Kings School headmaster addresses Cranbrook controversy in assembly

The principal said students sometimes receive ‘vitriol and abuse’ on the streets because they attend The Kings School.

The Kings School Headmaster Tony George.

The Kings School principal has railed against the term “toxic masculinity” and the unjust ­“ridicule” students face attending institutions such as the ­private college, after students quizzed the headmaster on media reports about another boys’ school Cranbrook and its now-departed leader.

 Tony George addressed a school assembly in the days after the ABC aired a Four Corners ­episode about a history of abuse, bullying and mistreatment of staff and students at Cranbrook, answering a Year 12 student’s question about his “initial thoughts on the report” and on then-headmaster Nicholas Sampson.

Cranbrook’s former headmaster, Nicholas Sampson.

A muffled audio clip of his 20-minute answer was seemingly shared by a student on YouTube, in which he said schools in 2024 had to resolve issues “in the first 30 seconds” or risk being “lambasted across the media”.

A spokesperson from The King’s School said the school had “a longstanding tradition whereby students are encouraged to put questions to the headmaster at assemblies, and he commits to answering them” and that the boys were “understandably curious” about Mr George’s views on the topic.

“There is such a prevalence, of immediacy and … what social media does in terms of immediacy. It’s almost as though if it’s not dealt with in the first 30 seconds, well now it’s going to be lambasted across all the tabloids,” Mr George said.

“It means then we are always under public scrutiny. We are always going to be scrutinised by those outside.”

“I think Nicholas Sampson as a headmaster, as I am, faces the same kinds of challenges that principals and headmasters and headmistresses now do across the world in dealing with such immediacy. Because you will note, most of what was in the report on Monday night was allegations. Now that doesn’t mean allegations are not of real things. Let me be clear about that. There are real injustices that occur and we should be seeking justice.”

The Year 12 student asked about the program’s investigation of “toxic masculinity” at Cranbrook, and Mr George said the term wrongly painted all students as toxic. “It’s unjust I believe to simply label all male behaviour as toxic masculinity,” he said. “As though, because you’re masculine, you’re toxic. There is toxic behaviour. And maybe I want to pull back from that and say there’s bad behaviour and there’s unlawful behaviour, and there’s criminal behaviour … Because once you are labelled in the court of public opinion as being toxic, how do you come back from that?”

Headmaster Tony George.

“You boys, as you travel to and from school in the uniforms that you’re wearing, will no doubt come across members of the public who want to ridicule you for being here at The Kings School,” he said. “I have heard stories of boys that have actually been on the receiving end of vitriol and abuse, because your parents have chosen for you to come to this school. And I’m sorry about that,” he said.

It comes as Mr George criticised “wokeness” and said there was a disturbing trend of children at non-government schools “being increasingly targeted and ridiculed”, in The King’s School Institute’s March 2024 magazine, released last week.

“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,” he wrote.