In November 2021, St Peter’s School Trust Board acknowledged and apologised for historical cases of sexual, physical and emotional abuse against former students at our school by former staff members or anyone acting in that capacity.
On behalf of the St Peter’s School Trust Board, today I want to acknowledge and apologise for historical cases of sexual, physical and emotional abuse against former students at our school by former staff members or anyone acting in that capacity.
Child abuse is a detestable betrayal of trust, the consequences of which can have lasting effects throughout an individual’s lifetime. For these historical cases of abuse, our trustees offer a sincere and heartfelt apology.
Today we have communicated directly to all alumni to say we are sorry to all former students who suffered abuse while in our care, and for the failure of St Peter’s to protect them from such abuse occurring. Current students, staff and parents were also included in this communication.
While nothing we do as a school can erase history, we want to do what we can to help those still living and suffering from any long-term effects of past abuses.
St Peter’s is offering access to a confidential Listening Service to any former students who need support. This service will allow people to discuss available help and talk to specially trained clinical psychologists in complete privacy.
In 2018, St Peter’s made the decision to begin researching all notifications of abuse documented in our files since records began in the 1930s. No matter what came to light, trustees were committed to facing up to the truth and taking steps toward putting things right.
In 2019, trustees contracted independent clinical and forensic psychologist Dr Suzanne Blackwell to review and scrutinise all documentation related to student abuse contained in our school files.
This investigation is now complete and has uncovered 19 individual notifications of historical abuse between 1936 and 1981 relating to 8 former staff members.
While a thorough examination of school file notes indicated some of these historical notifications were handled with the seriousness they deserved, it is clear in some other cases school leaders failed to take a survivor-centric approach and hold perpetrators to account.
The cases uncovered by Dr Blackwell’s research include cases reported to our school and documented either at the time of occurrence or in years following. We acknowledge there could be other undocumented cases.
In recent years, St Peter’s has initiated many safeguards to protect current and future students who learn and board with us. These have included physical changes to our facilities to make our learning and living environment as safe as possible. We’ve also invested in ongoing child abuse prevention training for our staff, while implementing a range of child abuse prevention policies, procedures and notification processes.
All of the school’s child abuse safeguarding and protection measures have been reviewed by Dr Blackwell and we continue to work with her to embed robust policies and procedures into our school.
Child abuse prevention and safeguarding is also openly discussed with students. We want them to understand that abuse in any form is not tolerated at St Peter’s.
We want to encourage any alumni who experienced abuse at St Peter’s to access the confidential Listening Service. For many of those former students, the school’s acknowledgement of abuse and apology comes many decades too late. But I want to speak directly to those individuals today: when you come forward be certain that you will be heard, you will be respected, and you will be cared for with compassion. Those wishing to access the Listening Service can email alumniassist@outlook.com
John Macaskill-Smith
Chair
St Peter’s, Cambridge Trust Board
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Our privacy policy is governed by the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.
If you voluntarily provide personal information (for example, through email feedback or online forms), we will keep that personal information secure.
Any personal information supplied will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided or permitted by the Privacy Act 2020 and will not be disclosed to any third party except where necessary for the provision of services, or as authorised or required by law.
If you want to check personal information that we hold or request the correction of that information when required, please either write to:
The Privacy Officer
St Peter's, Cambridge,
Private Bag 884,
Cambridge
email: privacyofficer@stpeters.school.nz
For more information please refer to the following pages;
St Peter’s, Cambridge may change this privacy policy from time to time in response to changes to technology, our data collection practices or the law amendments. All changes will be posted to this website and may apply to previously collected information.
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St Peter’s, Cambridge either owns or has the right to licence all information and material (both text and media) published on this website.
You may not copy or use any information or material from this website without the written permission of St Peter’s, Cambridge. To request permission please make contact via email at info@stpeters.school.nz .
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When you subscribe to our newsletters, we will only use your personal information for managing your subscription and assessing newsletter effectiveness. You can unsubscribe from any newsletter at any time.
Some of our newsletters are managed using third-party online tools including:
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This means that St Peter's, Cambridge and these third-party platforms will be able to see your email and details about which hyperlinks in St Peter's newsletters you have clicked on.
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Privacy Statement
This privacy notice applies to personal and other information collected on this website.
Our privacy policy is governed by the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.
If you voluntarily provide personal information (for example, through email feedback or online forms), we will keep that personal information secure.
Any personal information supplied will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided or permitted by the Privacy Act 2020 and will not be disclosed to any third party except where necessary for the provision of services, or as authorised or required by law.
If you want to check personal information that we hold or request the correction of that information when required, please either write to:
The Privacy Officer
St Peter's, Cambridge,
Private Bag 884,
Cambridge
email: privacyofficer@stpeters.school.nz
For more information please refer to the following pages;
St Peter’s, Cambridge may change this privacy policy from time to time in response to changes to technology, our data collection practices or the law amendments. All changes will be posted to this website and may apply to previously collected information.
Website cookies
Browser cookies are small files that are sent by a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies are used by this website to provide St Peter’s, Cambridge with information about site usage and to help us improve our website.
Cookies from this site are not used to gather any personally identifiable information. The information we collect includes the date and time you visited the site, your IP address, the pages you accessed on our site, the search terms you used, details about your operating system (e.g. Windows, Mac OSX) and your web browser (e.g. Chrome or Internet Explorer).
The data is collected and aggregated for St Peter’s, Cambridge by Google Analytics, a measurement and research service. You can find out about Google Analytics' privacy policy in their Privacy Center.
You can manually disable cookies at any time – check your browser's "Help" to find out how. This will not affect your ability to view this site.
Unsolicited emails
Publication of email addresses on this site should not be taken as deemed consent to receiving unsolicited emails.
Persons or organisations wishing to send email material to individuals or organisations whose email addresses appear on this website must comply with the requirements of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.
Copyright Statement
St Peter’s, Cambridge either owns or has the right to licence all information and material (both text and media) published on this website.
You may not copy or use any information or material from this website without the written permission of St Peter’s, Cambridge. To request permission please make contact via email at info@stpeters.school.nz .
Newsletter subscriptions
When you subscribe to our newsletters, we will only use your personal information for managing your subscription and assessing newsletter effectiveness. You can unsubscribe from any newsletter at any time.
Some of our newsletters are managed using third-party online tools including:
These platforms provide analytics to St Peter's on how people interact with our newsletters (eg, how many subscribers have opened emails or clicked on links).
This means that St Peter's, Cambridge and these third-party platforms will be able to see your email and details about which hyperlinks in St Peter's newsletters you have clicked on.
Key public policies and legal documents