The King’s School students in HSC assessment cheating scandal
The headmaster of The King’s School has broken his silence over a HSC cheating scandal at the prestigious school. Writing to parents on Tuesday morning, headmaster Tony George said he was “disappointed” but said incidents of academic dishonesty arose from time to time at schools and universities.
NSW
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The headmaster of The King’s School has broken his silence over a HSC cheating scandal at the prestigious school.
Writing to parents on Tuesday morning, headmaster Tony George said he was “disappointed” but said incidents of academic dishonesty arose from time to time at schools and universities.
As revealed by The Daily Telegraph today, students at prestigious school were busted plagiarising a HSC assessment task on Shakespeare’s Richard III but escaped punishment because a teacher decided “the individual cannot be held to account for a matter reflective of a cultural or systemic issue”.
In the letter this morning, Dr George said it dealt with incidents of plagiarism privately and with confidentiality.
“Our primary aim has been to respond as fairly as possible to ensure the consequences for the boys reflect the seriousness of their actions for themselves,” he wrote.
He said every student caught cheating was penalised accordingly by the school.
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But parents at the school said the letter flies in the face of correspondence sent to earlier this year by the school’s head of English Phillip Taylor, who said initial punishments didn’t fit the offence and students could “redo” the assessment task by submitting another essay.
“He states each student was penalised accordingly which seems to completely contradict the letter from (the head of English),” one parent said.
Mr Taylor claimed the penalties didn’t fit the offence and students could “redo” the assessment as an essay.
“It is clear, and many of you have acknowledged, that a number of our boys have copied work that is not of their own doing,” he wrote in the May 24 letter obtained by The Daily Telegraph.
“Whilst the penalties applied do represent a response to plagiarism commensurate with both NESA (the National Education Standards Authority) and School policy … I do fear (having listened to you, the boys, my colleagues and my wife) that they do not serve the purposes for which they were intended.
“In essence, that the individual cannot be held to account for a matter reflective of a cultural or systemic issue.”
Before they begin their HSC, students must complete a NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) unit of study called All My Own Work — which tells students explicitly what constitutes cheating and states plagiarism is “unethical and dishonest”.
NESA data from last year shows that most students get zero marks or reduced marks for plagiarism in NSW. Seven per cent got a warning, while 1 per cent got no penalty.
Parents of the students who didn’t cheat said the school should have never bowed to pressure to scrap the original penalty, and that doing so was sending a message to students you can get away with cheating. One parent said that they understood dozens of students were originally penalised.
“One of the reasons we chose The King’s School was for its values of integrity,” the parent said.
English Teachers’ Association NSW Executive Officer Eva Gold said schools shouldn’t have to submit to parent demands because they’re paying the school fees.
“Parents are not customers, students are students and it is not a business — it is education,” she said.
“I know a lot of parents do apply a business mentality to education but that is not correct. The school has a responsibility to engender in the students not just an interest in learning, but also a sense of honesty — that is also what the parents are paying for.”
A NESA spokesman said there were no mandatory penalties for plagiarism but schools were required to maintain a register of all substantiated incidence of malpractice.
The King’s School did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.