AIBU to say private school children are much sportier & better musicians?

[Denimrevival]

Just on the back of comparing with friends & family with dc in private schools. The kids & their families are all naturally sporty & outdoorsy anyways but the school provides a vast range of sports with it's own pool & swim team.
Musically their kids all play 2 or three instruments all at least grade 4 or 5..
How do these private schools do the academics, music & sports to such a high standard? Do they also have a very good base if the kids are having sport & music reinforced outside school through their families lifestyles?

YANBU.

The only adult cyclists I've known (as in proper cyclists with outfits and skinny wheels) are private schooled.

They have an unfair advantage in so many ways, but thats capitalism

This depends on the area. Our local state Primary likes to bill itself as a feeder into several private selective schools as it’s a wealthy area. There is access to very similar extracurriculars (they emulate the private school as much as possible) but the parents while they all want private secondary education are just not interested in the extracurriculars for a variety of reasons. The biggest being that many see private education as worthwhile only for academics & so delay it to ‘save money’. The parents who value a whole child approach do tend to send their kids to private school far, far earlier

As a keen musician (mostly classical but do a lot of concert band playing - pop, show songs, world music etc) I think that the very best will always find a way to pursue their passion. However it is true that there are many advantages which stack the odds in favour of the privately educated.
Music in the state sector has considerably changed since my day and not for the better although a lot depends on area. One of the things that concerns me is that often there are opportunities and support available when a pupil has shown some interest and potential but there is little chance take the first step without considerable expense which means that a lot of young people don’t ever try an instrument. Initiatives like El Sistema have done something to address this.
If you look at the winners of BBC Young Musician over the years, the vast majority of them were privately educated, often at one of the specialist music schools although they may well have had scholarships. On the other hand, look at the Kanneh-Mason family, a family of seven very musical siblings, including a Young Musician winner, who come from Nottingham and were all state-educated. The thing was their parents backed them and encouraged them and took them weekly to the Royal Academy of Music junior department in London to get top tuition and playing opportunities. They may well have had scholarships for the teaching and possibly other support for the travel etc (not sure) but it still took time and organisation to do this which not all families have. Also, not all parents and even some teachers are not aware of these opportunities which is a big stumbling block.
I also think we should not just be talking about whether people achieve stardom in their field; Music and sport are things which can give you joy, purpose, social and cognitive skills for life and that is the biggest benefit.

I have been on MN a very long time pretty sure I haven't made up my DC for 16 years!

My nieces and nephews all go to private school. Plus I know loads of extended family on DH's side that went and go to private school. One of DDs friends went for year 7 the stuff she comes out with is disheartening tbh. She is a nice girl b

Local private school fees are £25k per year. Plus extra for lunch, music lessons, trips, uniform.

£300k per child sounds about right for reception to 6th form, I’d say secondary only probably works out at £200k for an average day school.

But those are just day schools, if you are looking at weekly boarding, probably closer to £400k for secondary only.

We would pay under 100K for Yr 7- 13. Very much depends on whereabouts in the country you are and there are sweeping assumptions that everyone who talks about private schools is taking about elite schools in the South.

Eh? Go to any cycling club in a largely working class town and you’ll meet plenty of non privately educated cyclists.

That's very low! Where in the country are you? It's min £7,500 per term here for mainstream day. DD is moving to a specialist dyslexia school and that's £13,000 per term for a day place. It's insane.

I'm a musician who teaches both both state and privately educated students (and home educated too!). If I were to compare the amount of practice, I'd say on average the private students do more than the state ones per week - I imagine that's down to parents bugging them. However, at the moment I'd say I have several passionate, hard working state educated primary children who are progressing at far faster rates than the private ones are.

So that would suggest it's probably a lot to do with the mindset of parents (and then children) at private schools, making sure practise happens. It's also down to cost, as music tuition is expensive. But I believe that state educated children can excel at both sport and music if they're offered the same opportunities and they are encouraged and pushed (in the best possible way!) by their parents.

This whole thread is full of wild assumptions but yours are beyond ridiculous. You're painting a picture of state schools being akin to a ghetto, and private schools being full of kids who don't experience life.

I lived in social housing. My mum juggled bills so would choose which one to pay late. I earned a full scholarship for private school, with offers from 5 others. There was a fairly diverse mix of kids. Some were incredibly wealthy, some were just children of parents with decent jobs and some were like me.

I went to a state school for a short time because we moved house and I needed somewhere to just finish the school year, and the 2 schools were worlds apart in terms of maturity and conduct. Debate was actively encouraged at private school, and we were challenged to see issues from varying perspectives. And then we had numerous volunteering groups and societies. When I was a teenager I volunteered with asylum seekers, homeless people and the elderly. And it wasn't unusual in my school by any means. Those things didn't exist in my state school.

Sorry, but I think your claims are wildly wrong, smack of inverted snobbery and demonstrate you have very little lived understanding of the setting. It isn't Mallory Towers, and most are nothing like Eton.

Northern England. 15K per year for Day pupil in Senior school so actually would be 105K for 7 years

The Neville brothers went to a,State school.local.to ,quite a nice area though and there parents were both quite well known locally ,their Dad played cricket for the county,and their mum played netball ,so I guess they had contacts
Jason ,Kenny ,Peter Kay and Paddy Mc guineas all attended.the high school.my son had just left

Local.to me*

I havent RTFT so just going to answer the OPs question in my experience. My kids go to state school in a nice area. Their cousins go to a private school. There are definitely more music and sports provisions for their cousins. Their parents both work full time and the school sorts everything bar one of their hobbies. I work part time and am run ragged taxying my kids about to after school sports. I couldn't easily do it with a full time job. As a result my kids are all very sporty. So it is possible. I guess there are a few less opportunities for my mine especially music wise. My kids Christmas concert is at the local church. Their cousins at the cathedral. Their sports presentations were at a village hall, their cousins was a full dinner with speakers. We could prob afford private and I wouldn't have to do all the taxying but I prefer for my kids to grow up in a village community.

Daughter is at private school. Crap at sport and music.

I’m a cycling coach and the overwhelming majority of the members of my local club, and all the youth riders I coach, come from very ordinary backgrounds. Yes, we have the local GP and a couple of solicitors, but we also have electricians, nurses, gardeners, tree surgeons, police officers, council workers, teachers, shop workers, SAHMs, artists, farm workers, plumbers, retirees and many others. Oh and quite a few forces veterans.

£25 a year membership (free for youth members). Coaching £3 a session. Yes you need a bike, but once that purchase has been made it’s not a particular expensive sport. I’ve never seen a private school cycling team at a youth race either.

As far as music goes, I think it’s because there is a culture where the kids are very much expected to practice every day. I don’t think there’s any specific secret to it - they aren’t suddenly bestowed with musical abilities when they walk through the gates of a private school - but among DDs friends, they would be embarrassed to say that they never practised. (This isn’t any kind of value judgement - I sure as hell never practised when I was a kid!)

DD’s school facilitates music lessons within the school day but the parents have to pay extra for them. I think the rate is pretty similar to the going rate for music lessons with local music teachers in our city. In that sense, the kids’ ability to play instruments is obviously dependent on whether their families can afford it - and that’s really not ok - but they fact that they are at a private school is a bit of a red herring, I think - a state school educated child whose parents had the money for lessons could in theory arrange the same thing, albeit with more running around and inconvenience.

Obviously the wider question is whether schools should be providing more music education generally - and of course they should. I think it’s appalling that kids in deprived areas might get so little. But in our case at least, I do think that it’s about whether or not your parents can afford individual music tuition rather than anything that the school itself is or is not doing as part of the regular school day. The bad guys in this scenario are those who’ve been underfunding state schools such that children from deprived communities don’t get what they should.

"Enrichment in state schools could be greatly increased."

Have you been living under a rock, OP?! Paying to attention whatsoever to the teachers' strikes and the reasons for them?

There is a massive crisis in education caused by chronic underfunding. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves."Enrichment", while I value music and sport, is the absolute least of our worries in state education.

That sounds amazing & her music really paid off for her? Does she still play? It's a great gift to be able to give a child x

Unfortunately the obese bit is somewhat true.. You don't often see an overweight kid from a private school. Our jr parkrun had lots of kids from the local private, they are all very lithe & very fast. You would think they would take a Sunday off, but they are there rearing to go at 9.30am🤣

@Goldenbear you have no idea what life is like for anyone other than the few families you know personally and even then you only know a smidge of their real lives. Regardless of what type of school creates the better musician, you have a bit of a cheek coming here talking about ‘real life’ when you sit in a position of privilege yourself. You have nieces at private school and having a dh who is an architect is someone who has privilege. Living in a disadvantaged community and going to a failing school is real life but so is living in a detached and going to private school. Do you honestly think children who go to private school do not experience abuse, violence, drugs, crime, death, neglect etc because I can tell you with absolute certainty that they do. No one is immune to real life.
Living in poverty, experiencing violence and disruptive behaviour and leaving school with no qualifications does not make you more creative. It makes you traumatised and living in permanent fight or flight. It’s obvious to me you have never experienced any of what you claim goes on in ‘real life’. Do you think these people would pass up an opportunity to get out of this in order to retain their proposed creativity.
If anyone could shield their dc from trauma then you would do it without question. Dc in private school are not always guaranteed this just like state educated dc.

Also not all dc in private school are in the top 7%. Many are there on bursaries or through sen provided places. Some dc in private have just above average earning parents. Just like yourself.

@Sheselectric77 you are wasting your breath. I'm sure they are a troll just from the ludicrous things they have posted

My beautiful son, our only child died 3 years ago, he had a brain haemorhage and donated his organs, he gave life to 4 men, our love was 22 years old. We were an Army family, he had three primary schools, and then two secondary schools, when we moved home he excelled and did a Masters Degree in Aeorspace engineering, he was also a brilliant guitarist. He had the most beautiful childhood, we lived in army quarters, not much money, but he had a brilliant education which wasn't private. He would now have a phd in Aerospace engineering, we miss him xo

I have nieces and nephews at private secondary school so have a very good insight in to that life

Goldenbear do you lecture their parents in the iniquities of private school ans you have on this thread - and how their appalling, privileged lives will forever deny them the opportunity to be grime and rap artists?
I bet they give you a wide berth at family occasions.

I really hope you've made them all aware that they have destroyed all hope of being creative by attending private school? Also I hope you've rammed their privilege down their throats and your opinion that they don't live in the real world?