Mount Scopus Memorial College defends decision not to release damning report

In a letter to families, a leading Melbourne private school has defended its decision not to release a report into its handling of child safety complaints.

Mount Scopus Memorial College ignored red flags about a senior staff member.

A leading Melbourne private school has defended its decision not to release a damning report into its handling of child safety complaints.

In a letter to families on Sunday night, Mount Scopus Memorial College principal Rabbi James Kennard said the school did not publish the full report “out of respect” for the privacy of its students and teachers who bravely spoke out on a confidential basis.

It comes after the Herald Sun revealed the full findings of the review into the culture at the school on Sunday.

The report revealed a “lack of appropriate response by leaders to serious complaints and allegations” regarding child safety over several years.

Staff who raised child-safe concerns faced “retribution” as the school “acted to address the wellbeing and reputation of the accused staff members, over the wellbeing of students making allegations,” it states.

The damning review into the culture at Mount Scopus Memorial College.

Rabbi Kennard said the school conducted an investigation following allegations of misconduct by a former staff member two years ago.

“During that investigation we were distressed to learn that some students had not felt safe or comfortable reporting inappropriate conduct at school,” he said.

“We commissioned Child Wise to do a safeguarding review because child safety is the school’s highest priority and we understood change needed to happen.

“We were very open about that with our school community and acknowledged the damage that had been caused.”

Rabbi Kennard said due to Shavuot (Jewish holiday), the school was not given an opportunity to respond or address the issues raised by the “unauthorised distribution” of the report.

“But is important that we do so with you; our students, parents, staff, alumni and community,” he wrote.

Rabbi Kennard said the school was embracing and incorporating all advice from the improvement plan into its practices and processes.

“This work is ongoing and we have processes in place to continually review and update our Child Safeguarding Program.

“27 out of the 49 recommendations have been implemented in full and the remaining 22 are being currently actioned.

“All recommendations will be implemented in full by the end of Term 4 2023. The board is actively monitoring the implementation of these recommendations as a top priority.”

The Herald Sun previously reported student and past students reporting abuse “were offered with the male principal only, meetings were held with doors closed, no formal detailed record of meetings were made,” the report states.

Girls were also asked if they wanted to “confess” anything in relation to a staff member who groomed them.

The report also details homophobia towards LGBTIQ+ students, favouritism towards top-performing students, peer-to-peer bullying and teachers talking in “degrading” terms about students.

The report by Child Wise was commissioned in February 2022 following the sacking of the long-serving director of studies Jared Alford amid findings of serious sexual misconduct.

The report states Mr Alford “groomed an entire school community, including staff and leadership… and worked his way into positions of trust and authority in the school.

“Concurrently observations were made about inappropriate contact with certain ‘favoured’ students, including highly sexualised communication,” it states.

Mr Alford was facing allegations of misconduct from at least ten women when he left the Burwood college in late November 2021.

The report said Mr Alford used the informal Jewish Life program to “expose children to harm and ongoing risk”, particularly “high achievers” and “popular girls”.

He has not been charged over the allegations.

The school’s treatment of complainants was slammed in the report for being “not trauma-informed and not aligned with best practices”.

Rather than tell the school community about the allegations, the school breached

child safety practices by telling students Mr Alford was ill and “should be written to with well wishes”.

The report into Mount Scopus also detailed homophobia toward LGBTIQ+ students.

Mr Alford was also “invited to an end of year gathering and a farewell speech was given … where his contribution was celebrated” in a further breach of good practice.

Last year, Rabbi James Kennard released the review’s 49 recommendations for strengthening child safety at the school.

He committed to implementing them, but he did not release the full report.

A former Mount Scopus student who graduated in 2021 told the Herald Sun the findings in the report illustrated the school’s “toxic” culture.

“It’s obvious why they wanted to keep this damning report a secret,” he said.

“I’m still traumatised by my experience at the school, I was bullied constantly.

“When I made the complaint to my school leaders, they told me to basically ‘toughen up’, it was never taken seriously.”

Rabbi James Kennard released the review’s 49 recommendations. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Another former student, who offered support to women making reports to the school about Mr Alford, said students’ concerns were not being taken seriously enough.

“I also agree with the findings in the Child Wise report because for years the faculty has not been properly trained to deal with issues such as sexual misconduct.”

Voice Against Child Sexual Abuse director Phillip Weinberg said the information contained within the Child Wise report was consistent with the accounts of victims and survivors who attended Mt Scopus in recent years and bravely shared their experiences with them.

“In our view, it would have been appropriate for Mt Scopus to have shared the full report with its parent body,” Mr Weinberg said.

Rabbi Kennard has announced his decision to retire at the end of 2023.