What does Mount Scopus have to hide?

Recommendations to improve child safety at Melbourne's largest Jewish school need to be supported by fuller disclosure, clear actions and timelines, writes DAVID ZYNGIER.

I taught in secondary schools for 15 years and wrote more than 8,000 reports. Those reports would always contain a description of what the student had accomplished, what they did and how well they did it.

Then there would be an opportunity for one or two recommendations to help the student improve. And I reinforced that structure as both a principal and then a teacher educator for 17 years at Monash University.

The point here is that there are two parts to a report. A description of what has been achieved and then what needs to be done. In isolation each is meaningless.

And so, it is with the recommendations released by Mount Scopus last week following a report from ChildWise into the school's management of child safety. The report has not been made public, only its recommendations.

While we don’t get to see the report into the behaviour of former staff member Jared Alford or the school’s response, we do have the 49 recommendations, all of which the school has accepted for implementation. The recommendations cover many different issues and, they do not seem to be in any order of priority.

Nevertheless, what they imply is not only revealing, but probably scandalous.

If one substituted at the beginning of each recommendation the following words (or similar), “Mount Scopus currently does not” we can appreciate the total lack of awareness of the magnitude of the lack of child safety was for the school community. We can only assume that the school has failed to do any of the items mentioned fully, or at all.