Bad press for Eton, St Paul's School and Latymer Upper

[Siblingrivalries]

The Telegraph is carrying a horrible story about “Eton College, St Paul's School in Barnes and Latymer Upper School” having a culture of sexual assault.

St Paul’s of course has been through this before and is now paying compensation after tutors were found guilty.

This seems to involve pupils and the allegations were posted on Instagram. No doubt more will come out in time.

Would you consider sending your child to these schools?

@Cowboychild

The interview with the founder in The Times was very poignant - she was at Wycombe Abbey. Why would they take the site down? The schools seem to be using it as a good opportunity to engage with pupils and parents about some very important things so surely it can only be a good thing.

Two reasons - the site will attract the wrong kind of attention (salacious), and the schools involved will take legal action to get their names removed.

My sons' school has only "engaged" in the sense of reiterating what they are already doing (which is good!). The (single) account that had the school name attached did not take place at the school nor involved a perpetrator from the school - the only link was the fact that the person writing was a pupil at the time. The name of my sons' school has now been removed.

@Nameregretter

It won’t just be private schools, this stuff goes on everywhere there are teenagers unfortunately. But of course it’s more newsworthy when it is private schools because the parents of children there are forking out vast sums of money often to ensure a particular peer group for their children, one that doesn’t include rapists.

My ex went to SPS in the early 2000s. He and all his friends were on the face of it presentable young men, academic high flyers, but they were used to getting exactly what they wanted and that did play into their interactions with women unfortunately. Some were worse than others. One of the benefits of private schooling is supposedly instilling confidence in the students, but in SPS at that time certainly among the people I met, there was a pretty fine line between confidence and entitlement.

St Paul's boys are used to getting what they want and don't know the word 'no' .

@heathergem. I think you need to stop for a minute and remember that you are talking about children. Statements like yours are not an appropriate way to talk about a large group of children the vast majority of whom are not guilty of sexual aggression.

Good point well made @Revengeofthepangolins - it's important to remember that that in any of the schools currently being singled out that the vast majority are perfectly pleasant and sensible young men. As are most men in society as a whole.

Those such as @heathergem who claim that the culture of a whole school can be discerned by their experience of an individual should reflect and consider whether that's a reasonable assumption to make (clue - it's not).

I went to the same school as my sister (one year in between.

Her - yahoo! Drugs, dunk, sex, parties, nightclubs... and by they way, I’m out, baby!

Me - whit? I saw none of that. Computer club at lunchtime with Derek was about as exciting as it got. Aware of the shenanigans, but definitely didn’t see it (knew classmates brother was done for sexual assault but it ‘wasn’t talked about’).

My older two siblings were the same.

If these current news events were being reported in Anytown High, and the cohort of boys being classes as rapists and sex pests there would be a hell of an outcry. I see Dulwich is in the paper today.

I am involved in a sporting activity which brings me into contact with several of the schools mentioned and I can unreservedly say that LUS and St Paul's boys & their coaches feel they have an air of entitlement that I've never witnessed by any other school boys. They're both very well known in the sporting community for bending the rules to suit them & their coaches are complicit.

St Paul's boys has a new female Head, hopefully that will help them get a handle on this.

I sent to university with a large proportion of privately educated students, the Etonian rep was deserved in my experience, you could almost smell the entitlement I only knew/know a few young men from Latymer but all were lovely and one in particular called out inappropriate sexual behaviour and misogyny from other males on a number of occasions. That however is only a very small amount of anecdata.

Oh yes. Women should definitely be responsible for sorting out misogyny and sexual violence.

In light of the Everyone’sInvited sexual improprieties at Latymer, David Goodhew should step down as headmaster. Under his watch, the culture of bullying was rife, from teachers and students. They turned a blind eye—even when parents asked for a meeting with him to complain about what was happening.

It's important to remember that these schools are reflecting issues we see all around us. The vast majority of boys at these schools (and I know lots from several of them) are not sexual aggressors and are decent, respectful young men trying to navigate the world. What's really disappointing is how little some things have changed from my youth. But the discourse is advancing, despite this, and things are slowly improving, so even if some of these stories are exaggerated to sell papers and get clicks, it's all going to help to shift societal expectation.

I wonder if girls are now also finding their voice to speak up without fear of being labelled (well you know what...).

@Vargas

St Paul's boys has a new female Head, hopefully that will help them get a handle on this.

This I very much doubt. It will take a generation to sort St Pauls out.

I've been reading some of the fallout of this in the papers. I had two thoughts....

Is this really about the schools or is it about the parents who "allow" parties to go ahead with alcohol... Lets be honest we know some of it would happen anyway but 16 yo's at parties with alcohol is a disaster waiting to happen. Its also been going on for far a many many years, and there was and presumably is a split between those allowed out to parties and those not, those who drink an those who don't.

Secondly I worry how real any of this is. It's real enough for (many) people to claim sexual abuse on an anonymous forum but not to report it formally to police.

These are horrible and I hope that the incidents raised are investigated and schools with major underlying issues take steps to address these.

As others have said, I do wonder how much of this is really so much worse than thousands of other secondaries across the country - unfortunately many of them sound very much like the same things that my female family members and I experienced (and continue to experience) at both state or private secondaries in the UK and overseas. This feels like a regular male privilege issue, escalated by a financial / political privilege issue.

Here's what happens when these boys leave their schools and are given free rein... DD graduated from Durham in 2020 and reported multiple serious assaults and rapes on friends and acquaintances by the same set of boys - all from the big public schools and all protected by their chums. The university wasn't much better and in most cases didn't take the assaults seriously. This is on top of lower level slut shaming Etc. Main culprits were from the big schools and were sportsmen - rugby and rowing.
DD tended to steer well clear but saw it and heard it via friends.
Before all this broke she was saying the schools need to sort their boys out. I appreciate Durham attracts a certain demographic so the young men will have come from a narrower set of institutions. But there it was in plain sight and out in wider society. They were a menace; it doesn't stop at school.

I think schools, parents and the young g men need to take a long hard look at themselves..

@Nameregretter

It won’t just be private schools, this stuff goes on everywhere there are teenagers unfortunately. But of course it’s more newsworthy when it is private schools because the parents of children there are forking out vast sums of money often to ensure a particular peer group for their children, one that doesn’t include rapists.

My ex went to SPS in the early 2000s. He and all his friends were on the face of it presentable young men, academic high flyers, but they were used to getting exactly what they wanted and that did play into their interactions with women unfortunately. Some were worse than others. One of the benefits of private schooling is supposedly instilling confidence in the students, but in SPS at that time certainly among the people I met, there was a pretty fine line between confidence and entitlement.

I think you'll find that these schools are big advertisers in local press and at that level (where stories often begin) the stories will actually have been suppressed. In actual fact bad behavior is more likely to be reported in state schools because the press have nothing to lose. I think it's stark that it's coming out only now,

Wellington School on ITV news

www.itv.com/news/2021-03-26/thousands-of-pupils-allege-sexual-assault-rape-and-harassment-at-some-of-uks-leading-private-schools

@Bakeachocolatecake2day

Is this really about the schools or is it about the parents who "allow" parties to go ahead with alcohol...

I agree wholeheartedly that parents, social media, society etc play a massive role and the individual’s moral compass, of course.

However, what this has highlighted to me are schools’ handling of complaints - dismissing them, brushing them under the carpet, willfully turning a blind eye. Not once but repeatedly over years.
This is totally unacceptable and the accused schools have finally been forced to take action to salavage their reputations.

I hope other schools watching on are alarmed by the backlash and also review their policies and actions.

To add, many of the alleged assaults occurred on school premises or at school events.

@Ontopofthesunset I think the problem with the world now is that those who appear to be decent young men on the outside (not your friends, I am sure they are, but you get my point) are sexual abusers on their phones, a secret hidden world that parents and teachers don't get to see, often fuelled by porn addiction from a very very young age.

I definitely think the porn is a huge problem in terms of expectation, and also the social media where stuff can go on under the radar. I was shocked from my son to find out that a boy he used to be friendly with had had some allegations made about him, as of course on the surface he is charming and respectful.

Rather disturbing to read several posts up thread that seem to insinuate the victims are lying/ making it up. How will we ever get to the stage where women are believed? Of course it's not all boys or all men but it IS all women. I don't have a single female friend who hasn't experienced some sort of unwarranted sexist behaviour towards them, from bra twanging, flashing or wolf whistling to unsolicited dick pics and worse. It's not just rape. These attitudes are engrained. While the likes of pussy grabbing Trump can still be elected despite his open misogyny, the journey out of it feels very long.

These recent discussions have been promoted in the press by an open letter from a former student from Wimbledon High to the head of a local prestigious boys' school. 11 pages of it. It makes for very hard reading.

drive.google.com/file/d/1JtcVmP-z8S5OIMLvJXRlJIyUSojZ-QDD/view?usp=drivesdk

@365sleepstogo I wonder why this is down to the school though.... How on earth do teaching staff discern whether an incident is "serious" or not.

Sexual Assault of any form is serious, the only test therefore is "has it been reported to the police" - if yes, then its serious, if no, then what? A says B did this, B says he didn't. Who gets punished, expelled? Teachers aren't qualified to deal with this....

In real life if a female employee came and told me another staff member had assaulted her, then yes it needs dealing with but I would get the police involved. If the employee doesn't want that, then what? I'm not sure there is much that can be done if there are no witnesses and no police involvement. Even if there were police involvement, I can't get rid of either employee - what would my grounds be? If no charges are brought, I have no idea which of A and B are telling the truth.

So back to schools, A says B assaulted her, refuses to go to police, then what. B says he did nothing.

What schools can do is be much more firm in their policies and education, but not sure this solves the problem.

I wonder why this is down to the school though.... How on earth do teaching staff discern whether an incident is "serious" or not.

Schools will have safe guarding policies and safe guarding lead/staff member(s) responsible for this. They will /should assess and manage reports appropriately. This may be in-house, involving parents, reporting to the police.
It is not enough to shrug and say that they can’t asses how serious it is or cannot escalate. They have a duty of care to the victim and other potential victims and can seek advice on how best to manage if they are unsure.