A well-regarded Victorian private school has been rocked by claims younger students were beaten with straps by older students as part of informal ‘punishments’.
Ballarat Grammar has launched an investigation with the assistance of police into the allegations after one parent complained their child had been whipped.
A letter was sent to parents on Thursday by headmaster Adam Heath explaining the school was taking the allegations seriously.
Mr Heath told The Age he was aware of 12 boys from Year 11 down to Year 7 who were allegedly victims of the ‘punishment ring’.
He said senior students in one of the schools two male boarding houses had developed the belief that they had the right to dole out physical punishments to younger boys who they perceived had stepped out of line.
‘We’ve got to be really open and honest with ourselves and say if something is going on in one boys’ boarding house, it’s really possible that it’s going on in the second,’ Mr Heath told the publication.
‘We haven’t got any confirmed allegations from the second house, but we’re just we’re just working through that because we have our suspicions.’
He added that police were involved by the school after the parent complained and that since then he has been in regular contact with Ballarat detectives.
Ballarat Grammar School is one of the most expensive in regional Victoria with a Year 12 boarding student costing more than $46,000 in fees (pictured)
The school has also brought in a consultant – in the form of the former principal of Prince Alfred College in Adelaide – to conduct an independent review of the school’s processes and to ensure the situation is handled with transparency and fairness.
‘It’s horrendous, and it’s confronting, but we’ve got to be there for our students and for their families whilst we work to discover what occurred, and then administer appropriate consequences, which will all be done decisively,’ Mr Heath said.
Ballarat Grammar School is one of the most expensive in regional Victoria with Year 12 academic fees costing more than $26,000, and a Year 12 boarding student costing more than $46,000 in fees.
It is the second Victorian private school in recent years to be hit with allegations of boys beating each other.
In 2020, an annual ‘fight club’ was discovered being held at Geelong Grammar School after a senior boy broke his hand in a boxing match.
It emerged that students would wait until teachers had gone to bed to conduct the tournaments, which were seen by the students as a rite of passage.
The school banned the boxing matches and said it did not condone the behaviour.
