Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
A battle involving Sydney’s corporate titans and moneyed elite over introducing girls to an elite boys school is blowing the eastern suburbs asunder – and some parents say they should nick off if they don’t have children currently enrolled at the institution.
“This is bulls**t – why don’t they go and get a hobby?” one aggrieved parent said The power struggle at the $40,000-a-year Cranbrook School at Bellevue Hill has centred on a clash between headmaster Nicholas Sampson and school council president Jon North.
The stoush appeared to end in spectacular public fashion on Monday after 10 of 11 school council members resigned en masse.
The battle between the board and the principal stemmed from a four month old disagreement between Mr North and Mr Sampson, who is pocketing a salary package of just over $1 million a year.
Underlying the feud was a dispute over the timing of when female students would be admitted to the boys school.
Mr Sampson’s proposal was to give 40 girls entering Year 11 a scholarship and for them to start as soon as next year. But the board supported the majority view among parents that they should be admitted in Year 7 from 2026.
One parent said they were worried about their son being distracted by girls while in class.
“We have all enrolled our sons into Cranbrook Boys School – we didn’t enrol our son into Cranbrook Boys School and maybe one day it will go co-ed,” the parent said.
However, one person close to the whole debacle insisted the school community was behind Mr Sampson because he had lifted academic results.
“You call it a civil war, I call it 10 pin bowling, it was a strike,” he said of the 10 members who signed the resignation letter.
“It makes no sensible sense, to a normal person, why the headmaster has been treated like this and why no one came to support him. That’s what the school community is absolutely outraged about.”
Those who agitated for a change of school council members were labelled as “four disaffected individuals” in a letter to parents last week. They included professional management consultant at McKinsey Angus Dawson, and billionaire co-chief investment officer at Caledonia Will Vicars who was reported to have a personal fortune of $1.27 billion this year.
r Vicars has pledged $10m to the school and will have his name on a 6,258 sqm building known as the “Vicars Centenary Building”, which has a teaching terrace, a drama theatre, a dining “commons”, a place of worship and an assembly hall.
The other members of the so-called dissident four include Dexus chair Warwick Negus and Macquarie Bank director Nicola Wakefield-Evans. Ms Wakefield Evans categorically ruled out running for a board position on Tuesday and said the majority of parents were supportive of Mr Sampson, evidenced by a recent petition calling for him to remain in his role until at least 2024.
