‘Victimhood culture’: King’s School head takes aim at ‘wokeness’

The headmaster of The King’s School has attacked victimhood culture, “wokeness” and the brain drain to the state’s selective schools in a treatise on educational leadership.

Writing in The King’s School Institute’s journal Leader, school head Tony George suggested wokeness had evolved into the “age of victimhood” while later outlining how private school students had become targets for ridicule in contemporary media.

The King’s School headmaster Tony George.

“Government single-sex schools have seemed to avoid criticism, as have single-sex girls’ schools. However, the underlying agenda against the straw man of white privileged males has fuelled the creation of the term toxic masculinity and the religious fervour it subsequently generates.”

“The concept of identity abuse, where individuals are misrepresented and objectified for sensationalism, is a disturbing trend with children attending non-government schools being increasingly targeted and ridiculed.”

His comments come as the culture at private boys’ schools has been under the spotlight over the past few years. In 2021, thousands of young women revealed they were sexually assaulted during their school years, often by male peers at boys’ schools.

This month, Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill came under more scrutiny after an ABC Four Corners episode raised allegations relating to a sexual assault at the school and claimed female staff had been treated poorly by senior management. Cranbrook, along with Newington in the inner west, is set to become co-ed in the current years, while other principals have restated their commitment to single-sex education.

George also took aim at media reporting, which he said too often focused on the price of school fees – which topped $50,000 a year at Kambala this year – while failing to delve into other major issues in education.

The King’s School in North Parramatta has more than 2000 students.Credit: Peter Braig

“However, instead of acknowledging and celebrating the significant achievement and contribution of independent schools to society, sections of government and the press seem intent on deriding independent boys’ schools with any story they can concoct, invariably referencing the kinds of clickbait memes that tantalise memetic cliches, such as toxic masculinity, linked to stories on single-sex schooling, or elitism linked to stories on school fees and funding,” George wrote.

“Consider, for example, the tabloid infatuation with the school fees of the top 1 per cent of schools instead of the brain drain affecting more than 90 per cent of NSW government schools by their own selective schools.”

In response to the Herald’s questions, George said other states have moved to a more comprehensive assessment of success, focusing on median ATAR. Currently, the Herald and other media outlets calculate school rankings as a proportion of students at their school scoring in the top band in their subject.

“One cannot help but think that the Greiner government’s commitment to expanding the NSW state selective school system was in response to the tabloid’s fascination with HSC league tables based on the performance of only the top students,” George said.

Boys’ schools approached by the Herald declined to say how their enrolments were tracking this year. Trinity Grammar School headmaster Tim Bowden said demand was at an all-time high.

“Parents value what we do at Trinity when it comes to educating their sons, demonstrated by the sacrifices that they make for their sons to attend the school,” he said.

“There is a disjunct between negative public commentary about high-fee boys’ schools and the demand for it; the indicators are that there’s a place for single-sex schools in the Australian education landscape.”

Last year, the NSW Department of Education commissioned PR firm SEC Newgate to gauge community attitudes towards co-ed schooling after floating plans to force Randwick Girls and Randwick Boys to merge into one co-ed school. It found that 76 per cent of parents of primary school-aged children wanted their child to go to a co-ed high school.

An overhaul of catchment areas this year gave thousands of families across the city access to a co-ed high school in the inner west and Sydney’s southwest.