Student breakfast at elite Adelaide school teacher’s home divides opinion as review launched

Ten students from an elite private school in Adelaide have surprised their teacher with a home breakfast in a move that has divided parents and the wider community.

The Adelaide Advertiser reported about the group of Year 12 students from St Peter’s College arranged a surprise breakfast at the home of science faculty head, Hiwa Jaldiani, as a sign of gratitude for his hard work.

The students’ parents were aware of the breakfast, as was Jaldiani’s family. However, it was organised without Jaldiani’s knowledge.

The grateful students cooked breakfast with Jaldiani as one teenager played the piano.

The group left at about 7.30am, after they ate breakfast.

Photos show the students and teacher beaming as they posed together.

The teacher immediately informed the school of the breakfast, even writing about it in an e-mail to staff.

“When I finally stepped out of the bedroom, boom — surprise,” he wrote in the e-mail.

“Around 10 year 12 students were in the kitchen, cooking up breakfast for the whole family. They were so polite, exactly what you’d expect from SPSC students.”

The school launched a review following the breakfast, citing the “expectations around professional boundaries and appropriate engagement outside of school hours and setting”.

One parent complained about the breakfast, calling it “deeply troubling”.

On Friday, Sunrise star Monique Wright discussed the incident with journalists Luke Bona and Susie O’Brien.

“I think it’s great. I think that parent (who complained) needs to pull their head in,” Bona said.

“I think obviously these kids are in Year 12, so they’re young adults, and they feel such a great affection and great warmth towards this wonderful educator, that they wanted to do this.

“I mean, we’ve all been at school and had barbecues at our teacher’s places. When I played school basketball, we went to our teacher’s place for a celebratory barbecue one Sunday afternoon.

“It’s not Year 7 kids making him breakfast in bed. This is Year 12 students saying: ‘Thank you for educating us and we care about you’ and its absolutely wonderful.”

Wright and Bona acknowledged that the parent who complained was not personally involved in the event.

Wright took aim at the school for its heavy-handed response: “(What I) find annoying about this (is) the school has come down hard and said we have to do a review. To put a taint on something that was a beautiful morning.”

O’Brien admitted the teacher didn’t do anything wrong. However, she argued that a breakfast at a teacher’s home isn’t acceptable in this day and age.

“I do understand. I mean, times have changed. This is just simply not acceptable these days,” O’Brien said.

“Even though the teacher didn’t do anything wrong, it is against child safety standards.”

O’Brien said she remembered the days when informal drama classes were held at teacher’s homes.

“But too many teachers took advantage of those informal situations,” O’Brien said.

“Under child safety laws, you can’t do this sort of thing.

“It should be fine, it probably was, everyone had great intentions and just wanted to thank their teacher, but this would be against all the child safety rules in place at that school.

“I’m pretty sure the teacher was going, ‘I’ve got to report this immediately’.”