‘Monks of concern’: Why are there still students at Ampleforth?

[Onezee]

If school leaders can’t prevent ‘monks of concern’ being admitted to the Ampleforth Abbey site, then there surely can’t be any other option than to shut it down?

('Monks of concern would include those who have been accused, and any found guilty of, child sexual abuse in the past and any who are under investigation currently.' www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10620321/Ampleforth-College-rated-inadequate-Ofsted-failures-Catholic-boarding-school.html).

Can the DfE deregister the school? Or are the unsafe children who currently attend the school reliant on market forces to shut it down?

Exactly, the parents need to be brought into focus. The report is meaningless if the school is not closed down and the perpetrators brought to justice, the main culprits here are the parents.

Boarding school is the only form of child abuse not only legal but coveted.

Why as a parent would you send your child there, surely there will be a mass exodus after these findings. If not why not ?

Ampleforth have challenged the report as inaccurate - they say no 'monks of concern' are allowed on the school site, and the description of the end-of-term piss-up has been exaggerated and distorted.

So what is the Catholic Church doing about this? Or the local diocese? .
Have none of the scandals made an impact of any kind?

@ClariceQuiff

Ampleforth have challenged the report as inaccurate - they say no 'monks of concern' are allowed on the school site, and the description of the end-of-term piss-up has been exaggerated and distorted.

You can read what the school has to say at www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/19997412.ampleforth-college-hits-back-ofsted-factual-inaccuracies/

@prh47bridge &
ClariceQuiff

You only have to Google Ampleforth, it is rife with prolific child abuse. The report on bullying in 2019 below for example. For residential institutions with minors one instance of child abuse should be enough to secure both it's closure and the prosecution of the staff/parents. Particularly when there is no real need for boarding schools, they are purely a wealthy parents pleasure.

Ampleforth's legacy past and present is steeped in abuse. The victims, whistle blowers and inspectors can't all have got it wrong.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-48853330

Not sure why you are pointing that at me. I am not saying Ofsted have got it wrong, simply signposting where people can find out more following ClariceQuiff's post. However, in one respect I believe Ofsted are wrong in that they say "monks of concern" includes monks convicted of child sex abuse. I believe the school is correct in saying that any monk convicted of such an offence ceases to be a monk.

The Catholic Church pays lip service now to safeguarding but as soon as I had a legitimate concern about a vulnerable relative they lawyered up and refused to speak to me. I was indifferent to them before but my eyes have been well and truly opened. I don't feel they have a genuine commitment to safeguarding vulnerable people. It's all window dressing.

[quote AllyKaneT]@prh47bridge &
ClariceQuiff

You only have to Google Ampleforth, it is rife with prolific child abuse. The report on bullying in 2019 below for example. For residential institutions with minors one instance of child abuse should be enough to secure both it's closure and the prosecution of the staff/parents. Particularly when there is no real need for boarding schools, they are purely a wealthy parents pleasure.

Ampleforth's legacy past and present is steeped in abuse. The victims, whistle blowers and inspectors can't all have got it wrong.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-48853330[/quote]
I didn't say the whistleblowers etc. were wrong, I was just pointing out that Ampleforth haven't accepted the findings. If I read a news story of this nature, I always like to see both sides of the story rather than taking the Daily Mail or whatever paper it is as gospel.

@Onezee

If school leaders can’t prevent ‘monks of concern’ being admitted to the Ampleforth Abbey site, then there surely can’t be any other option than to shut it down?

('Monks of concern would include those who have been accused, and any found guilty of, child sexual abuse in the past and any who are under investigation currently.' www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10620321/Ampleforth-College-rated-inadequate-Ofsted-failures-Catholic-boarding-school.html).

Can the DfE deregister the school? Or are the unsafe children who currently attend the school reliant on market forces to shut it down?

The monks cannot enter the school site. It's sensationalist journalism. The safeguarding concerns raided by Ofsted are not in relation to the monks. I used to sit on our local MAPPA panel and you'd be surprised at how many sex offenders are close to schools and young people. The situation at Ampleforth is lower risk as the school knows who are their neighbours whereas others schools do not.

@Jonny1265

There are continual reports from students, whistle blowers and independent bodies. Bullying, class A drugs, sex etc. And that is well before the news papers got hold of it. To suggest the situation at Ampleforth is sensationalism or blown out of proportion is a terrible diservice to the victims who are only children at the end of the day.

I actually think the media are playing this down and trying to bury it quickly. Does anyone else thinks this? There is a constant stream of allegation against Ampleforth, we see an odd article in the media, but commentry and narrative is heavely moderated. None of the newspapers have posted this story to facebook or twitter to limit commentary I would think. It is a residential institution, the children have been abandoned by their parents and have nowhere to go to escape the abuse. Do you not think that should warrant greater media and state scrutiny?

@Jonny1265 … but how has the headteacher lost their veto for which monks can reside at the Abbey?

This was put in place as a safeguarding measure - why has it changed? Is there now a different Abbot? Is the Abbot still the Chair of Governors?

With Ampleforth’s history of sex abuse crimes, what motivation would an Abbot / Chair of Governors have for wanting to admit ‘monks of concern’ to the Abbey and remove the Headteacher’s previously established right of veto.

What are they up to?

If Ofsted cite it as an example of inadequate safeguarding, then why would anyone be seeking to defend it? You would just do what you had to do to ensure safeguarding was effective in your school, surely?

The culture there sounds absolutely rotten.

A child in my DC’s year went there last year. He went because that’s where his father went. It baffles me when there are so many alternatives.

‘Monks of concern’ is indeed stuff of nightmares.

[quote AllyKaneT]@Jonny1265

There are continual reports from students, whistle blowers and independent bodies. Bullying, class A drugs, sex etc. And that is well before the news papers got hold of it. To suggest the situation at Ampleforth is sensationalism or blown out of proportion is a terrible diservice to the victims who are only children at the end of the day.

I actually think the media are playing this down and trying to bury it quickly. Does anyone else thinks this? There is a constant stream of allegation against Ampleforth, we see an odd article in the media, but commentry and narrative is heavely moderated. None of the newspapers have posted this story to facebook or twitter to limit commentary I would think. It is a residential institution, the children have been abandoned by their parents and have nowhere to go to escape the abuse. Do you not think that should warrant greater media and state scrutiny?[/quote]
This takes place at most boarding schools and isn't just Ampleforth. The sensationalist part is the addition of the monks. Everything else is common across boarding schools and indeed independent day schools.

Boarding schools are abhorrent in my opinion and I agree it would be better with greater media scrutiny but across more schools and focussing on facts around safeguarding.

[quote Onezee]@Jonny1265 … but how has the headteacher lost their veto for which monks can reside at the Abbey?

This was put in place as a safeguarding measure - why has it changed? Is there now a different Abbot? Is the Abbot still the Chair of Governors?

With Ampleforth’s history of sex abuse crimes, what motivation would an Abbot / Chair of Governors have for wanting to admit ‘monks of concern’ to the Abbey and remove the Headteacher’s previously established right of veto.

What are they up to?

If Ofsted cite it as an example of inadequate safeguarding, then why would anyone be seeking to defend it? You would just do what you had to do to ensure safeguarding was effective in your school, surely?

The culture there sounds absolutely rotten.[/quote]
A quick check of the website of both the abbey and college indicates a clear split in October 2018 of abbey and college and both have separate governance and safeguarding structures. The chair of trustees has no say over the abbey and the Abbot has no say over the college. They are in effect co-located but separate entities.

@Jonny1265 … but Ofsted are raising the removal of the veto as a safeguarding concern. Presumably, the idea of the veto was to mitigate the co-location issue (so why take it away?).

The school will have had the chance to appeal Ofsted’s findings before publication. Presumably they have done this and this report is the revised version.

Do you know where the phrase, ‘Monks of concern’, comes from? Is that an in-house Ampleforth phrase that Ofsted have picked up on?

Several members of my family have gone there. The school holds a very special place in our family.

@SouthernFashionista

Several members of my family have gone there. The school holds a very special place in our family.

Genuinely asking - how to you reconcile that with the numerous safeguarding concerns? Especially the peadophilic monks wandering the grounds?

OMG.
I've just read the Ofsted report.
It's mind-blowing (I'm a child safeguarding lead in another context).
It looks as though the comments earlier in this thread about the high SEND numbers being mostly due to the "elastic" nature of diagnoses in the private sector isn't entirely true. The report mentions students with SEND having penetrative sex during the school day because they' were insufficiently supervised (it sounds as though maybe after PE) and it's unlikely they would comment on the SEND if it was just mild dyslexia. It specifically mentioned their "vulnerability".
(And not to mention now needing sniffer dogs and thermal imaging to avoid drunken drugged parties 🙄).
Honestly, if a parent from a different (ie lower) social class was knowingly putting their children in an environment where there was that lack of safety they would be being investigated by social services. It's really hard to meet the threshold for SS interest in my area but that would meet it.
It's genuinely shocking that parents care so little for their children that they are prepared to send them somewhere like this for the sake of history (because it's certainly not for kudos any longer, even if it was in the past).

aren't entirely true.

My DB went there and I knew a lot of his friends. My best friend’s DBs also went there so between us we have quite the collection of stories and it wasn’t the monks you had to worry about.

Take 800 teenagers, dump them in the middle of nowhere, give them a generous monthly allowance and then people wonder why there are drugs/alcohol/sex with each other / sex with cleaners / sex with teachers. I know two boys who were expelled, one for receiving cocaine in the post and one for celebrating the end of his A levels by drinking a bottle of whisky on the school roof. He was caught on his way back as he had to go through a Junior Dorm to get to the roof and it was this last fact that was his downfall.

Ampleforth gives me very mixed feelings but for those of you who wish to be completely morally outraged I suggest you look at Nevil Holt prep school. This makes me cry. My friend’s brother was in the classroom during the police raid. I get very upset when I think about those little boys.

Seems odd that while they are so keen to claim a complete separation of school and monastery, a quick check of the school website shows a monk prominently on the Senior Leadership Team www.ampleforthcollege.org.uk/college/our-school/senior-leadership-team

Listed, indeed, ahead of the pastoral deputy and safeguarding lead. Priorities.

@Anydream

OMG. I've just read the Ofsted report. It's mind-blowing (I'm a child safeguarding lead in another context). It looks as though the comments earlier in this thread about the high SEND numbers being mostly due to the "elastic" nature of diagnoses in the private sector isn't entirely true. The report mentions students with SEND having penetrative sex during the school day because they' were insufficiently supervised (it sounds as though maybe after PE) and it's unlikely they would comment on the SEND if it was just mild dyslexia. It specifically mentioned their "vulnerability". (And not to mention now needing sniffer dogs and thermal imaging to avoid drunken drugged parties 🙄). Honestly, if a parent from a different (ie lower) social class was knowingly putting their children in an environment where there was that lack of safety they would be being investigated by social services. It's really hard to meet the threshold for SS interest in my area but that would meet it. It's genuinely shocking that parents care so little for their children that they are prepared to send them somewhere like this for the sake of history (because it's certainly not for kudos any longer, even if it was in the past).

This Ofsted report (and all the others) make for appalling reading. And there would have been an opportunity to appeal before publication … so not really appropriate for Ampleforth to use the media to suggest that it is inaccurate. It clearly isn’t.

Unfortunately, a refusal to engage with Ofsted’s findings seems to be characteristic of the organisation (see Jonathan West, a child protection campaigner, on Twitter: mobile.twitter.com/JonathanWest_?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)

How can any organisation effect change if their response is always one of denial? And this is safeguarding: there is no grey area in safeguarding.

But social services don’t shut down schools, @Anydream … the DfE can, however. Why don’t they?

The problem with boarding schools is that the children have no voice, they have limited phone usage and in many cases they are banned from social media.

The children are the victims here and nobody is listening to them.

There should be an independent state body representing children in boarding schools in the same way a social worker is appointed to children in state care. As the parents can afford to spend thousands of pounds confining their children to these places they should fund the cost to the state for their child's representative.

If each child in every boarding school was interviewered independent of parental and school faculity influance, a couple of weeks into each team, abuse such as abandonment, homesickness, institutionalization, bullying and drug use would be identified. If the parents and school persist in normalizing these abuses they should face criminal charges.

Abuse like we see here in Ampleforth and other schools simply wouldn't happen if the children at the centre of this, the victims were given a safe and independent voice.

But we all know the parents of boarding school children would never agree to give the child the claim to love a voice in this manner, they know well what the outcome would be and that in itself is a travesty.

From a young age a child can walk in to school tomorrow and demand to change gender, the school and the parents have to facilitate their request but when a child feels homesickness, abadonment, , longs for their own bed, is subjected to bullying or abuse just because their are in a "Boarding school" and just because their parents are wealthy they are silenced and told to suck it up. It is an utter disgrace.

The media need to scrutinise Boarding School and the morally void parents who inflict them on innocent children.

Why are mumsnet deleting post and censoring people advocating against child abuse?