{"id":636139,"date":"2026-04-28T11:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/636139\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:50:08","slug":"culture-of-misogyny-teacher-surrounded-by-hundreds-of-students-and-pelted-with-food-at-elite-brisbane-boys-school-court-told-australian-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/636139\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Culture of misogyny\u2019: teacher surrounded by hundreds of students and pelted with food at elite Brisbane boys\u2019 school, court told | Australian education"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teacher at one of Brisbane\u2019s top private boys\u2019 schools has claimed she was subject to a \u201cculture of misogyny\u201d after being surrounded by hundreds of Catholic school students and pelted with food in an incident that left her with a \u201cserious psychiatric injury\u201d.<\/p>\n

A barrister acting for Victoria Sparrow, a teacher at Marist College Ashgrove, told the Brisbane supreme court that the school allowed a culture of misogyny to \u201cdevelop and exist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her barrister, Gerard Forde, submitted in court on Monday that at least three female staff at the school had also made complaints about their treatment.<\/p>\n

Forde told the court Sparrow has been mentally scarred after students were allegedly \u201cpelting\u201d her with food and drink when a group of up to 300 male students \u201csurrounded her\u201d in the playground.<\/p>\n

He told the court that the students \u201cthen focused on her, started chanting, throwing food and drink, some of which hit her\u201d.<\/p>\n

Forde later characterised the behaviour as \u201cpelting\u201d food at her, and \u201can assault\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has suffered a serious psychiatric injury,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Sparrow alleges the school contributed to the incident by allowing \u201ca culture of misogyny to develop and exist\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

She served a notice of claim for workers\u2019 compensation on 9 July last year. Her claim must go to a compulsory conference to allow for a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n

Sparrow is seeking documents from the school to aid her claim, before conducting negotiations.<\/p>\n

Her matter was heard in the Brisbane supreme court on Monday.<\/p>\n

She claims that there had been a deterioration of the behaviour of the children at the school, over a long period of time, he said.<\/p>\n

It also failed to maintain discipline, did not have \u201cappropriate protocols and safety measures\u201d regarding playground duty, and failed to offer adequate support to her after the incident took place, he told the court on Monday.<\/p>\n

She submitted documents about three other women who had made complaints about the school \u201cand there are other women who have made complaints, but they haven\u2019t made disclosure,\u201d Forde said.<\/p>\n

For instance, he said, another teacher, given a pseudonym, \u201cwas the subject of numerous gross and offensive comments by students during a lesson conducted by Zoom during Covid-19\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students were sexist and demeaning towards [the teacher] I can provide examples of these statements [as] required. It was humiliating to her,\u201d Forde said in court.<\/p>\n

The issue was brought to the college leadership team, he said.<\/p>\n

In another incident, a student came to the teachers\u2019 lunchroom and threatened a teacher and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then that teacher was subsequently stood down because of the incident,\u201d Forde said.<\/p>\n

Many of these matters ought to have been discussed in emails and been the subject of meetings, but Forde claimed documents were not released to them.<\/p>\n

For instance, they did not received \u201cregular file notes\u201d taken during meetings, which would have been held to discuss the complaints, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re saying is their claim that they have produced all their documents is false, that they have more documents,\u201d Forde said on Monday.<\/p>\n

He asked justice Patrick McCafferty to order the release of additional documents.<\/p>\n

The judge adjourned the case to allow for a more specific list of the documents in dispute in what he called a \u201cdisclosure fight\u201d.<\/p>\n

The case will return to court on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teacher at one of Brisbane\u2019s top private boys\u2019 schools has claimed she was subject to a \u201cculture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-636139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636139","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=636139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}