Simon Gipson, of Perth, Western Australia, has worked in education as a teacher, administrator and consultant in Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. He is currently the Head of St Michael's Grammar School in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, is Chairman of The Association of Coeducational Schools (ACS), and sits on the board of the Association of Independent Schools Victoria (AISV).

Sourced

• St Michael's Grammar School in St Kilda employed corporal punishment until about six years ago, when principal Simon Gipson took over as head and denounced it as 'abhorrent'.
  • Review may ban strap in schools, The Age, 2004-09-04

• It's a violation of the rights of a child. It's assault.
  • Schools likely to accept corporal punishment ban, The Age, 2002-02-13

• There's an attitude or a view that the money parents pay in school fees should go to the core business of teaching and learning, and any money that doesn't go there is somehow less-than-appropriate spending. The same attitude doesn't come into play when you go to the supermarket - you just accept that some money will go to advertising... We just want to keep our name there in people's minds.
  • The Hard Sell, The Age, 2005-09-21

• We wanted to create something the kids wanted to wear and look really smart in.
  • Fracas Over Top Dressing, Herald Sun, 2005-10-09

• We have a database of excluded sites, regularly updated and the students cannot access them. Secondly, we can dump logs of who visited which sites. If there appears to be a problem, our pastoral care staff discuss it with students and parents. There's nothing more embarrassing for kids than a session like that... Curiosity about sexual behaviour is an age-old aspect of adolescence. But the internet has changed the scene radically. Parents must be involved and be aware of what their kids are doing.
  • Downloading Porn Out of Home, The Age, 2003-03-05

• The proliferation of electronic gadgets doesn't necessarily increase the opportunities for learning, it simply increases the opportunity to present information in a variety of ways. We must be careful not to be seduced by the gadgets at the cost of losing sight of the interpersonal.
  • Laptops, iPods, are they friend or fiend, The Age, 2005-10-14

• George Negus Tonight
  • I don't think we should be talking about public or private. I think we should be talking about choice.
  • Parents who choose to send their children to St Michael's, or any number of other independent schools, deserve to get some subsidy from both Federal and State Governments.
  • I don't think there's anything as a values neutral education.
  • I think all education, places of learning, wherever you go, have the same core values.
  • We do have some fantastic facilities. But you have to understand that these facilities come to us through the generosity of previous generations of families associated with St Michael's. We don't get any government money to build our buildings.
    • Public Versus Private Schools, George Negus Tonight, ABC, 2004-04-01

• In contrast... St Michael's grew out of a girls' school, with few donations from former pupils. This means current parents must finance new projects through fundraising and increased fees.
  • The price of going private, Sydney Morning Herald, 2002-02-13

• This is not an objection to the Salvation Army or the work that it's doing.
  • School Fears over Salvo Crisis Centre, The Age, 2005-09-22