When the accused in sex crimes are children, school leaders must wake up to a toxic culture

In 2021, as part of the Teach Us Consent campaign I launched, we gathered more than 500 testimonies that alleged sexual assault by current or former Scots or Cranbrook students in Sydney. These were among 7000 testimonies alleging sexual assault from schools across the country.

Almost none of these were reported to the police. When I emailed the Scots College principal to share this and discuss next steps (twice), he didn’t reply.

Five years on, three Scots boys, aged 13 and 14, were charged last week with the aggravated sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl. I wish her all the best in the difficult legal process ahead, which must run its course.

However, it was clear, long before these latest headlines, that Australia has a dire cultural problem in its schools. I fear with social media algorithms and access to demeaning pornographic content, it is getting worse. Teenage boys have now overtaken adult men as themost likely perpetrators of sexual violence towards under-18s.

Since the arrests last week, parents of Scots students have told this masthead of a culture of “toxic masculinity” at the school.

Sexual assault occurs when the perpetrators’ sense of entitlement to another’s body outweighs their empathy towards that person. Entitlement and empathy are mostly socialised traits.

Boys who attend ultra-elite all-male schools enter adulthood with a structural advantage in social status, networks and opportunity, and the cycle of privilege continues as these advantages translate into greater earning potential and influence. This is what makes these institutions uniquely important in the culture of Australia: the men who are socialised in them make decisions every day that affect all of us, making them relevant far beyond the school gates. This power funnel is no secret. It’s the reason parents pay – a good return on investment. Australia has had three prime ministers who attended Sydney Grammar but only one female PM.

However, in all-male environments, boys and men are too often socially rewarded by their peers for three things: physical ability, wealth and sexual conquests.

Many boys and men display their physical ability on a spectrum. At its worst, it can come in the form of fighting or hurting others; at its best and most celebrated, males can secure approval through sport. Now, understand that elite athletes engage in sexual violence at disproportionately higher rates than the general population. An American study found that on college campuses, male athletes were over-represented by a factor of 10 among the men who committed acts of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Another US study found that gang rapes documented over a 10-year period on college campuses mostly involved men who existed in all-male environments such as fraternities, or were part of a team sport such as basketball or football. This behaviour pattern was attributed to the “group loyalty” that is found and fostered in small all-male groups, such as teams, or living spaces, where group mentality may override personal integrity.

In 1828, Thomas Arnold became headmaster of Rugby School in England and embedded the game of rugby into the curriculum, as an alternative to his students fighting with local boys or illegally poaching game from private properties. Essentially, Arnold domesticated the violence and then made it elite. His reforms, including introducing the prefect system (which gave select students power over others), sought to redefine the standards of masculinity. They largely shaped the British public (fee-paying) school system. Our elite boys’ Greater Public Schools are colonial imports, modelled from that system.

In 2013, Scots College made headlines when rival schools boycotted competition against its teams because it was recruiting an excessive number of athletes of exceptional ability with the inducements of scholarships and bursaries. Newington came under fire for similar aggressive recruitment, and former rugby World Cup-winning captain David Kirk described it as an “arms race”.

The relentless pursuit of victory in contact sports at elite boys’ schools reflects and reinforces a broader culture in which a win-at-all costs dominance is celebrated. On weekends, thousands attend schoolboy rugby matches and give ordinary students celebrity-like status. I know this because – as a former student at the all-girls Kambala – I used to be one of them. When I would walk past their stand, a chorus of schoolboys would scream out “mole”.

Next, men gain social status from wealth. Social media algorithms have intensified the status attached to wealth for youth. Boys are served content (particularly from misogynistic influencers) that equates masculinity with money. In elite schools, this is further reinforced by the environment itself: wealthy clientele, extravagant grounds, and influential alumni.

Finally, sexual conquests. To put it bluntly, boys and men who frequently have sexual encounters with different women are seen as “cool”, particularly in the teen years. In these schools, phrases such as “virgin” or “fridgid” are an insult. The intention on a Saturday night (the only time many boys interact with the opposite sex, encounters often fuelled by alcohol), is to have a story to tell at lunchtime on Monday.

This means a boy can transfer the pressure he faces at school to be sexually active onto the girls around him. Combine this with widespread access to free mainstream pornography – which commonly depicts violence against women, and acts as most young people’s form of sex education – and it’s clear how sexual entitlement is amplified.

The responsibility to address this culture lies with leadership. After all, the boys at these schools are children themselves.

An anecdote to summarise: My friend was invited to a state school formal and her parents waved her out the door without much thought. A few weeks later, she was attending another formal, this time at a private school. Her dad sat her down to have a serious conversation about boundaries, autonomy and consent.

“Dad, why are you saying this now? I’ve already been to a formal.”

Her father replied: “This is different. Private school boys have never heard ‘no’.”

Chanel Contos is the founder and CEO of Teach Us Consent. She has a masters in public policy from Oxford University and a masters in gender, education and international development from University College London.

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