Private school teachers warned after ‘ugly’ pub night with students

Teachers at an exclusive Melbourne Catholic school have been warned not to risk repeating an incident after last year’s valedictory dinner when a night at the pub for a group of students and teachers turned “ugly”. As St Kevin’s College prepared for its annual valedictory dinner on Wednesday night – one of the all-boys school’s biggest events of the year – management told staff not to socialise with students when the event was over. The Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) is still investigating last year’s incident, when four male teachers kicked on at a pub with graduating students after the 2024 valedictory dinner. Scenes ensued that were described by sources familiar with the matter but not authorised to speak publicly as “rowdy” and “ugly”. The college has been pursuing a years-long and wide-ranging program of cultural change after an external review in 2021, commissioned after a sustained period of bad publicity for the school, found the culture there was “toxic”, “misogynistic” and “confused”.