Families claim Wesley College ‘harmed’ their three daughters and one son

Teacher and leaders at elite Melbourne school Wesley College have been accused of serious misconduct endangering the life of one student and mistreating three others.

Wesley College teachers and leaders have been accused of serious misconduct. Picture: Mark Stewart

Wesley College teachers and leaders have been accused of serious misconduct endangering the life of one student and mistreating three others.

Two families have written to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal arguing the elite school should not be given the right to boost its enrolment of female students because of the harm caused to their three daughters and their son.

They argue there are “significant and ongoing concerns about the safety of girls, and other students, at Wesley”.

The co-ed school was granted an equal opportunity exemption allowing it to advertise and select girls over boys in order to maintain a gender balance on November 16.

The parents wrote a submission to VCAT arguing against the exemption because of the way the school subjected their children to “serious teacher misconduct, wrongdoing, targeted detrimental treatment and (in one instance life-threatening) child abuse’’.

“Our daughters (and son) were shamed, humiliated, rejected, abandoned and treated as unworthy at Wesley, and they carry the complex and or traumatic implications of that within them today,” they wrote.

Wesley College was granted an equal opportunity exemption allowing it to advertise and select girls over boys in order to maintain a gender balance. Picture: Mark Stewart

“Wesley showed a disturbing and profound disrespect for our daughters, our families and us as their parents, a propensity for calculated cruelty toward girls (and their parents), and no understanding and empathy for their wellbeing or rights. Rather than safeguarding our daughters, Wesley treated them as disposable and replaceable.

“We cannot see how, on the basis of our three girls alone, that this school deserves to be granted any exemption to enrol more girls,” they wrote.

The parents were only aware of the application once it was reported publicly and were unsuccessful in getting their submission — which was made out of time — accepted despite the seriousness of the issues raised.

The children allegedly harmed by the school include a boy who was told to leave the school in the middle of year 11 exams following allegations which were never properly investigated. His parents were told to pull out his two younger sisters at the same time.

The other alleged victim is a female student who was “pushed into a suicidal state and hospitalised repeatedly in the wake of reporting she had been targeted for a course of detrimental treatment by a senior male teacher,” the parents wrote.

Wesley College has been granted similar equal opportunity exemptions in the past and this time received a small number of objections.

In its submission to VCAT, the school stresses its commitment to co-education, support of women’s events, such as International Women’s Day and the celebration of the women’s achievements.

A spokeswoman for Wesley College said the school “does not comment upon the details of specific student matters. However, we note that both of the matters named by the Herald Sun were appropriately addressed in prior years, including by external agencies where relevant. These two matters are entirely different from each other, do not relate to staff misconduct and are unrelated to the equal opportunity exemption.”