Hysteria has erupted over a “fines list” created by students at South Australia’s top private school, with dozens of boys spoken to and the state premier weighing in.
Footballers at the prestigious co-educational Pembroke School in Adelaide, which charges up to $60,000 per year for boarding students and $31,000 for regular students in Year 12, created an internal spreadsheet of “fineable offences” for each other, including $56 for “kissing a whale”.
Other “offences”, which are clearly intended to be funny, include “having sloppy seconds”, “your girlfriend’s crazy”, being fat and being a paedophile, while one allegedly used an offensive term for aboriginal women, The Advertiser reported.
A school assembly was held to address the spreadsheet last Friday, and dozens of boys were spoken to about the document, although the school has not specified what disciplinary action had been taken.
A source with links to the school told The Noticer the footballers were being subjected to a witchhunt for harmless teenage male behaviour.
“It’s banter, it’s normal,” they said.
“It’s kids being kids.”
Pembroke School principal Mark Staker said no football coaches were involved and that the school was “working in partnership with families to move through this challenge sensitively, delicately and educatively”.
“It has been an extensive process which remains ongoing and it is being managed in a way where dignity, support and fairness are extended to all,” he said.
“As a school, we never shy away from or turn a blind eye to issues that emerge.
“We always commit to walking alongside families and young people to help them navigate life, with an awareness that young people make mistakes. What we do is help people make sense of these mistakes and take action to shape a better society.”
He added that he thought the fines list was “reflective of society more generally” than of problems at the school.
South Australia premier Peter Malinauskas responded to the corporate and state media driven panic over the spreadsheet by calling for the students involved to be “punished accordingly”.
“One thing I can’t help but wonder though, particularly when we see really offensive, misogynistic-type language and activities being used, is, you know, the Andrew Tates of the world on social media — to what extent is that sort of driving this type of behaviour? It worries me,” he said.
Greens MLC Rob Simms said he was introducing legislation asking private schools to include misconduct and expulsions in annual reports, and state education minister Blair Boyer called the alleged behaviour “unacceptable” and claimed that “the trauma of this kind of stuff stays with people their whole lives”.
The furore over the fines list comes as two male students were expelled from a different Adelaide private school, Blackfriars Priory School, for setting fire to the jersey of a rival college.
One parent told The Advertiser the behaviour was “a bit extreme” but that the punishment was very serious for senior students near the end of the year.
“If it was my kids I’d be challenging that,” he said.
“Boys together are boys and we do get a little inappropriate.”
