'My son was expelled for telling the truth' - Sunday Times

[MimiDul]

'School bullied my son for telling truth about drugs’

The only GCSE pupil honest enough to admit drug-taking during an investigation at a top private school was forced out earlier this year — while the 34 boys who stayed silent were allowed to remain.

Today, Julian Dodds, the father of the 16-year-old, has gone public to highlight what he says is gross injustice because of the widespread variation in how private schools handle drug-taking among pupils; he says the practice is at “epidemic levels” among teenagers. The case comes more than two decades after the same school, Whitgift, in Croydon, south London, was criticised for taking a similarly hardline approach, expelling 10 pupils for smoking cannabis.

Whitgift told the 16-year old he would have to leave in February, just a few months before he was due to take nine GCSEs. The teenager was one of 35 boys interrogated by teachers in the school for several hours after a tip-off by other pupils about an alleged drugs problem. Parents whose sons refused to take a drugs test were also called in and quizzed during what was called “Operation Swoop”.

The boys were interrogated in five different rooms and told that “things would go better for them if they wrote an admission statement of what substances they had ever taken”.

Dodds’s son said he had tried marijuana and “some pills”, though not on the school premises.

“My boy was the only one to tell the truth and for that he got kicked out of school,” said his father. “Why are schools allowed to bully kids in this way when drug use is widespread among teenagers, particularly at private schools? Some boys at the school have a bingo card on which they tick off all the drugs they have tried.

“The Whitgift boys get targeted by drug dealers on the train they travel to school on. This is the issue: how do you tackle drug use among teenagers when police have largely given up?”

The Dodds family were given a choice between withdrawing their son or attending a meeting with the headmaster, Chris Ramsey, at which they were warned that their son could be expelled. They chose to withdraw him.

The school, to which they had paid about £90,000 for five years’ tuition, said he could come back there to sit his exams if no other school place could be found for him. He revised at home with the help of private tutors, and returned to Whitgift to sit his exams.

Whitgift said: “After long consideration, a student was asked to leave the school four months ago after an investigation . . . pupils and parents are aware that the school cannot tolerate involvement with drugs and the safety of all our pupils is our primary concern. The presence of drugs [among] young people is a societal issue that can ruin lives.”

My dc attended SW London Independents. I do not recognise this picture of drug use. I fully support zero tolerance. It must be harder at a school like Whitgift which is edgier than many others and dare I say often not a first choice for the most academic.

Wow roses, how condescending are you?

I second that ihatethecold

If the most elite and academic private boys' school in my area had a zero tolerance approach to drugs the school would probably go bust.

I can see this boy's father's point, it does seem unfair that others are still there when his son has been expelled - but this doesn't change the fact that the boy had broken the rules.
If schools and parents aren't prepared to take a hard line approach to dealing with potentially illegal and harmful activities then what will happen ??

Also b*llocks, Whitgift is finely one of top choices for being academic.

Tis my local school, I travel at same time the kids travel and do wish they would put staff at least at the station, I think given the amount that is paid to the school.

Growing up hanging around with boys from top public school (with lowly me at a comp) I never ceased to be amazed at the voracious appetite the boys had for drugs. Maybe cos they could afford them more??

I think this is horrific, and what's worse is that clearly 34 parents told their boys to lie. And this is why our Govt is in such a cesspit if this is the morals being taught to future leaders

Crikey @OhTheRoses ! I usually see a lot of sense in your posts but that is nasty. There will be whitgift parents on here.

These private schools really are trying to breed lying politicians aren’t they.

Headline should read 'boy expelled for taking drugs". Its annoying that so many others denied and got away with it. This is probably the school's ideal scenario in the circs. Only one expulsion, set a good example to the rest so not to let the problem get out of hand. Bet you anything the remaining boys still take drugs!

I'm not sure why anyone would think the school would do differently?

I did not go to school in the UK so I just don't get that. He says he did not take it on school premises. Does that not mean it is none of their business but rather an issue for the parents? Or was it during school hours just off the premises?

The school wouldn't want to expel 34 pupils in one go though, would they?

It sounds as if the child who was asked to withdraw was scapegoated - maybe he was the least academic of those involved?

Of course he was excluded. Schools cannot be seen to tolerate drug taking.

Not impressed by the dad quoted in that article, blaming the police, the school, the other boys - anything except his son's choices and his own parenting.

It's not clear OhtheRoses, are you saying zero tolerance is harder with less able students, or that drug use negatively correlates with academic ability?

Drugs are prevalent everywhere, there is a crisis in this country right now. Have you not heard of the Benzo crisis which is at epidemic levels affecting young people? It doesn't matter what top notch school you send your kids too, drugs will be there and you're an idiot if you think otherwise. And yes, even if it is academic!
The boy in this case has learnt that from now on he's got to lie to get on. Very sad.

He has learned he has to lie to get on? In what world does admitting to breaking the law mean that nothing will happen? This is not like saying to a kid, just admit you took a biscuit from the biscuit tin, because if you lie, it will be worse.
Taking drugs is a criminal offence. The school can not just ignore it. And if it questioned 34 pupils it sounds as if they already had a pretty good idea of the main culprits.

Jennymanara in the world where the other 33 students who also took drugs were not excluded.

But presumably since they did not admit to it, there was no actual proof, just suspicions.

The boy were told that “things would go better for them if they wrote an admission statement of what substances they had ever taken"

Then they expelled the boy who cooperated and the others were allowed to remain at the school. That's pretty outrageous, if that's an accurate account.

Lack of proof does not mean they didn't do it. The only proof the 34th did was his item admission, if the others hadn't been told to lie there would have been more 'proof'

Disgusting, teaching children that lying is ok

^own

It doesn't surprise me at all, sadly. It would be an enormous PR folly to ask 34 pupils to withdraw from one of the most popular public schools in SW London.

They've probably got rid of the most expendable pupil, harsh though it may be. And most likely he wasn't the ringleader.

It's a classic 'survival of the fittest'

Well, the school should not have said that things would go better for the boys if they wrote an admission statement if that was a whopping great big lie. Clearly things went better for the liars than the boy who told the truth. Lesson learned: you can get away with taking drugs provided you lie about it - unless you become a politician and someone is about to write a book about you (and then you still get away with it).

If the school genuinely wanted to tackle its drug culture, it spectacularly failed.

My Dc go to a (State) school that has a big social overlap with Whitgift, as many knew each other st primary, are friends through other local activities etc. So they are at the same parties.

The drug use is significant and widespread. Amongst kids from both schools. But our kids comment on how much money many private school kids have to spend on alcohol and drugs.

There is no way that out of 34 only one has used drugs.

So way to go, Whitgift, putting yourselves in the position where you have no evidence except confessions to go on and therefore put the liars at an advantage.

And for something that was not in school premises.

I am horrified by the drug use amongst young people, but it happens in every school and of the two state secondaries my kids have attended it was far far worse in the one with a higher intake of middle class families and wealthy kids.

It is hypocritical to blind ourselves to what is going on.

There’s nothing in this article that says boys were “told to lie”. I’d be very surprised if boys were told in advance they’d be questioned. The normal approach in schools is to interview children suspected of using drugs as quickly as possible, as the best chance of getting the truth.