when is confronting child abuse having an axe to grind ?!
Your choice of words reveals more about you each time

I imagine St Paul's and Colet Court a perfect environment for a child under your wing

If only you knew, and judging from your narrative here you don't

No doubt you will perceive this churlish; but let me enlighten you - have you ever seen level 4 images/videos of child abuse?

Back to the graveyard analogy - if the school ewer recently built upon one would you not ask where all the corpses went?

Yes of course not everything you read in the papers is true!
Tell us something we don't know

The Times articles were measured and hardly sensationalised - lawyers were undoubtedly all over the text before being published. Andrew Norfolk the journalist had no vested interest in exposing the story other than from a journalistic position. What transpired was, unlike other private schools, as the police investigation proceeded it became more apparent that the extent of abuse at CC and St Paul's was unlike other schools: the numbers of suspects rose from the first publication as more and more victims and their stories came to light.

Benji Ross was a student - are you suggesting he didn't experience, witness the events he has shared?

If the papers were to publish an article defending St. Paul's and colet court would you believe that more?

With some articles it is a case of readers projection above perception - you will simply believe what you want to, what is more palatable. But the truth stands wether you believe it or not

Posadas
What did you mean to suggest then?
I can't tell where what you meant to suggest could be interpreted differently

Goodness Fossie
Lucky old you!'
Gross fabrication - really?
Ask the victims