Scotch job terminated

Ex-Grammar staffer won’t be new principal

ONLY days before Matthew Leeds was due to take up the role of principal at Scotch College, he was let go after the school became aware of allegations of misconduct at his former workplace, Geelong Grammar.

An executive recruitment firm charged with finding leaders for the nation’s most exclusive private schools was hired to find Scotch College’s new principal last year.

Kathy McLean, from the company Fish and Nankivell, led the search that saw Mr Leeds hired – and then terminated – before he started this year as the school’s principal.

Ms McLean also helped find principals at Geelong Grammar, St Kevin’s College and Scotch College in Adelaide.

The firm is involved in finding new leaders for Methodist Ladies’ College, Camberwell Grammar, Xavier

College and Presbyterian Ladies’ College.

The allegations levelled against Mr Leeds were investigated in 2018 and he was cleared. Scotch College hired a Melbourne law firm to investigate the claims, which centred on “the maintenance of proper professional standards and boundaries”.

Although the school did not establish the truth of the allegations, it decided to sack its new recruit in the role understood to be earning at least $500,000 a year.

In a statement to the Scotch community, chairman Alex Sloan said the school council put the allegations to Mr Leeds, who “strenuously denied” them. But the appointment was terminated in the school’s best interests, Mr Sloan said.

There has also been speculation within the state’s top schools about how Mr Leeds was chosen given that educational institutions must be satisfied that applicants disclose “any current or past investigations that would make him/her unsuitable for employment with children”.

Scotch College has only had nine principals in its 170year history and its current head, Tom Batty, came from Eton College in the UK.

Questions are also being asked about what was known or disclosed by Mr Leeds’ referees, which did not include the current principal at Geelong Grammar, Rebecca Cody.

When he was announced as the new principal of Scotch in November last year he said he was “deeply honoured” to take on the new role.

Mr Leeds is also not currently registered as a teacher with the Victorian Institute of Teaching.

He is also not listed on the VIT register of disciplinary action, which is a list of the action taken against registered teachers.