Help! I don’t want to send my DD to WHS anymore

[SWMum345]

There was an article in the Mail, Times, Telegraph and Tatler about an open letter written by the ex head girl of WHS about KCS school being a hotbed of sexual violence (there is another thread on this with a link to the letter). We have just accepted a place for DD to start at Wimbledon High School in September but having read this letter and the testimonials I don’t think I can do it. While the focus of the letter is about the behaviour and culture of the boys at KCS most of the experiences are from girls at WHS (or those from WHS who transferred to KCS in 6th form). Just to be clear I am not victim shaming here and I believe that no girl should ever have to endure sexual assault but I have serious misgiving about sending my daughter to a school where so many girls have been victims of sexual assault. The letter claims that “everyone knew” what the KCS girls were like - but if this was the case why did girls from the school continue to go to parties with them? Why did girls from the schools continue to get so drunk they were unconscious in the presence of known sexual predators? Where were their friends when they were being abused - why do so many accounts reference the fact that female friends of the abused (WHS girls) laughed off their stories and implied it was their fault for being too drunk? What were the parents thinking, letting their daughters go to these parties? Why did WHS not intervene if so many girls were being assaulted? So many alarm bells are ringing in my head and I honestly don’t know what to do. Part of the reason I am paying for private school is that I (clearly erroneously) thought it would provide my DD with a better chance of finding friends who were well behaved and whose parents were maybe stricter about what they did and who they were hanging out with. I have a decent state option that thankfully I have held on to (as there were questions around DHs job security in the pandemic). Should I cut my losses with the deposit and just run?

@newmodelarmymayhem18 I think you make a good point. When I was growing up I was constantly reminded on a daily basis of the consequences of good choices. My friends and I were all quick to call each other out for bad choices too but it came from a good place - looking back we were hugely judgmental!. Perhaps kids who grow up with too much privilege don’t have to think about their choices as much because the consequences aren’t as bad?

I don't know if I'm right though. It's just a hunch based on what I've observed over the years! DC coming from privileged and wealthy backgrounds know that Mummy and Daddy have the money to throw at problems that come their way and get the least bad punishments/outcomes. Also, if they do 'go bad' the family network is more likely to have the contacts and money to help them get back on track.

@partyatthepalace it’s probably a good point in the conversation to mention that my family are practicing Muslims and we don’t drink alcohol. The community we live and socialise within is very different and I recognise my DD will probably end up living a more sheltered life than most.

If you'd mentioned that earlier you might have got slightly less brisk responses. However, it doesn't excuse the victim blaming in your original post, which was very marked. You are going to find the same issues at any school but obviously with MeToo etc, hopefully things will get better. However, I think it's important you educate yourself on the reality of life for teenagers - their world is much more complex and shaded than you seem to think. Your daughter will have to navigate it to reach adulthood, and she needs to be able to talk to you honestly about the problems and dilemmas she is going to face.

I don't personally think the OP's message was victim blaming and I think many of the comments to her on here have been unkind.

OP for what it's worth I agree with your decision to take the grammar place over the private one but that has more to do with my general preference for state over private.

The Everyone's Invited material is extremely worrying and upsetting for all parents, wherever their children go to school. I don't think the situation is helped by people being unkind to a mother who posts on Mumsnet for the first time to ask for help/ advice. Speaking personally I have discussed the issues being raised on that and other websites with my children (male and female) and have recently shared with them some of my own experiences when I was younger in order to help them understand the importance of these issues. I have also stressed to my children the importance of looking out for other young people, and not to ignore it or not notice if another young person is being ill treated. That is not to excuse men or boys who mistreat women or girls, quite the contrary, it is to bring up all our children to challenge and call out poor behaviour as soon as they see it.

I think you were very misguided in thinking that private school pupils would necessarily be a better peer group for your daughter. I attended Oxford Uni 12 years ago having attended a mixed comprehensive and was shocked at the arrogance and entitlement of the private/public school boys when it came to mixing with girls. A fair few could be termed sexual predators to be honest- think ignoring a girl’s protestations that she was too drunk to have sex. The issue seemed to be that they had been brought up to think themselves superior to everyone else, but as they had spent little time in the company of girls, they were also insecure and needed to assert themselves over the girls. Whether this was by pressuring girls to sleep with them, openly having lists ranking girls in the college or even just pouring a drink over a girl at a bar ‘because it was funny’.

My friends who had been educated in single sex private and public schools held these young men in such high regard it was laughable to me. I remember one night out where a horrible public school boy who was dancing in a separate group next to my friend decided to lean backwards and put all of his weight on her for an extended period of time. Rather than moving away or shoving him (as I would have done), she carried on awkwardly dancing with him leaning on her, with all of his friends laughing at her. When I asked her why she was allowing it, she said, ‘oh but that’s Will PoshMcPoshface from Eton!’

I don't think the situation is helped by people being unkind to a mother who posts on Mumsnet for the first time to ask for help/ advice.

Her OP was framed in a way that placed the blame on the victims and those around them, rather than on the perpetrators of the sexual assaults. That is victim-blaming.

Yes, it can be confronting to have out unconscious bias pointed out to us, but that doesn’t mean no one should point it out. Silence is also damaging.

It’s a shame OP felt the emphasis on victim-blaming was detracting from their worries and the real issue but that’s not because people were ‘unkind’ to bring it up, it’s because the phrasing of the opening post muddied the question OP was really asking.

I didn’t mean to be unkind but you were WAY off the mark if you thought private school children would be from ‘cleaner’ homes - from my experience there are just as many problems going on in the homes of privately educated students - parents with drink and drug problems (albeit coke not cheaper drugs!) lots of drunorexic mums, plenty of fraud / dodgy business stuff - a few arms dealers. Amongst that there are also lovely families. Exactly like you find in state schools - a mix. Private school buys a higher class of friend not a better type of friend. People are people wherever they go to school. I turned up at my boarding school as a hardworking, clean living child and left with an eating disorder, drug habit, a few GCSEs and having been sexually assaulted by someone in my cohort. Luckily I sought help and got back on track, but it was the most strange environment to be a part of, so much wealth and children who learnt to party very very hard from their parents example and I was way out of comfort zone coming from a family of educated professionals without a glitzy life.

Someone I know who runs a famous pub said the other day that his male ex private school clientele were like football thugs - they would wreck the place when drunk, the only difference being they would come back the next day with cheque books to pay for the damage. Entitled hooligans I think was the description!

I can't think of a single other school where the risk won't be similar.

It isn't much to do with the schools- much of this goes on at parties and reflects parents, teen social media culture, the times (lots of these are uni age reporting on a few years ago... not to say it hasn't changed but by the time your daughter is in sixth form and socialising more widely it hopefully will have).

Yes schools need to tackle it more and report, encourage disclosure safely at the time and educate (these things are talked about and new compulsory government relationships curriculums kicked in this year which will make a difference hopefully).

There is not much you can do beyond educating your own daughter about healthy relationships, protecting herself, being assertive and reporting. She shouldn't have to change her behaviour to account for male's sexual behaviours but educating her is all you can do beyond never letting her out of your sight.....

Can someone direct me to this open letter/website please?

@Sanddeabeach the OP is a practicing muslim, who by all accounts grew up on a really rough council estate and had done well in life by expressly NOT following the crowd.

OP there is another thread about this article which I would encourage you to read. It gives a balanced perspective on the open letter and the newspaper article that you refer to in your original post. I understand your concerns as this letter does explicitly state that the problem in the particular school is "not normal" and is far worse than the things that are going on across the country in every school, state or private. I am not surprised you wanted to find out more as if it were me I would also be asking questions.

Here are few private schools where I live. Mostly state grammars and secondary moderns. If you really think grammar pupils behave like church mice, think again. All the trouble at parties has bern grammar school DC. The parents can be very well off! No school fees to pay! Spare money and Range Rovers. Plenty of parents are on drugs in both sectors.

The only DC I know who got into rehab (and one died) have been state educated. They stole for their drug money. Drugs are offered to more DC in the state sector according to the police. County Lines have accounted for this. If your DC doesn’t go to parties and isn’t likely to take drugs, I think you choose the education you want. Parents of some boys need to educate them differently but many of these parents won’t recognise the issue. Only when a grammar school lad put up a direction sign to his party in my village that read “Get your pussy this way”, did his parents remotely think there was an issue. Seemed a nice lad!

A few years after the key safeguarding guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education emphasised the problem of sexual violence in schools, the 2021 update to that legislation is set to focus on it once more as the problem is endemic in British schools. As only 7% of schools are private it seems unlikely that there would be such a focus if this were the root of the problem. Men and boys are abusing women and we blame the schools.

Name changed but regular on here.

I attended a school v similar to WHS in sw London in early 90s. Private schools even then were a hotbed of drugs and I think it’s only worse...

The massive thing the OP is missing is all too often with private school parents (magnified a million now due to astronomical fees) is you’ve got parents who are time poor, money rich. Very little supervision of kids (got to work hard to pay for house in Wim Village/fees etc) and these kids have free reign. Frankly Im choosing state for my kids because I’m horrified at what I hear these schools have turned into.

I went to pony club for years so as a state school pupil came across many many privately educated kids. Pretty much without exception, it was those privately educated that behaved the worst at camps - smoking, drinking sneaking in with the opposite sex. Often the boys would make comments. I'm shocked you think that private education would be different/better, conduct wise!

Lots of prejudice coming out here. It is not just a problem in private schools. You are deluding yourself if you think “boys will be boys” just applies to private school DC. Let alone smoking and drinking! Everyone smoked at my grammar school - except a minority of us. Sex on the railway embankment too. And drink! All a million years ago but we knew how to live a little!

Typical Mumsnet.

State school parents coming up with anecdotal stories about Private school students and Private school parents coming up with anecdotal stories about State School students. Don't change Mumsnetters.

My DD attended Putney High, so very similar to WHS. I believe there was a core group who were into the party scene but the majority were just great kids who worked hard, played sport, did DoE and socialised at one another’s houses. My DD’s group was friends with some KCS boys and they were also great kids. They would congregate at various houses on Saturday nights (including ours) and we had no issues.

What I’m trying to say is that it will be up to your DD which group she befriends. There will be a hard-core party group at every school and you have to hope she avoids them.

I think parents know their own dc. Some dc never go to parties. They don’t change their personalities at all. So all schools will be fine.

As there is only anecdotal stories about this, including the girl from WHS, what else would one expect on this thread? No one knows if this is sensationalised Daily Mail “shock horror” or not. No one knows about parties etc because there’s no research on it. How can there be? So it ends up with tribal stories. However if 90% of dc are on state schools, most people would assume these dc are just as capable of getting drunk and misbehaving sexually as dc in other schools. There are 8 or 9 times as many of them. We also should recognise that drink is cheap and sex even cheaper. These are by no means confined to private school pupils.

@PresentingPercy

Lots of prejudice coming out here. It is not just a problem in private schools. You are deluding yourself if you think “boys will be boys” just applies to private school DC. Let alone smoking and drinking! Everyone smoked at my grammar school - except a minority of us. Sex on the railway embankment too. And drink! All a million years ago but we knew how to live a little!

I'm looking at you with new eyes @PresentingPercy 😂

:-). I learnt to smoke at boarding school age 13. We’d take the headmistresses dog for a walk on Sundays, knew where the six forms cigarette stash was kept and helped ourselves. I was a boringly good kid and it made me feel a bit rebellious!

There is a heck of a lot of stereotyping on this thread about the behaviour of both Private & State school students. I’m sure any of us ex Privately educated reading these accounts of what goes on in Private Schools have our own stories we could share - our parents didn’t care any less or necessarily were any less enlightened. Having had a DD go through State School, I can honestly say behaviour wise there wasn’t a great deal of difference and when it came to drugs and alcohol, obviously there are State students out there with wealthy parents and big allowances. Nor do kids intent on getting drunk much care what they are drinking - it tends to be more about volume! The only difference really might be setting - more going to the woods at the back of the park when it comes to State. Or it might not - DD1 certainly had friends at her State school with wealthy parents who were out working long hours & had big houses.

Depressing as it is, you can be as vigilant as you like but when it comes down to it, a teenager intent on finding trouble will. Often it’s not the result of lackadaisical parenting or failing to instil the right values in your children. My sister is a teacher and an absolutely brilliant parent and completely on it in terms of instilling behavioural and moral codes - 3 of her 4 are high flying graduates but one is a heroin addict who is quite often homeless. She didn’t parent him any differently. Sorry if this sounds a bit nihilistic & as if there really is bugger all we can do. What we can do is ensure our DD’ know what is acceptable and what is not & our DS’ likewise and that our Schools are enforcing this. Going Private is no inoculation against exposure to bad behaviour .. but neither is it necessarily exposing your DC to any worse!

I went to a state school in the north of England where 20 years ago sixth form parties were exactly like this. True, the main drug was cannabis but I’m sure some would have been doing harder stuff. Alcohol is dirt cheap so I don’t know why people think you need to be rich to get drunk. Boys groping girls in semi-darkness, “regretful sex” we used to call it, because back then we didn’t have the vocabulary I suppose for what was happening.

The media (and the general public as a consequence) run away with the idea that private schools are as depicted in The OC and Gossip Girl, living a wild time with parents absent from their mansions, handing out drugs like smarties and being somehow so much more sexually active than other teens. It’s weird because the vast majority of people go to/went to state schools so people know this stuff goes on/went on there too.

It’s fun to bash private schools though. 🤷‍♀️