Sydney Boys High principal Kim Jaggar spends $25,000 on sexual consent program

The principal of a leading Sydney boys high school has spent tens of thousands of dollars on a program on sexual consent even though there has been no cases at the school.

A principal’s decision to spend $25,000 to drill male students on sexual consent rules in a bid to stamp out “incidents of sexual assault” was based on nothing but “a general perception of boys schools in the eastern suburbs”.

Parents at the selective Sydney Boys High School were left dumbfounded when principal Dr Kim Jaggar trumpeted the new consent program to deal with a “culture of sexual harassment and “underlying sexism”.

“Despite the fact that we have endeavoured to address behaviours around consent through our PD/H/PE units … our messages have not cut through comprehensively in the area of consent,” he told parents last week.

But the Education Department admitted on Thursday not one incident had occurred to spark the change.

Sydney Boys High School principal, Dr Kim Jaggar.

Kathryn Torrisheba with her four sons from left Zebastian, 9, Caleb, 15, Rhys, 13, and Kori, 11. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“Zero cases of sexual assault or rape involving Sydney Boys High School have led to the decision to expand the consent curriculum at the school,” an Education Department spokeswoman said.

“The school is responding to the general perception of boys schools in the eastern suburbs that became apparent after the Chanel Contos petition.”

But any sign the school was a hotbed of sexual harassment came as a surprise to one parent who said students were focused on learning at school and were tutored in their free time on the weekend.

“This is the first I’ve heard of any dramas about sexual harassment … it is all news to me,” the man said.

But child and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the collective guilt placed onto the schoolboys was undoing the important work to raise awareness around sexual consent.

“Of course, it’s tarring all boys with the same brush,” Dr Carr-Gregg said.

“It’s like that stupid school in Victoria that got the boys to stand up and apologise to the girls for having white male privilege.

“This is insanity. It’s basically doing the movement a disservice because it creates cynicism and defensiveness.”

Psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed said as a society we were now running the risk young boys would be ashamed of the fact that they’re male.

“So just like we now have a culture where being white is a kind of original sin, we risk inculcating another generation that being male is another kind of original sin and that they must wash themselves of,” he said.

“Even the studious, selective school students who would struggle to talk to a girl are going to get a message that they’re basically a predator, sexual and violent predator ready to be unleashed and it needs to be beaten out of them.

Kathryn Torrisheba says her four sons don’t spend much time with females. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Quakers Hill mum Kathryn Torrisheba backed the move to give more sexual consent training to young men.

Her sons attend all boys high schools.

“They don’t spend a lot of time with females, they don’t mingle and they don’t have the whole relationship atmosphere as they would in a co-ed school,” she said.

“By then rolling it out now and even if they started in Year Seven, it is instilling it into them so by the time they’re 15, 16, 17 and becoming sexually active, they understand consent.

“I worry if they get to that point of being a superstar like Jarryd Hayne and making a name for themselves and think they think they can do things without consent,” Ms Torrisheba added.

The new lessons at Sydney Boys High will begin this year and will be in addition to workshops for each year group which cover sex consent topics.