Two former teachers at an elite Adelaide school have made explosive claims

Two former private school teachers have made explosive new claims that some of the school’s teachers engaged in questionable acts to get students better marks.

Picture: File

Two former private school teachers have made explosive claims that some staff wrote or rewrote students’ SACE-assessed essays for struggling students. They also claim teachers are sent expensive gifts, including jewellery and expensive bags, from parents.

The first teacher alleges they personally witnessed a Year 12 student being called to a meeting in the office they co-shared with a fellow teacher and watched as the teacher dictated to the student parts of an essay as the student typed it up.

“This student was really struggling to get through Year 12. I think they had tried pushing and pushing that student and in the end, the teacher basically wrote her essay for her,” the teacher, who didn’t want to be named, said.

“But the thing is – it’s not fair. That essay formed part of their SACE score. You have students at public schools working their guts out to get results.”

The teacher said parents of students at the end of Year 11 would buy Year 12 teachers expensive gifts, including jewellery and expensive bags.

They said they received a designer bag worth about $400 from a parent whose child was going into Year 12 and felt this led to pressure on them to give that student top marks.

A second teacher told The Advertiser they had witnessed a teacher assisting another Year 12 in the library.

“They were saying ‘write this, no write it this way’ and in the end just said ‘here, let me do it’ – picking the student’s laptop up and actually typing it out themselves,” they said.

“It’s because there is so much pressure on staff to make sure students get A+ in Year 12,” the teacher who left school two years ago said.

“I think a common type of comment is ‘I didn’t pay $25,000 a year for a B+’ – staff feel owned.”

The teacher said the school was a “toxic cesspit of entitlement” that “destroyed teacher’s lives”.

They said they had watched “50 teachers leave in the last three years” with many “absolutely destroyed” and “unable to even drive near the school” because of the way it had impacted their mental health – particularly their self-confidence.

The teacher said they were forced to sign NDA’s preventing them from speaking disparagingly about the school in order to leave the school peacefully and ensure they were able to get another teaching job.

The Advertiser has chosen not to name the school.

After receiving questions about the claims, the school dismissed the allegations saying they were “unattributed and unsubstantiated”, and that it had policies and procedures in place to deal with them.