Cranbrook School has missed deadlines on three key questions about its welfare and harassment policies amid an investigation into inappropriate behaviour at the school, with the federal government accusing the school of not being “more co-operative”.
The exclusive Bellevue Hill school found itself at the centre of a media storm after allegations on the ABC’s Four Corners program of workplace bullying and a toxic culture, including that it failed to discipline a teacher who sent sexually explicit messages to a former student.
Cranbrook School receives government funding. Credit: Wolter Peeters
Documents tabled to a Senate budget estimates hearing on Wednesday revealed Cranbrook is yet to provide the education department with answers regarding how complaints about harassment are dealt with at the school, how these complaints are recorded and processed, and if the school council had any oversight on the investigations into inappropriate behaviour.
Headmaster Nicholas Sampson resigned from his $1 million a year position in March amid claims he was aware of inappropriate behaviour by a Cranbrook teacher but failed to notify the school council.
A timeline of correspondence between Cranbrook and the federal Education Department shows a letter was first sent to the school on March 12 asking 21 questions about procedures around misconduct and subsequent reviews undertaken, noting the serious nature of the media reports and the “significant amount of Commonwealth recurrent financial assistance provided”.
The department provided a deadline of April 10.
Cranbrook wrote back to the department the day before the responses were due, asking for an extension to May 13, which was granted.
The day after the extended deadline the department wrote to the school requesting an urgent update. Cranbrook then asked for another extension, which was not granted.
Over the next few days, the school went back and forth with the department, asking for clarification of certain questions and providing some full answers and partial responses to others.
The department noted Cranbrook should have asked for clarification earlier, given the deadline had passed.
Cranbrook School has yet to answer these questions
- How are complaints, welfare matters, bullying, harassment and other forms of behaviour deemed not compliant with school values of students, teachers, staff and parents dealt with at Cranbrook School? Please explain and provide relevant copies of documents.
- Are complaints, welfare matters, bullying, harassment and other forms of behaviour deemed not compliant with school values of students, teachers, staff and parents formally recorded at Cranbrook School? If so, how are these recorded and processed?
- Did the Council of the Cranbrook School oversee any of the investigations? Were reports provided to the council on bullying, harassment, and sexual abuse matters? What decisions, if any, were made by the council in relation to these matters during meetings of the council. Please provide copies of relevant board minutes since 2017.
As of June 4, three questions have not been answered.
During budget estimates, Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said she was “shocked” the school had failed to respond to questions regarding its current policy.
“As someone who’s worked in the public education system, if I worked in a public school that couldn’t say right now ‘do you have a procedure in place to deal with welfare matters, bullying and harassment’ like right now, we would be hauled over the coals,” she said.
“Yet we have a private school that rakes in millions of dollars in government funding as well as fees, has money coming out its eyeballs, and it can’t pull together a process to give to you in three months.”
Assistant Minister for Education Anthony Chisholm said the minister responsible, Jason Clare, was aware and “concerned” regarding behaviour at Cranbrook.
Queensland Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne.
“I think we’ve got to allow the department to do their work in terms of getting to the bottom of this,” he said.
“We would hope the school would be more co-operative in this matter.”
When asked if he understood why the public would be concerned that the school was still receiving government funding given the allegations, Chisholm said: “I can understand why the public would be concerned about it, and we are concerned about it too.”
According to the latest available financial statement, Cranbrook School received $6.5 million in government funding in the 2021–22 financial year. Allman-Payne said government funding amounted to $34 million in the past decade.
In a statement, a Cranbrook spokesperson said the school was co-operating with the request.
“Cranbrook recognises the serious nature of this inquiry and has been working carefully and methodically through its records to ensure it is providing the information requested by the Department of Education. Given the amount of material requested, it has been responding in tranches and has almost finalised the compilation of the last tranche of material from the original request to provide to the department,” they said.
“We are fully co-operating with the department and will continue to do so.”
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