{"id":255032,"date":"2025-11-01T08:15:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T08:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/255032\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T08:15:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T08:15:16","slug":"ballarat-grammar-banned-from-accepting-new-boarders-until-proven-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/255032\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballarat Grammar banned from accepting new boarders until proven safe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readers are advised this article includes details of bullying and violent abuse some may find distressing.<\/p>\n

A prestigious private school in regional Victoria, accused of ignoring a toxic cycle of violence, has been banned from accepting new boarding students until it can prove it complies with safety standards.<\/p>\n

In June, a dozen families alleged their sons were subjected to physical punishments or groomed to inflict physical punishments on other students at the boarding school over the past three years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ABC is also aware of at least 10 families engaged in separate legal action<\/a> against the school over alleged abuse dating back to the 1970s.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority CEO Stefanie Veal said the authority had placed six interim conditions on Ballarat Grammar’s boarding premises registration.<\/p>\n

“This includes that until the VRQA’s review of Ballarat Grammar is concluded, Ballarat Grammar is prohibited from enrolling or accepting any new students at its school boarding premises,” Ms Veal said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Schools and school boarding premises must ensure children are safe and feel safe.”<\/p>\n

\"Ballarat<\/p>\n

Boarding houses at Ballarat Grammar. (ABC News: Darryl Torpy)<\/p>\n

Recent allegations against the school include multiple students being whipped with belts, force-fed food that was off, and stripped naked and made to swim in Lake Wendouree in the dark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ABC believes many of those incidents were carried out on victims who later became perpetrators, continuing a cycle of abuse.<\/p>\n

In early October, the school wrote to parents<\/a> about its continued “work to strengthen governance, leadership and community engagement”, along with implementing recommendations from an external cultural review.<\/p>\n

\"kids<\/p>\n

The school says the care, safety and wellbeing of its students and staff is the highest priority. (ABC News: Darryl Torpy)<\/p>\n

Yesterday, a statement from the school board said the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority had notified Ballarat Grammar regarding its review of the school’s boarding premises.<\/p>\n

“The Board and Leadership apologises to all members of our current and past community for the impact caused by these events,” it said.<\/p>\n

“We accept the seriousness of the findings and the impact on students, families and the wider school community. The care, safety and wellbeing of students and staff is the highest priority of our school.”<\/p>\n

The board had agreed to engage a governance specialist to conduct a full review and training, it said, building on other changes previously announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Readers are advised this article includes details of bullying and violent abuse some may find distressing. A prestigious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,150681,150684,150682,150685,40316,44,7813,150683],"class_list":{"0":"post-255032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ballarat-grammar","11":"tag-boarders","12":"tag-boarding","13":"tag-boarding-school","14":"tag-bullying","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-violence","17":"tag-vrqa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}