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“Early in my tenure, I remember setting up an Education and Pastoral Committee of Governors, including leading members of staff and students. This mirrored the St George’s School, Edinburgh concept. This committee met three times a year and also included seeing parts of the school in action whether this was departments or boarding houses. We called these “learning walks”. Students attended parts of the meetings. There will be minutes in relation to this committee and these will all be at Merchiston Castle School right from the set-up of this committee, circa 2000.”—Andrew Hunter, SCAI Witness Statement (17 November 2020)

“I always had a “pastoral heart” in my approach which is laudable but it is not appropriate when it comes to safeguarding and child protection issues. On reflection, it took me some time to realise and learn, for example with some members of staff, that my pastoral heart was irrelevant and what I should have done was immediately seek external advice. I should have been seeking advice externally and then starting the disciplinary process as soon as possible. My pastoral heart was also at the centre of my dealings with students. I would only ask a pupil to leave the school as a last resort. I felt that asking a pupil to leave was a sign of failure by the school. I was too closely involved in the process and 1had to learn to step back and not be the first port of call if we were conducting an investigation. I could not do that until I had the resources but eventually I did have the resources. The regulators said that we had to increase the resources in the school and Governance agreed. I do not think we were deeply at fault. We were always thinking about the safety of the children but we could have done better. Once we realised that we had to do better, we fully engaged with the process.”—Andrew Hunter, SCAI Witness Statement (17 November 2020)

“With the board of governors, I do not think that safeguarding and child protection assumed a high enough priority for some time. I think that would have been the case in quite a few independent schools especially boarding schools. I think boarding schools used to be unintentionally, quite inward looking places. You spend a lot of your time thinking about your colleagues and the students. It is a different ambience to a day school.”—Andrew Hunter, SCAI Witness Statement (17 November 2020)