ALEXANDRA SCHOOL PRINCIPAL JEFF BROOMES admitted to The Alexandra School Commission of Inquiry yesterday that he sometimes pitched marbles with members of his student body.
Retired High Court judge Frederick Waterman, who heads the commission, quickly admonished the embattled principal not to continue with the practice.
“I love pitching marbles. I pitched marbles with the first or second formers many times,” Broomes told the commission during the latter part of his testimony yesterday. He was being examined by his attorney Cecil McCarthy, QC, about his relationship with students at the St Peter school.
“I don’t believe in that. I don’t see a reason for that,” Waterman told the principal. “If something like that continues there is a possibility they [the students] could lose respect for you. You are the head. You are up there. They are the students, and they are down here,” the commissioner said while gesticulating with his hands in the air.