Dulwich College a “breeding ground for sexual predators”

[rosemary201]

Another day, another school
Interestingly, the first letter from a boy

Dulwich College is today accused of being a “breeding ground for sexual predators” in an open letter organised by a former schoolboy that contains more than 100 anonymous accounts of assault, harassment and sharing intimate photos online.

The letter, written by Samuel Schulenburg, 19, a former pupil at the south London private school, said “experiences of assault, revenge pornography and slut shaming were exacerbated by ... young men who ... laughed at stories of sexual violence”.

His letter includes about 100 anonymous testimonies written by girls who went to neighbouring schools, such as James Allen’s Girls’ School (Jags). One claims there was “an established rape culture” at the school.

I wrote this on another thread but will repeat it.

Girls need to know just how compromising sending these photos is. It is not only that they will be passed around like trophies, be used as revenge etc.

Alarmingly, on 24 Hours in Police Custody the other week there was a case where two young girls had been raped by the same man (on separate occasions, each reporting it to the police separately). They had both met the man on social media, Facebook.

It was clear they were telling the truth but he said it was consensual and told the police to look on their/his phone to see the images the girls had sent him. The police officer in charge then explained that this would put the case in jeopardy from the CPS point of view.

Had one of the girls not happened to have told him on Facebook that she was15, the case would have been dismissed.

So schoolgirls, who have sent images, would most likely have their case similarly dismissed should they try to report an alleged rape or assault by a boy they’d sent a photo to.

I read a lot of comments on the internet about how bad the leading private schools in the UK are. The only solution is to close these schools and transfer the children to state schools. If it is so good in other schools, why is it so bad? Below I am listing only one statistic. Should be added sexual harassment, drugs, gangs, alcohol, bullying. .... The guilty of crimes should be punished but it is a fight against a certain system and not against 4 private schools.

"The recent Panorama series, Knives in the Classroom revealed a world where secondary students told interviewers that death by stabbing is ‘like, nothing – it’s normalised’.

The programme reported staggering statistics in England and Wales last year:

17,000 10-15 year olds carrying knives
47,000 juvenile knife offences."

@DirtyDancing

Interesting to hear Wandsworth Common mentioned aka ‘heading over to Wands’ all the GCSEs + ages, private AND state, hang there. Hot bed of Ket, alcohol and smoking. I know a Mum who’s having a torrid time with her 16 year old with regards to the crowd on ‘Wands’. Ket is cheaper than alcohol and more easily accessible, which is an incredibly scary prospect indeed.

Ket has been a huge problem with the Highgate/ North London teens. It’s a horrible drug.

Its really not a state vs private thing. The key is in the title -- "Everyone's invited". Yet people who already didn't like private schools are treating this as another feather to add to their anti-indi hats.

I'm also shocked that parents don't think it's worth reporting the safeguarding issues they've heard about. How can the school be held responsible for things happening outside of school if parents can't even take responsibility for reporting things. Why is their no burden of responsibility with these bystander parents?

Do you think a headline might run in next weeks Times "Parents knew drug fueled sex parties were taking place on the common but didn't report it because they didn't see it as their responsibility?" Or worse yet "because they didn't want their kids laughing at them".

Stabbing is not “normalised” and no one thinks it is. It simply isn’t the case. Schools have very robust responses to pupils with weapons.

There is no difference between the safeguarding requirements in a private school and a state school. The law is clear about duties and responsibilities. Whether isi take a robust enough view when inspecting safeguarding is another matter. I think isi inspections are fairly light touch and Ofsted are better. So I would like to see Ofsted standard of inspection in all schools. However the law does not differentiate between educational settings.

It was covered brilliantly on women’s hour www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tmkc

It happens everywhere.
The big shock for people is that fee paying schools market themselves on their zero tolerance and the fact that children will be with like minded academic sporty children who don’t behave like other children.
The myth has been blown open. Your child is no safer from bullying in a few paying school. Awful things happen in fee paying schools - that is why the press and public are so interested because people are paying exorbitant fees to make sure their children don’t mix with bad types and it just isn’t working like that.

But sexual harassment of girls is endemic in every institution in the land due to porn watching.

@Breds
I don't recall anyone on this thread discussing shutting down private schools and transferring them to state schools, so not sure that this comment is relevant here.

Interesting that you bring up "carrying a weapon" on this topic, as this happened recently at one of the Dulwich schools named. When asked about it, the students have said that they felt extremely anxious over exam pressure etc etc. No reporting of safeguarding concerns of any kind to the police. Slightly different story if it was a state school.
@PresentingPercy
I would agree that the safeguarding/ child protection laws governing private & state schools are the same. As my example above demonstrates ( & in my experience), the way that they are adhered to and monitored is very different.

@Oohhhbetty

It happens everywhere. The big shock for people is that fee paying schools market themselves on their zero tolerance and the fact that children will be with like minded academic sporty children who don’t behave like other children. The myth has been blown open. Your child is no safer from bullying in a few paying school. Awful things happen in fee paying schools - that is why the press and public are so interested because people are paying exorbitant fees to make sure their children don’t mix with bad types and it just isn’t working like that.

But sexual harassment of girls is endemic in every institution in the land due to porn watching.

I completely agree. It's the shock isn't it? That behavior you've been paying to avoid is apparently unavoidable

Odd people are so naive about private schools. As a teen I went to stay with my mothers friend whose same age dd was at St Paul’s girls and wow the things they were getting up to certainly weren’t going on in my rural comp! Remember being quite glad to leave sitting on the bus back to Somerset thinking maybe my life was not so bad after all ..

That is difficult to quantify though. Plenty of state schools haven’t reacted to accusations either. You would expect between 5-9 times as many Safeguarding reports from state schools but are there? Are they sweeping it under the carpet too? Why might this be?

In my opinion (and it’s only that) there is a bias in the law towards safeguarding DC from adults. Not from other DC. Safeguarding training focusses on abuse by adults and those in positions of trust. Safer recruitment focuses on adults. Looking for signs of abuse at home focuses on adults. Not what school pupils are doing at a party. It therefore puts the schools on the back-foot. They all have the same channels of communication to the LA Officers and are able to report what they are concerned about but what do schools do when it’s entirely off their premises?Has any school done anything? It’s doubtful they are responsible in my view unless the signs are evident in school and a DC discloses. That’s different. The DC are responsible for reporting off site and anyone else with knowledge. So how do schools deal with such accusations at parties? I think it’s a grey area for all of them. Not least the parents of the pupils. Most of whom seem to have kept quiet too.

At school, there is a judgment to be made as to what is safeguarding and the law when it’s peer on peer. Is it Safeguarding or bullying? I suspect few schools, state or private, have dealt with this well. If they have at all! I have noticed many of the “talking heads” from education have been pretty quiet in the last few days.

The schools have to look at their ethos and really know their pupils. There will be changes now I think.

@PresentingPercy
I agree there will be changes, this is seismic. And about time. I only have DD’s so I have no idea about how parents talk to their sons about porn. I try and tell my DD’s that their bodies don’t have to look hairless and perfect and that sex is actually more about trying not to fart rather than looking glamorous and airbrushed!
I think less people are going to buy the fee paying bullshit and marketing gloss but I also hope state schools are taking this on board and will also be extra vigilant.

I didn’t pay to avoid underage sex and porn though. I paid for a girls’ school where DDs would be happy and relaxed and learn to the best of their ability. And they did. Undisturbed by boys around school! Only idiots think the DC are nicer! I paid for a broader education and that’s what they got. I couldn’t control who else went to the school.

@PresentingPercy posters on here are often suggesting that the children are nicer at fee paying school and I sort of laugh and sort of wince - part irony, part regretful for their children that things won’t be the ivory tower that has been sold to them. I wouldn’t wish some of the children I met at my top boarding school on my worst enemy.

Mine both at a girls school too. Think it’s such a shame there are so few girls state schools. Both mine thriving in an all female learning environment women are in charge lessons biased towards feminism inspirational talks from women etc and school has best results in county and minimal if any disruption in lessons that I remember from my mixed school. Every girl deserves that.

Not sure what I’ll do for dd. I like mixed generally but will see how I feel - it’s a long way off.

Thinking more I had a good private mixed experience- the day part anyway. But with times as they are will have to think. We do have an all girls near.

Definitely been a bad week for these expensive fee paying schools in terms of PR. Their marketing departments will be in tail spin.

Oohhhbetty that's not accurate. 9 times out of 10 the people bringing up "thought we'd avoid bad kids" as a reason for parents sending their kids to private school, are posters who scoff at parents who send their kids to private school and make wild assumptions about them and their supposed snobbery/entitlement. It's rarely the parents of kids at private school

DD went with her brother to our local comp. she's 22 now and I asked her yesterday about her experience there. Answer: no sexual abuse. Just (ha!) bullying from other girls. So don't write off co-ed, folks!
However at uni she had a lovely friend who attended Dulwich (played in an orchestra with him) and who (she says) went on and in about awful the boys at his school were.
It's only anecdotal. But when it boils down to it it, that's all we have here isn't ?

@KillingEvenings that is so far from true. If could be bothered I would scroll through old posts and find the hundreds of examples. People have also said it to me in ‘real life’ - friends, family, even a grandparent down the road. Clearly you are too savvy to believe the marketing hype but some people really aren’t, especially first time buyers of fee paying education.

Having worked for a LA and been responsible for trying to find state pupils new schools after they had been permanently excluded, I can assure some of you posting you wouldn’t have wanted your DC to be on the receiving end of their violence either! Believe me.

That wasn’t a reason why we swerved state schools and I’m more than aware such behaviour wasn’t common but most private school parents choose private for the breadth of education and many because it’s what they know. First time purchasers need to explain why they want private and will say it’s to avoid other DC. But they are a minority and I think over the years I met one set of parents who thought like this. It isn’t about avoiding other DC for most.

My DDs were primary state educated. I have no issue with state schools or the DC in them.

You will never ever hear parents who come from generations of privately educated family members saying they pay because they wish to avoid other DC. In their worlds, they don’t meet them and DC in state schools are simply not on their radar. The granny of a first time buyer is totally different!

But when it boils down to it it, that's all we have here isn't ?

Yes and no - this specific complaint began with one person who went to the press rather than the school. Whose response seems to have been rapid, extensive and appropriate. We do not what it would have been like if reported to the school in the first instance.

What else we have is the thousands of accounts on EI. Of which the founder stated in the BBC that the initial apparently higher incidence towards private schools is a relic of how the site started and who heard about it first. Now that everyone's head of it, it's clear that both sectors, and also universities, have just as grave a problem

@AuntieStella

But when it boils down to it it, that's all we have here isn't ?

Yes and no - this specific complaint began with one person who went to the press rather than the school. Whose response seems to have been rapid, extensive and appropriate. We do not what it would have been like if reported to the school in the first instance.

What else we have is the thousands of accounts on EI. Of which the founder stated in the BBC that the initial apparently higher incidence towards private schools is a relic of how the site started and who heard about it first. Now that everyone's head of it, it's clear that both sectors, and also universities, have just as grave a problem

That was my point really, in case anyone jumped up and said 'yes but that's just your personal story, not evidence'. This is all about anecdote and there are so many from so many different sources that we cannot ignore it.