Roedean Headmistress Reportedly Set to Exit

The Common Sense has received numerous reports that the head of Roedean School, Phuti Mogale, is set to exit the school amidst a ballooning antisemitism scandal.

The Common Sense has asked the school for confirmation but has received any at the time of writing.

Sources who attended meetings at the school have however heard verbal confirmations that Mogale has resigned and other sources have confirmed these.

Roedean community members have cautioned that the head may be being scapegoated for decisions taken or countenanced by other senior school staff and directors. Calls have been made for the whole senior leadership to be removed and a new board to be appointed.

If Mogale, who was reportedly Roedean’s first black headmistress, is indeed being scapegoated that will open a new avenue of scandal at the school given that she was only recently appointed and would not have been party to chains of earlier decisions that contributed to the current scandal. She only took up the post in July last year.

Mogale’s reported resignation comes after Roedean had refused to honour a tennis fixture against King David, a Jewish school in Linksfield in north-eastern Johannesburg.

Initially Roedean claimed that the school had not honoured the fixture because there had been a clash between the fixture and academic classes. However, leaked audio recordings between senior staff members at Roedean and King David, indicated that some members of the Roedean school “community” were uncomfortable playing against King David, as it was a Jewish school, and that the initial excuse regarding academics had been a lie.