The Melbourne School

Discussion of the SES' satellite schools in Australia and New Zealand.
mm-
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Postby mm- » Tue Apr 25, 2006 2:24 pm

TD,

I too can tell of instances where chidlren have been left alone in rooms, crying their little hearts out (God knows what would have happened if a fire had broken out), boys sent to spend the morning in the girls classrooms as a form of punishment for something trivial, children not being allowed to go to the toilet and as a result soiling themselves in front of their peers, children tugged and pulled by teachers because they are not standing up straight enough, children being interrogated by teachers for information....I could go on and on.

This goes on at St James in London today.

HOW SAD.

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:39 pm

mm-

If this is true, it HAS to be stopped! Have parents made official complaints about this behaviour?

Tom

mm-
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Postby mm- » Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:11 pm

Tom,

As far as I know, there have been official complaints made by some parents. I do not know if the school have taken any action on the complaints made- I cannot think of any teacher that has left recently or that has been disciplined as a result. Other parents are pursuing things legally.

Sadly many parents feel that the only way to deal with this is to leave quietly without making a fuss- the favourite reason used is that the family are moving and that the school would then be too far to travel to in the mornings- only to find those same people walking down the Kings road a month later; having moved their children to a safer bet just around the corner.

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a different guest
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Postby a different guest » Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:36 am

mm - isn't there some sort of government licencing body parents can write to?

I am pretty sure TD tried that here, but got short shrift. TD - do you now have more info (and more parents) that it might be worth writing again?
Relatives with long-term involvement in the SES / SOP/ SoEP

mm-
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Postby mm- » Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:32 am

ADG

The Department of Education, NSPCC, Secretary of State for Education, even police departments have been contacted. No one's interested....even the media have backed off. Whether this is because of the SES' litigious nature and nobody wants to touch the issue with a barge pole, (after all it is easier to walk away and keep your mouth shut, than stand up for what is right) or whether there simply isn't anything to go on; who knows?

Perhaps there isn't a story to tell after all, perhaps the few of us who remain on this board have just misconstrued the whole sorry episode, perhaps parents like me have got the hold of the wrong end of the stick. who knows what the truth is?

You read of the horrible abuse that took place, you listen to stories being told about possible abuse still going on, you see some things that are not quite right but at the end of the day life goes on. St James and the SES will carry on recruiting people/children and immersing them into their cult and way of life. Some people will be damaged by the process others will be relatively unscathed, but at the end of the day we are all victims. Lets hope that 20 years from now our children, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers will have no need to recourse to a BB such as this.

Unfortunately for me I do have one child that HAS been affected by the SES and their controling and indoctrinating methods. I don't know at this stage what the long term effects of this will be. I pray every day that the effects of their brainwashing techinques will slowly subside and go. Like Temp D I too suffer from an enormous feeling of guilt. It's not about money, or wanting to bring down the SES and their horrible schools, but it IS about holding someone accountable and ensuring that it does not happen to another innocent child and their family. This is especially so when it concerns your own flesh and blood. Abuse, whether it is physical, sexual or mental, is still abuse. The ramifications of abuse can sometimes last a lifetime. The SES/ St James have a lot to answer for, and if it takes a court of law for this to take place then so be it.

By admitting their failings, by ending the contracts of those responsible for abuse, by simply apologising to those who have suffered as a result of their regime, the SES/ St James would take a huge leap forward in the healing process.

By harbouring teachers who have been found guilty of abuse, by intimidating parents and children and not being upfront and honest about what they teach and believe in, the SES/St James continue to fail those in their midst. Doing nothing and keeping quiet, pretending things have not and are not happening is selfish at best and irresponsible at worst.

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bonsai
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Postby bonsai » Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:13 pm

mm- wrote:The Department of Education, NSPCC, Secretary of Sate even police departments have been contacted. No one's interested....even the media have backed off. Whether this is because of the SES' litigious nature and nobody wants to touch the issue with a barge pole, (after all it is easier to walk away and keep your mouth shut, than stand up for what is right) or whether there simply isn't anything to go on; who knows?


I doubt it is the litigious nature of the SES, I don't think the SES is quite like that but I can imagine that people and the authorities can walk away quite quickly because as organisations they have mastered telling the authorities what they want to hear and they appear respectable when they do.

mm- wrote:You read of the horrible abuse that took place, you listen to stories being told about possible abuse still going on, you see some things that are not quite right but at the end of the day life goes on. St James and the SES will carry on recruiting people/children and immersing them into their cult and way of life. Some people will be damaged by the process others will be relatively unscathed, but at the end of the day we are all victims. Lets hope that 20 years from now our children, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers will have no need to recourse to a BB such as this.


It is easy to look at the damage that cults and other organisations do and to overlook it as being really damaging because to some extent there will always be people that do alright in them and others that don't and suffer. Also the range of manipulative coercive behaviour used by cults is not limited to just a few people. It is common human behaviour that exist in all human relationships.

To be honest, I believe that many in the SES have no awareness of what constitutes manipulative behaviour or how as an organisation they implement it. I also think that in many respects they don't intend to and that the cultish behaviour in many respects is entirely unwitting. The SES has done a lot to address this already like the amount of information available before hand is better and people can come to part 1 these days and if it is not for them they can even get their money back. There is still plenty of room for improvement though.

mm- wrote:Unfortunately for me I do have one child that HAS been affected by the SES and their controling and indoctrinating methods. I don't know at this stage what the long term effects of this will be. I pray every day that the effects of their brainwashing techinques will slowly subside and go. Like Temp D I too suffer from an enormous feeling of guilt. It's not about money, or wanting to bring down the SES and their horrible schools, but it IS about holding someone accountable and ensuring that it does not happen to another innocent child and their family. This is especially so when it concerns your own flesh and blood. Abuse, whether it is physical, sexual or mental, is still abuse. The ramifications of abuse can sometimes last a lifetime. The SES/ St James have a lot to answer for, and if it takes a court of law for this to take place then so be it.


I think this is exactly right. We must continue the pressure on the schools and the SES until they do recognise the harm that they are doing to children in there care becuase it is entirely unacceptable. And it is entirely unacceptable that one child is hurt even though 99 may leave unscathed. The thing is that St James is not prepared to recognise the way in which their precious philosophy is tarnishing their opinions on what is or is not a good educational method. Until they are prepared to recognise this they will continue to make mistakes the consequences of which could easily be as serious or worse than those we have already witnessed.

I agree that if it needs to take a court of law to wake these people up then so be it. I fear however that it will take further hurt and abuses before that can happen as I doubt there is sufficient evidence to secure convictions relating to the current complaints. Also the evidence submitted during the inquiry may not be admissible in any court proceedings.

Without doubt this board will serve a purpose for some time to come. I hope that there will not be further pupils from St James that have to come here and talk about abuses nor ex SES members having to recount tales of woes on residentials. If this board though serves that purpose then that in itself is most worthy.

There will always be people who believe differently to the SES and have been let down by it and may wish to discuss it. If members of the SES also wish to participate in these discussion then they are more than welcome too. The forum here provides for this too.

Bonsai

mm-
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Postby mm- » Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:47 pm

Bonsai wrote:

To be honest, I believe that many in the SES have no awareness of what constitutes manipulative behaviour or how as an organisation they implement it


Perhaps this applies to the little minions running about cleaning school premises, etc... but it certainly doesn't apply to those higher up in the SES. I think those at the top end of the scale know exactly what they are doing.

My experience as a parent at St James has been one, of great manipulation- I have eperienced it myself and seen it with my own children. Maybe it's not the in your face kind of manipulation but it certainly is there in a roundabout kind of way- almost like someone chipping away at a great big log until finally it is cut into two, stripping away the very essence of a person, where the bubbly independent 4 year old who entered the school is converted into a needy,unconfident clone of the person sitting next to them.- after years of indoctrination their spirit finally having been broken.

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bonsai
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Postby bonsai » Thu Apr 27, 2006 4:09 pm

mm- wrote:Perhaps this applies to the little minions running about cleaning school premises, etc... but it certainly doesn't apply to those higher up in the SES. I think those at the top end of the scale know exactly what they are doing.


I don't believe, based on my own experience, that my time at St James was a group of people trying to break me as a person. I believe the likes of Nicholas Debenham and others just so avidly believed in what they were doing to miss the obvious signs in front of them and that their beliefs in the SES philosophy and the idolisation of Leon MacLaren allowed them to ignore the harm that they were doing.

Don't get me wrong, this is inexcusible and must not go unaddressed.

I also believe that whilst there are people that set out to create a cult for themselves consisting of a group of people that will simply do their will, this is not how most cults form. I cannot believe that the majority of people that lead cults intend to create the destructive organisations that they do. They find something that they believe (wrongly) to be of use to people and market it and sell it. The cult forms with the corruption of the organisation once it is up and running. Leaders go on power trips or try to amass wealth and ignore what is really going on with the people they are selling it to.

At the heart of SES and St James is superiority. They think they are better than the world outside and they really believe that everyone should be a part of their organisation. Therefore they advertise widely and want to get as many pupils into St James as possible. These beliefs just simply allow them to ignore those they hurt and dismiss it when it is brought to their attention. This is why being a teacher is appointed with no or insufficient teaching qualifications just because they are an SES member.

Our job is to ensure that they are aware of what they are doing and are held accountable so that other innocent people are not caught up in it to become further victims.

I cannot excuse the schools or my teachers for what they ignored and the things that hurt me and others whilst I was at school. And I am deeply concerned about the future of St James and others that pass through its doors.

Bonsai

leon
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Postby leon » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:46 pm

mm- wrote:TD,

boys sent to spend the morning in the girls classrooms as a form of punishment for something trivial
This goes on at St James in London today.

.


Can any current members of SES comment on this? I find that punishment really weird and disturbing. Whats the rational here, that to be in the presence of girls is a disgrace?

mm-
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Postby mm- » Thu Apr 27, 2006 9:26 pm

I forgot- for those that don't pause correctly---young children are threatened with pausing lessons with the headmaster.

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Postby Goblinboy » Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:12 pm

bonsai wrote: I believe the likes of Nicholas Debenham and others just so avidly believed in what they were doing to miss the obvious signs in front of them and that their beliefs in the SES philosophy and the idolisation of Leon MacLaren allowed them to ignore the harm that they were doing.

Don't get me wrong, this is inexcusible and must not go unaddressed.

<snip>

At the heart of SES and St James is superiority. They think they are better than the world outside and they really believe that everyone should be a part of their organisation. Therefore they advertise widely and want to get as many pupils into St James as possible. These beliefs just simply allow them to ignore those they hurt and dismiss it when it is brought to their attention. This is why being a teacher is appointed with no or insufficient teaching qualifications just because they are an SES member.


Good post, Bonsai, insofar as it mirrors aspects of my experience of the SES, particularly on the superiority bit. Always felt sorry for the senior SES people I'd encounter in the Australian school - many seemed so lost in a banal world of hierarchy and pettiness, and a lot of strange stuff would happen in the dynamics between tutors and students. But when this contributes to injury to third parties, like children, however unintentional - it cannot be tolerated.

And punishing boys by putting them in the girl's classroom? That's wierd. Resonates with the Melbourne teachers shaking the boys hands but insisting on a curtsey from the girls. Are girls rewarded with time spent in the boys' classroom?

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bella
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Postby bella » Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:16 am

Are girls rewarded with time spent in the boys' classroom?


OK, that one actually made me LOL.

daska
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Postby daska » Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:51 am

Goblinboy wrote:punishing boys by putting them in the girl's classroom? That's wierd. Resonates with the Melbourne teachers shaking the boys hands but insisting on a curtsey from the girls. Are girls rewarded with time spent in the boys' classroom?


The shaking hands v. curtsey happens in the london junior schools as well, but having said that PM still waits in the courtyard even when it's raining - not a total lack of care - he's not out there every day (as head he does have some other commitments) but frequently enough for it to be 'normal'. I've noticed that LH doesn't bother to do the same for the senior girls though.

chittani
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Postby chittani » Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:34 pm

I wasn't going to post on the board any more, but it seems such a shame to stop at 98. Wasn't there a cricketer who ended his career with an average of 99.99?

Bonsai has hit the nail on the head, for my money. If you believe that you're superior in some way, or set apart from the ordinary run of humanity, then all kinds of extraordinary actions will seem justified. In extreme cases, racism has justified enslavement and genocide. The central principle of Advaita philosophy is "non-duality" - not seeing oneself as separate. Setting oneself apart because one has a superior philosophy of non-dualism might seem mad, but it's also very understandable. We all want to think of ourselves as special in some way, and members of the School or St James staff are no different from everyone else in that.

It's only the truly special people, one suspects, that are above these petty games. So don't be too ready to condemn 'cultists', as you see them. Maybe you're better than them, maybe not. If you're above pettiness, then - respect ...

I'd like to make a practical proposition that might help to move things forward for everyone.

There are a fair number of people who were pupils at St Vedast or St James and who now either work at the schools, have worked there, or are members of the School of Economic Science. These people have a very different perspective on what happened to the older people in those organisations. Most of them have a lot of criticisms of the way things were and still are, despite their continuing involvement. Partly, this is because none of them are in really responsible positions that would allow them to implement change. One might say that this last fact is responsible for the lack of progress at St James over the past couple of years.

They have been meeting with the former heads of St James in recent weeks, and what they have had to say has, I am told, "stunned" the head teachers. Obviously, the heads could have taken the message on board before, but I think hearing it from their own has brought it home. I wasn't present as I'm not ex-St James, but I've recently witnessed unprecedented conversations in which these people have said to senior figures in the School such things as: "let us teach our subjects, not philosophy", "we need impartial governors who are not in the SES", and that "the SES must apologise for what happened". Again, the message got through.

These people are, in my opinion, the key to St James (and the School) finding its way out of the present impasse. They know how bad things were, and want change, but they are trusted by the Governors and senior School tutors. Some of them have become radicalised recently because of this board and the Report, and others are more conservative, but I think everyone is unhappy with the present state of affairs.

So the suggestion would be to arrange a meeting between some of the complainants and a select group of their ex-schoolmates, just to see what could be done. From what I have seen, there is a wide agreement between both groups already as to the changes that need to take place. If both groups could satisfy themselves as to the bona fides of the other, then I think everyone here would agree that a resolution would not be too distant.

What does anyone think?

daska
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Postby daska » Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:50 pm

chittani wrote:I wasn't going to post on the board any more, but it seems such a shame to stop at 98. Wasn't there a cricketer who ended his career with an average of 99.99?

Bonsai has hit the nail on the head, for my money. If you believe that you're superior in some way, or set apart from the ordinary run of humanity, then all kinds of extraordinary actions will seem justified. In extreme cases, racism has justified enslavement and genocide. The central principle of Advaita philosophy is "non-duality" - not seeing oneself as separate. Setting oneself apart because one has a superior philosophy of non-dualism might seem mad, but it's also very understandable. We all want to think of ourselves as special in some way, and members of the School or St James staff are no different from everyone else in that.

It's only the truly special people, one suspects, that are above these petty games. So don't be too ready to condemn 'cultists', as you see them. Maybe you're better than them, maybe not. If you're above pettiness, then - respect ...

I'd like to make a practical proposition that might help to move things forward for everyone.

There are a fair number of people who were pupils at St Vedast or St James and who now either work at the schools, have worked there, or are members of the School of Economic Science. These people have a very different perspective on what happened to the older people in those organisations. Most of them have a lot of criticisms of the way things were and still are, despite their continuing involvement. Partly, this is because none of them are in really responsible positions that would allow them to implement change. One might say that this last fact is responsible for the lack of progress at St James over the past couple of years.

They have been meeting with the former heads of St James in recent weeks, and what they have had to say has, I am told, "stunned" the head teachers. Obviously, the heads could have taken the message on board before, but I think hearing it from their own has brought it home. I wasn't present as I'm not ex-St James, but I've recently witnessed unprecedented conversations in which these people have said to senior figures in the School such things as: "let us teach our subjects, not philosophy", "we need impartial governors who are not in the SES", and that "the SES must apologise for what happened". Again, the message got through.

These people are, in my opinion, the key to St James (and the School) finding its way out of the present impasse. They know how bad things were, and want change, but they are trusted by the Governors and senior School tutors. Some of them have become radicalised recently because of this board and the Report, and others are more conservative, but I think everyone is unhappy with the present state of affairs.

So the suggestion would be to arrange a meeting between some of the complainants and a select group of their ex-schoolmates, just to see what could be done. From what I have seen, there is a wide agreement between both groups already as to the changes that need to take place. If both groups could satisfy themselves as to the bona fides of the other, then I think everyone here would agree that a resolution would not be too distant.

What does anyone think?


hey chit, good one, the hardened activists are on the inside as well...!

shock horror, the people on this board were telling the truth...!

actually, I know and have great respect for many of our old classmates who are working at the schools - though it has to be said that they are not from my year or below as far as I know, nor as far as I am aware from the oldest years. (Mainly from 6th forms just before it shut?)


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