A protest as two elite Sydney Anglican schools lose their heads

Susan Petterson finds herself in a most unusual situation as the sister of Tony George, the headmaster of the Kings School, who has reportedly been removed from his position, and the wife of a headmaster of the Shore School, Tim Petterson, who suffered a similar fate.

Susan Petterson has posted “An Open Letter to Members of the Sydney Anglican Church” on her LinkedIn account. It raises questions about how schools run by the dioceses and the diocese itself are run.

The Petterson letter

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I write in light of troubling recent events at The King’s School, Parramatta – where the Headmaster has been dismissed after eight years of service – and reflecting also on the earlier dismissal of the Headmaster of Shore School in 2022.

These two episodes, close together in time and within the same diocesan family, raise deep concerns about transparency, due process, and the exercise of power by school councils.

Both matters have now reached the courts because our internal systems of accountability within the Sydney Anglican Church appear insufficient. When councils fail to meet their fiduciary or ethical obligations, there is no meaningful avenue of appeal except through the civil legal system-an outcome that is costly, public, and avoidable.

Under the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) framework, registered charities must be accountable to their members and operate with responsible governance suited to the size and nature of the organisation. Yet in the case of The King’s School and Shore, it is not obvious who the “members” actually are in any meaningful sense. In practice, there is no avenue for genuine accountability. This ambiguity allows councils to become self-perpetuating bodies, largely insulated from the voices of parishioners, alumni, staff, and families – the very people whose faith, generosity, and reputation sustain these schools.

Members of the Sydney Anglican Church are, in a very real sense, the effective owners and custodians of some of the largest educational charities in New South Wales, and it is time to ask hard questions about how these institutions are governed and to whom they are truly accountable.

Decisions of school councils shape the daily lives, values, and opportunities of tens of thousands of children and young people, thousands of staff, as well as the stewardship of hundreds of millions of dollars entrusted to church-related charities.

I therefore urge members of the Sydney Anglican Church – parishioners, clergy, families, alumni, and donors alike – to call for genuine accountability and transparency from our school councils.

We must ensure they serve as faithful stewards of our shared mission: communities that educate not only the mind, but also the heart, in accordance with the Gospel.

These institutions ought to embody the same standards of integrity and humility that we preach.

True accountability will not weaken them—it will renew their witness.

In Christ,

Susan Petterson,

Member of The Bridge Church, Kirribilli. 

[The Other Cheek has fixed some grammar in this letter.] 

Does Susan Petterson have a point?

It must be bruising to have two people close to you, a spouse and a sibling, exposed to the public humiliation of losing a high-profile position within a couple of years. The Other Cheek makes no comment on the merits of either decision, other than noting that both heads had the resources to resort to the courts and that a factor in both was controversy within the complex constituencies in the schools.

The Kings School had revenue of $122m last year, of which $17m came from the federal government. Shore school revenue was $97m with $6.5m from government. 

Schools like Shore and Kings decry the “elite” tag, yet their fee structure, which includes a year 12 tuition fee of $49,980 for Kings and $48,100 for Shore (which are typical of the most expensive layer of schools in Sydney and Melbourne), would merit the term.

The Australia Institute reported last year that “The average pay for the principal of an elite private school in Sydney is about $687,000 a year. At least four get a salary and benefits package worth over $900,000, and one of those is on over $1 million a year.”

This places heads of schools in an odd position within the Anglican church, earning much more than bishops or clergy, in an odd status worthy of an extra novel by Antony Trollope, the Victorian novelist who satirised the church hierarchy in his Barchester series. A small number of them have been welcomed onto the Sydney Synod (church parliament).

The Sydney Anglicans have revisited their church governance policies over several recent synods, aiming to have Christians firmly in charge of church institutions. A sticking point has been the “old boy/girl” reps on schools councils with Kings and Shore featuring in the debate, with a compromise exempting those alumni reps from having to be evangelical Christians. The synod has evolved a policy that ties the diocesan organisations to doctrinal faithfulness, without necessarily embroiling individual board members in being seen as direct advocates.

Church reps dominate the councils of most church schools, including Kings and Shore. In effect, they are appointed by a subcommittee of the powerful 57-member Standing Committee, which, apart from ex officio persons such as the Bishops and Principal of Moore Theological College, is elected by Synod, or regional councils. In turn, those body members are elected at local church AGMs.

Susan Petterson’s core criticism that school councils “become self-perpetuating bodies, largely insulated from the voices of parishioners, alumni, staff, and families-the very people whose faith, generosity, and reputation sustain these schools” fails to recognise the presence of old boys on Kings School Council (5 out of 15) and Shore (5 out of 18).

Sydney Synod can be described as a prime example of Winston Churchill’s aphorism, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Anglicans often say they are Synodically governed and Episcopally led, and the church schools are a necessary reflection of that. You will find local clergy and regional Bishops on school councils, as well as lay church members. 

It is fair to say these school councils have a large percentage of parents or old boys on board, including church appointments and can be seen as self-perpetuating to that extent. Independent voices, dare we say parents of state school students, could add to the mix.

Rather than not being responsive enough to alumni and parents, as Susan Petterson suggests, could it be that there is too much of a “people like us” feeling? At least some of the difficulty Tim Petterson encountered at Shore may have involved seeking to change an entrenched culture more rapidly than Shore could cope with. His strong track record at St. Phillips schools in the Hunter region may have been turned into a double-edged sword.

Beyond Petterson’s concerns

Petterson’s letter fails to touch perhaps the hottest topic of all – whether Sydney Diocese should be in the elite school business at all. The diocese has rapidly expanded provision through low-fee schools, but this has not been assisted by the elite schools, who point to Section 83c of the NSW Education Act that mandates that they can only spend money on themselves.

The challenge then is two-fold – can these schools with their immense resources learn to share, and can they model Christlikeness in their behaviour, to their students if they don’t? Their marketing appeal is to make sure their alumni have more opportunities than others, and this is surely a huge hurdle in claiming to be Christlike, as schools run by a church surely should aim.

There are some spots of light in the elite Sydney Anglican Schools space – two schools, Barker and St. Andrew’s Cathedral School, have partnered with indigenous communities. Barker’s latest partnership is with Yolŋu people in a bilingual school in Arnhemland, working closely with the local Yothu Yindi Foundation and Gumatj Corporation and Gunyangara community Elders.

Another example is Danebank’s Roseby Class scholarship for students in their diverse learning needs unit. This is an example of a scholarship that is not aimed at upping the ATAR or sporting results for a school.

Beyond the concerns raised by Susan Petterson, the challenge for church schools is to display Christian character both in evangelism (actively pursued in Sydney Anglican Schools in general) and following the commands to love neighbours, which weighs against elitism.

Correction: An early version of this story had Susan Petterson’s relationships around the wrong way