Three students who attended a Frankston school in the 1970s have come forward to allege that they were sexually abused by a teacher at the time.
"There have been historical incidents that have been reported to me... between 1972 and 1974 is the time frame," Jonathan Walter, the principal of Woodleigh School, which was formerly called St Paul's, told BuzzFeed News.
Walter said there were "three new instances" of ex-students coming forward with allegations of child sexual abuse at the school.
"The allegations are that [the teacher] did inappropriate things to the students, which I'm not disputing at all from the impact statements that I've seen."
In 2014, a former teacher at the school, Kenneth Sandilands, was sentenced to 26 months jail for abusing students in the 1970s.
Sandilands was convicted of six counts of indecently assaulting a girl and one count of indecently assaulting a boy aged under 16 at St Paul's School.
In 2001 he was jailed for two years for 13 counts of indecently assaulting eight students at a different school during the 1980s and 1990s, after five of his former students launched civil proceedings. One of the students died by suicide before the settlement.
During a 2014 hearing of the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, former students testified that Sandilands made girls change their clothes in front of him, pressed children against his groin while they were between his legs, “digitally penetrated” the vagina of one girl, made children remove their pants “so they could be beaten with a wooden paddle”, and showed some students drawings of genitalia and discussed sexual acts.
"Over the past few months a small number of students who attended St Paul's School in the 1970s have contacted me to report instances of past sexual abuse," Walter wrote in an email to the school community and ex-students.
"We needed to be transparent with our community," he told BuzzFeed News.
"I am encouraging people who are struggling with the past to take the appropriate action, which is to report it and bring it forward."
Walter said the allegations revealed the school's "terrible historical legacy" but said it now took a "zero tolerance approach" to child abuse.
"We feel deeply for anyone who has been impacted and that is why I'm reaching out to express our concern and sadness around these revelations that have come to the surface."