‘Toxic cesspit’: Former teacher of Seymour College claims SACE result may have been affected by parent pressure

A former teacher from an elite SA private school claims it allowed the resubmission of plagiarised work potentially affecting SACE results.

A former Seymour College teacher claims the school allowed the resubmission of plagiarised year 12 work, amid pressure from wealthy families to ensure their children received top marks.

And another has told The Advertiser the elite girls school was “toxic” with claims of bullying among both students and staff.

Seymour College at Glen Osmond. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

The first teacher, who left the school three years ago and then left the profession, said rewriting of work she found to be plagiarised had been allowed by the school, instead of the zero mark recommended by the SACE Board.

“It should have been automatic zero,” she said.

The teacher said staff were under pressure from particular parents across all year levels who threatened to stop paying fees until their students received better grades.

She also said one that of her former colleagues told her that when organising school trips and excursions “some children were ‘VIPs’ and that another group were in-fact ‘VVIPs’.

She said she was told these girls came from wealthy families, many of whom were donating tens of thousands of dollars to the school and needed extra privileges such as “ensuring that they only stayed with the ‘best’ partner families on the trip … by ‘best’ they meant the wealthiest”.

The teacher said she left the school after raising concerns about why a psychometric test was being used for all existing staff in a professional development session, what the results were being used for and how they were stored.

Seymour College in Glen Osmond. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

She said every staff member was designated a personality type after the testing. They had to write it on paper, stick it to their shirt and seek out other staff members of the same type.

She said she queried the test’s lawfulness but her concerns were not addressed, so she informed an external company engaged by the school to investigate anonymous complaints.

She ultimately took extended sick leave before resigning.

The second teacher, who left Seymour six years ago, said she had taught at more than half a dozen schools and described Seymour as the “worst by a long way”.

She described the school as a “toxic cesspit” where she had observed bullying among staff and students.

Seymour College. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

She said she felt that those who were “free thinkers” or did “not fit the Burnside social set” and “spoke with the Burnside intonation” were less welcome.

She felt there was pressure to “give special rights to (students of parents) who are, you know, wealthy or giving a lot of money to the college”.

The teacher said a student with autism “would just regularly have food thrown at her at the canteen” by other students, but when she tried to stop the bullying, the school did not back her up. She eventually quit.

Seymour declined to comment on the teachers’ allegations.

Earlier this month, the father of a former Seymour student, 9, told The Advertiser he pulled her out of the school after it “failed” to properly deal with his complaint that another student had threatened to stab his daughter.

He said instead the school told him the “tone of his emails” were not appropriate.

That prompted a former Seymour boarder, who has autism, to come forward detailing how she was among a group of students forced to slide down a slippery dip covered in animal manure in 2012, as part of “torture days” run by departing year 12 boarders.

Originally published as ‘Toxic cesspit’: Former teacher of Seymour College claims SACE result may have been affected by parent pressure