Cranbrook School hires Queenwood chair to lead child protection, bullying review

Embattled eastern suburbs boys’ school Cranbrook has enlisted a consultant who has worked at some of the country’s wealthiest girls’ schools to head up an investigation into ‘serious’ allegations.

$46,000-per-year Sydney private school Cranbrook has enlisted the chair of a wealthy Mosman girls’ school to investigate claims of a toxic culture, and allegations its ex-headmaster failed to disclose a teacher’s sexual impropriety to the school’s council.

Cranbrook school council president Geoff Lovell wrote to the Bellevue Hill boys’ school community on Thursday announcing Dr Amanda Bell, Queenwood school chair and educational consultant, had been appointed to review “serious concerns reported to the School”, alongside an unnamed law firm.

Mr Lovell said the “highly experienced education leader”, who has previously held a temporary principal position at $50,000/year Rose Bay girls’ school Kambala and was head of Brisbane Girls Grammar School for four years in the early 2000s, “is well placed to assist the School in this work”.

“Dr Bell and the law firm will ensure that the review is conducted rigorously and independently of the School,” Mr Lovell wrote.

“They will provide advice to the School Council on the School’s response to the relevant matters of concern. They will also provide advice on the School’s policies and procedures relating to child protection, workplace health and safety, whistleblowing, and discrimination and bullying.”

Dr Amanda Bell will lead the review. Picture: Supplied

Ex-Cranbrook principal Nicholas Sampson. Picture: Supplied

The external review is expected to be wrapped up by mid-year, but the council president made no mention of whether its conclusions would be made public.

Cranbrook’s culture has been under a cloud for years amid its push to introduce girls to the student body, previously described as a “viper’s pit” by one former female executive, culminating in evidence presented by the ABC to the school’s council that a current teacher had sent sexually explicit emails to a female ex-student at their previous school.

Cranbrook charges more than $46,000 for boys in the senior years to attend the posh Bellevue Hill school.

The council claimed headmaster Nicholas Sampson had not mentioned the incident, despite his own knowledge of the allegations dating back to 2015.

After receiving a “please explain” from the council, who said the failure to disclose “led to an irrevocable breakdown of trust”, Mr Sampson handed in his resignation.

Michele Marquet, head of Cranbrook’s Junior School, has been appointed acting head until a replacement is found.

In an online article published Wednesday under Dr Bell’s name, the adviser at consultancy firm Fisher Leadership wrote that both school principals and their boards would benefit “from employing a futures focus to planning”, “informed by sector trends and predicated on all participants having curious, aspirational and courageous mindsets”.

The sessions were described as “a new method for Principals and Boards to plan for the unknown”.

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