Roedean school
Roedean, a top private school for girls in Johannesburg, has been shaken by allegations of bullying by three children, one of them the child of a senior government official and another of a high-flying Johannesburg couple.
No information was available about the parents of the third girl.
The school has confirmed it is investigating how a “bright” young learner, Mary*, who joined Roedean Junior School only six weeks ago, has been bullied, manipulated, tormented and taunted by the three girls.
Mary shocked her parents by talking about suicide, which led to them asking the school to urgently act against the bullies because they were concerned about the well-being of their child. This concern was intensified after they discovered a disturbing video message on Mary’s cellphone addressed to one of the alleged bullies, expressing how she cries in secret in the toilets every day because of how she is being treated.
This sparked concern that the abuse had not been an isolated incident.
In another incident, Mary was told by a learner that children in her class had made clay figures in art class of her “as a person they hate most”.
Worried about her emotional state, Mary’s parents pleaded with the alleged bully’s parents and approached the school for intervention, only for their child to be physically abused the following day at school. The parents immediately sought a meeting with the school’s head.
Mary was subjected to bullying, including physical assault, for four out of five days last week alone, her parents said. The only day she was not bullied was when she didn’t go to school. This prompted an independent school psychologist to write a letter to her parents advising them that, in her professional opinion, the child was not safe and the school was not doing enough to protect her from the bullies.
Mary’s father did not want to divulge further details because he was concerned about his daughter’s well-being.
Staff members said that after the celebrity parents received complaints about their daughter’s alleged misconduct as part of the gang of three, they, in turn, bullied the school’s principal.
Earlier this year, in another incident allegedly involving the same trio, a parent wrote to the school saying his daughter *Linda had been traumatised and assaulted on the playground by the three girls.
The father said Linda had been physically and verbally abused on at least three occasions from 25 January to 23 March, including online posts with a derogatory description of the victim. He said the school did not act against the bullies, but said that the government official’s daughter had apologised.
The school confirmed that the government official and his wife have apologised for their daughter’s behaviour regarding Linda. But they had not been informed by the school of the incident involving Mary.
The head of the junior school at Roedean, Gillian Boltman, said the school had brought in conflict and mediation specialists from the Bryanston company, BizArmour, which has experience in the education field, to investigate the circumstances around the incident involving Mary.
“We will then be in a position to take decisive action with all the factual evidence at hand,” said Boltman, adding that Roedean has a zero-tolerance policy on bullying, which is in its code of conduct “and evident in our ethos”.
“Regrettably, of course, there is bullying in schools. At Roedean, we operate within a community of approximately 800 children who spend at least six hours a day together. Incidents of bullying will inevitably occur,” she said.
Boltman said they had strengthened the school’s anti-bullying policy, admitting there have been weaknesses, but “any learner who attends Roedean today can be assured that there will be decisive action [against bullying]”.
Despite several assurances from the school, none of the incidents besides that of Mary have been investigated, and the bullies continued their reign of terror, which according to correspondence from other parents, has been going on since the beginning of the year and had been reported to the school.
When contacted by the Mail & Guardian for comment, the celebrity wife said the matter was “not for the media or public consumption”.
After becoming “fed up” with the school’s failure to act against the bullying, Linda’s parents took their child out of the school.
Bullying claims against the celebrity wife’s daughter and her two friends have been made by several parents.
Another family whose child was subject to bullying has moved to another province. A fourth child who had been bullied has remained at the school.
The parent of a fifth child who had been bullied said they sought relief from the school board after failing to get help from Boltman.
A teacher at the school, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several children have left the school in the past year as a result of bullying and the school’s failure to act decisively against the alleged culprits.
Ronél de Jager, the chief executive of BizArmour, confirmed in a letter that the firm had been instructed to investigate the bullying against Mary. But Mary’s father said Boltman had told them that a disciplinary hearing that was to have taken place last Monday was postponed until Wednesday. At the time of writing, no hearing has taken place and Mary has not been at school.
After inquiries by the M&G, the school has since informed all junior school parents that the bullying against Mary was being investigated. The inquiry had been kept under wraps.
Mary’s father said: “We have had to remove the child from school until the investigation is complete; it is widely accepted in every institution that if there are allegations of wrongdoing, the accused are removed pending an investigation, but at Roedean, the affected are punished.”
In a letter to the school, Linda’s father expressed dissatisfaction and concern about how the management and leadership of the school handled reported incidents of physical, emotional, verbal and social bullying.
He said Linda still questions why the school had not acted against the girls involved in the attack on her.
“The fact that yet another girl, new to the school, has had to suffer physical and emotional bullying at the hands of the same group of girls is shocking and reprehensible,” Linda’s father said.
According to the anti-bullying initiative, Stop Bullying, as many as 57% of learners in high schools have been bullied, but they did not specify whether this was at private and public schools. It said a recent study showed that South Africa is rated second in the world for cyberbullying.
Last month a 14-year-old grade eight pupil died after jumping off a building at St Teresa’s School in Johannesburg. The girl who jumped with her was severely injured. It is not yet known why the girls jumped and the police are investigating the incident.
Elijah Mhlanga, spokesperson for the department of basic education, said the department generally doesn’t get involved in private school governance and condemns bullying in all forms, irrespective of where it takes place.
“Schools are supposed to be no-violence zones, and learners must stop the bullying as it affects their learning as we have seen in recent months; it can also lead to unnecessary loss of life,” he said.
The Independent Schools Association of South Africa was asked to comment on the steps it had taken to stamp out bullying at private schools but did not respond by the time of publication. On its website, the association says bullying is not tolerated in public and private schools and is a breach of learners’ constitutional rights. Bullying also contravenes the association’s requirement for membership. — © Higher Education Media Services
* Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identities of the children.
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