Ex-Gloriavale teacher who smacked children with ruler says she tried to change culture
A former Gloriavale teacher who hit pupils with a ruler believes the school is still not safe for children.
Victory Disciple was found guilty of serious misconduct but not censured or ordered to pay costs after the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal found it had “great sympathy” for her because she grew up in a community with distorted attitudes to teaching and discipline.
Up to 80% of her time at the school was spent supporting children who had suffered emotional, psychological, physical and sexual abuse, she said.
“We couldn’t actually teach them anything when they were so messed up emotionally and mentally. It just isn’t a safe place for children.”
The tribunal said it received information from police that Disciple had smacked children on the hand with a ruler about 2014 and 2015.
But the tribunal believed Disciple would be a valuable asset to the teaching community and said she could return to the classroom, but with the supervision of a mentor for the first year.
Disciple said the tribunal understood she had grown up and trained in Gloriavale, where everyone had experienced physical punishment.
“We have been taught our whole lives that you don’t listen to the Government and you obey the bible and the Bible says to discipline and spank your kids.”
She said physical punishment was nothing compared to the psychological abuse she experienced.
At the time of her offending, she believed smacking children on the hand with a ruler was better than what other teachers at the school did, like grabbing them by the arm and yelling at them.
But she did not want to negate the damage she caused, she said.
“My whole drive [is] to actually acknowledge the damage and change.”
The Ministry of Education is working with Gloriavale School after a damning ERO report 2023 found it was not providing an adequate education for its 139 children.
Disciple said it was difficult to know how the school was allowed to remain open.
“I just don’t think … that they’re actually even capable of sorting it out because they’ve had these problems ever since I started teaching and they’ve just been able to cover them up.”
She said if the school was in the outside world, parents would be pulling their children out.
“But parents in Gloriavale have not got the ability to say the school isn’t safe because that’s all they know.”
Disciple’s own offending came to light after a child’s allegations were passed on to police during an Oranga Tamariki investigation in 2015.
Disciple said she gave a truthful account of her behaviour to police, who did not lay charges, but referred her to the Teaching Council. She said she wanted to speak out about the lack of safety for children at the school because she was “sick of the silence and the lies”.
Disciple said as a result of police and Oranga Tamariki intervention, then-principal Faithful Pilgrim drew up a behaviour management policy and teachers and parents enrolled in the Ministry of Education’s incredible years parenting programme, which she found “absolutely mind blowing”.
“It was just like the first time ever in our lives that we had proper, wholesome teaching about how to raise kids, how to care for kids and basically form healthy relationships.”
Pilgrim was suspended in 2022 by the Teachers Disciplinary for endorsing another teacher, Just Standfast, as being of “good character and fit to be a teacher” despite knowing he had sexually abused a 9-year-old student.
Disciple said she and her husband, also a teacher, and another special needs teacher at the school tried to change the culture. They researched best teaching methods and wanted changes to ensure children were kept safe from sexual abuse.
When their efforts were rejected by the community’s leaders, in 2021, Disciple and her husband decided to leave the community with their seven children.
“The leaders talk enough about change for all the external government agencies to see and hear enough and yet on the ground, in practice nothing actually changes.”
The family now lived in Nelson and homeschooled their children as Disciple recovered from stress and burnout from the tribunal hearing and working up to 100 hours a week in Gloriavale.
She recently visited a school in Nelson and was crying by the end “because everything was set up for the children’s sake”.
“It was so loving and caring. It’s all the things that I had been fighting to get in that place.”