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

[tippygrace]

The website has been widely circulated among private school parents since yesterday.
I just had a look this morning and was shocked to find a disproportional number of testimonies from former pupils at Latymer Upper School.
www.everyonesinvited.uk/survivor-testimonies
Does this volume speak of any truth?
(I'm having DC considering entry to the school for 11+)

Its nothing to do with American Liberalism...

Personally I doubt (although I have absolutely no contact or involvement in the school) that it is restricted to or in any way perticular to Latymer Upper. Exactly the same sort of behaviour went on in my comprehensive in Australia in the 1980s, and my distinct impression is that it i in just about every co-educational school in the country. When I switched from coeducational comprehensive to single sex private, it was a breath of fresh air for it not to be going on in the corridors (but yes, it went on at parties, but as I was the sort of girl who chose not to go to parties that often, I only saw it on the rare occasions that I did, and stayed on the periphery, wondering what other girls saw in these parties). When there were boys in your class and particularly in the corridors, there was no getting away from it.
So I very strongly suspect that it just happens that the contacts of this website knew people at Latymer Upper, and that as this website expands, you will start hearing stories from every school in the country - with every coeducational school having it occur within the school, where girls have absolutely no choice but to be, and with single sex schools at parties or other "organised" activities between the schools.

particular, in

@bimkom I agree with you entirely. It occurs across the board, outside of education too. Only a few days ago my partner had to 'tell off' a small group of young people at work for making inappropriate comments circling the type of behaviour we're talking about here. Albeit none of the comments were directed at another staff member, however would have been quite offensive to others outside of the (not so funny) "joke" they were having.

That aside, I do wonder if this type of behaviour in our country's schools will drive up demand for single sex education. My DS is at LU, however, friends with DSs in the Guildford area all send their daughters to the private single sex options and swear by it. Their geography helps too, with most parents spread out over the Guildford area or countryside, parties are less easy to organise on a whim and meet-ups in groups outside of school hours nearly always requires parental transport, thus are usually supervised. Inside the classroom they always rave about how the girls get to do take part in every leadership/sport/academic/drama/etc role going and not worry about being 'trumped by boys'.... which I always rebuff as a bit of a overreaction (being a mum of boys myself, i think they're wonderful!), but none the less its what they think and it it seems to work.

In my mind i'm certain that separating our DS/DDs doesn't address the core issue of teaching proper social etiquette and appropriate behaviours!

Anyway ramble over!

No direct experience of LU but live quite close to Graveney, mentioned upthread. I think it is telling that wasn’t very widely reported. Maybe the racism element was simply not of interest to the UK press before BLM, but the fact that it is a state school will be a big factor too. Daily Mail etc love a private school story.

As well, as I mentioned in another concurrent thread Graveny has a stories of sexism instagram as well. Made a bit of stir for those of us in the area who had kids at the school or going into y7 (know of two people who gave up their places in the 'elite' stream for their local comps) but obviously didn't the press didn't think it was relevant

I've got some very good friends with kids at LU, my kids attend or attended a similar school. My understanding, having looked at the website, is LU pupils were the first to latch on to the website and post testimonies so it gives a disproportionate slant. If you look, every day it's filling up with testimonies from other schools. Things like this certainly go on all the time at my kids' school and other schools and did - much worse in some respects - at my co-ed private school in the 1980s. It's all terrible and I'm glad it's being addressed so seriously but it is by no means an LUS problem and I'd urge worried prospective parents to see that. As many have said here, it's far more about lax parenting and societal. pressures on kids from social media than the school itself. Also understand LUS has immediately thrown itself into tackling this issue wholeheartedly (as has my kids' school)

And yes, as other posters mention - papers LOVE a top private school angle. They wouldn't have bothered reporting this if allegations had started from a comprehensive in Ormskirk. It's the idea you can pay all that money and it could still go horribly wrong that they love to push. Which is true.

If you read the graveny instagrams, there is a LOT there about how the school responded (or didn't respond) or were the actual perpetrators of abuse for both the sexism and racism threads. That doesn't seem to be the focus here

This kind of behaviour and culture is rife in schools. Female teachers often try to challenge it but get no back up from senior management, or parents who believe their boys can do no wrong.
It won't be just Latymer. It's just once one person at a school posts, the rest of the school finds out and more stories come out the woodwork. Or a group of friends who have all experienced harassment at school will say 'ok let's do this together, let's speak out'. I think we will see waves from schools as it gets picked up by the pupils at that school as somewhere they can say something. Latymer just happens to be one of the first.

I think it's rife too. I blame porn and social media and smartphones; children and teenagers are having a very warped view on sex.
I knew LUS boys in the 90s as a teenager and would never have described them as sexually aggressive.
Lots of conversations with children need having before puberty on coming across porn and and explaining WHY you don't want them to seek it out. Focus on teaching children respect and self respect, boundaries and sex should be consensual and enjoyable and at the right age.
I have a daughter entering secondary school this year at a coed Ibstock place. I'm pleased that the school are taking the testimonials very seriously and praising all those who spoke up. in fact I heard about this from a letter sent by the headmaster.
These must not be swept under the carpet but used to teach us parents and schools to deal with societal pressures that we never experienced ourselves.

I blame porn and social media and smartphones;

I also blame parents who put no rules in place around the use of phones. There are plenty of people who see it as an invasion of privacy to check what their children’s internet history and who fail to take the most basic precautions to keep their children safe.

True but you cannot control everything. You've got to educate and discuss things openly
Just a few days ago I saw some teenage boys on my run looking at something obviously sexually graphic on one of their smartphones and making lewd comments just as they stepped out of school.

I looked at the website yesterday and felt there was a huge difference between LUS and the other schools in that there were many LUS testimonies of things taking place in school, often in front of teachers and being ignored by the staff. For other schools, it was mainly at parties. The frequent mention of staff being complicit wasn't replicated for other schools in the pages I read and would make it much harder to change the culture at LUS.

There seems to be very contradictory views about single sex education, depending on the sex of the pupils. There was a brief pile-in a few weeks ago with Gavin Williamson commenting that he would like to see Eton go mixed and the papers all trotted out stories about eton, Ramey and Winchester as the last boys’ boarding schools and how out of date and damaging they are, yet none of the articles suggested that Cheltenham Ladies or Putney High should go Co-Ed.

It’s curious.