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?

Smaller class sizes for a start means children get more 1-1 time with teachers. The lack of budget constraints which maintained or academy schools have to tackle year in, year out. Private school children are given more opportunities to try different sports too or excel at traditional sports - rugby being a prime example. Teaching of this in state schools is patchy and at some points dangerous as there is lack of understanding around rules and safe practice.

So your family were happy to be employed by a private school for 10 years, benefitting from other parents paying fees, and you benefitted from a private education for 10 years. The fact that the fees might have been “very very cheap” is entirely irrelevant - a lot of parents wouldn’t be in a position to afford that education. All these years later you are now lecturing others on choosing to benefit from the system which you and your family have benefitted from yourselves. So it was ok for your family to make those choices, but other families shouldn’t be doing the same because it’s unfair and goes against your family’s socialist principles?

Looking from the other side, I have one child at a a private school. He swims like a fish. Is he just naturally good at it? Perhaps there was an aptitude, but the fact that there is a 25m pool on site where he gets 2hrs small group coaching a week and also regularly takes part in competitions against other schools sure as hell helps. In the (rural, isolated) comp I attended we never had a swimming lesson because the nearest pool was nearly 20 miles away. Most of my classmates couldn't swim. One drowned. Quite aside from sport and music lessons, some of them weren't getting enough to eat.
Recent figures have shown the UK slipping down the international rankings of children's heights because so many children are malnourished. It shouldn't surprise us that the 7% who can afford school fees, and can therefore all be assumed to be getting a enough to eat and a good quality diet, have enough energy to devote to sport and music that they are better on average at these activities than the other 93% which includes all of the 40% of children in this country who live in poverty.

Money makes everything easier and better. It is not a level playing field. I think private schools should be banned** says a PP

Imagine changing this to:

Money makes everything easier and better. It is not a level playing field. I think private healthcare should be banned.

Would you also agree with this?

I went to a private school from age 9 to 18. I wasn’t particularly musical before I joined, but once I was there I had weekly instrumental lessons, weekly ensemble lessons, plus 2 choirs after school each week. My love of music was fostered and maintained throughout my time there, and I left the school as a music scholar. Got two degrees in music and became a music teacher (in a state school). I think private school teachers have more time to get to know you and to help you find your passion.

Sports are roughly the same timetable-wise as state schools.

Academically, we were held to a higher standard than state schools I think… entrance exams, very regular tests, resitting exams through the summer if we didn’t pass end of year exams etc

Others may disagree, but this was my experience.

Exactly. If we want a truly level playing field we would also need to ban any private tuition (including music and sport), giving money to children to buy houses, buying books for our children etc. We would also need to say that all children automatically go to their nearest school - no discrimination based on entrance exams or religion, and no parental choice over the school applied to. Some people are very quick to declare that things should be banned, just as long as it doesn’t affect them.

My state secondary had a very good music, and come to think of it, drama department. There was a school band, and the music teachers held practices and encouraged pupils to stay after hours and they’d have jam sessions and the like. All instruments, from guitars to clarinets. The school was in a nice London suburb and a lot of the parents were wealthy. I’d imagine it’s to do with demographics.

Yes it is.

My secondary and a couple near to it in London had and still have good sports facilities. In the case of my secondary school that included and still includes a swimming pool.

My primary school in the same LA area of London had and still has their own small pool.

(The swimming pools are hired out as I was looking for pools for my DD to have lessons.)

All the sports infrastructure was initially funded paid by the PTAs. The areas were socioeconomically diverse though becoming less so, but each school had and has enough parents whose children who attend the schools to support it.

They can't. That's precisely why people have to pay a large amount of money to give their children those opportunities.

One of my nephews went to a selective state school. It is the type of school that was in the news a few years ago for chucking out pupils who didn't perform well enough for the league tables. They test pupils regularly.

Funny thing is the college where I and then two of my younger siblings went to do our A levels did the same. However they didn't chuck you out immediately. They told you had to different courses to get to university and if you refused to do them, then you had to leave.

This explains why some state schools are high up on the league tables.

There are lots of people who now don't want the same schooling for their children that they had. As a child you have virtually zero say in where you go to school. 🤷‍♀️

State schools are having to sell off their sports fields as not enough funding from government. So not enough facilities for sport.

We have a music school in a London Borough, it has been going for a long time

It is always such a complicated picture and state and private schools as between different ones of the same kind to vary a lot. As a teacher said above and my children's father who has taught in both sectors and private day and private boarding - there are lots of reasons for differences between schools and parents in both sectors and in music. One thing we found is if boys are at an all boys schools to age 13 then they are much more likely to sing in the choir (and do complex latin church music and much else singing in parts and put in the hours to get that right) as there are no girls around saying singing is girlie etc. However loads of parents have no interest in music in either sector so it is just a personal thing. Music is quite a big thing in our family and it is not bought - it is very hard work. I got 4 grade 8s not because of vast amounts of mnoey but 10,000 hours of practice etc as a teenager and even today at my age I play the piano and sing almost every day so it has been a lovely hobby to have. My children's father is a music teacher currently in a fee paying school.

One to one music lessons have to paid for by someone whether tax payers paying for state schools or parents so schools with less money and parents with less will be less likely to pay.

Things like sport might well depend on money too to an extent although there are plenty of state schools with good sport and music and some very small private schools with not many facilities.

Answering the question on the thread if it is a boarding school there are hours and hours of the day and Saturday school etc so sport and music (and many other hobbies) fit in that. If it is a day private school the day will be longer. Our local secondary near my house (state) finishes at 2.50am every day ( unbelievably short to me) when the prep school at end of my road finishes more like 4pm with often hobbies to 5pm or later. Hobbies can sometimes start at 8am - at one point my twins h ad 8am choir practice (day school) which I must say was quite early and probably that teacher just wanted it not after school but it is an example of the longer days and fitting more practices in so the standard is higher. Also most children do best on instruments when they practice even just a little bit every day (not once a week) and forcing (persuading) a child to do that does involve some element of tiger mother or father or nanny or tutor and that is in a sense expensive or are tired and you just want to put your feet up after work but you have 3 children's two instruments of music practice as we had at one stage to get through every day.

Even though my dds all girl state officially finishes at 3.15 the pupils have to do an extra activity until 4.30pm 3 days a week or tgey have a penalty of an extra week of term so the “isnt it awful they finish so early” vibe from private school parents annoys me somewhat.

Why does it annoy you? At ours, lessons finish at 5.15. I don't care if the local state finishes at 3, I guess they have longer terms.

At nearly 600 posts I expect it's all been said already but the simple answer is that a state school gets £6k pa to educate your child and a private one gets £20k+ from fee-paying parents.

It's not hard to see how they are then able to hire more staff, keep classes small, build better facilities and provide better resources.

They are often nicer working environments, with longer holidays, perks such as free lunches and fewer behaviour issues. There are downsides for staff too, but overall they don't seem to struggle to attract specialist teachers.

They do have higher standards - compulsory catch up and revision sessions, homework redone if it's shoddy.

They make some extra curriculars compulsory.

They select their pupils by ability and kick out any that don't maintain their standards.

If mainstream schools had 4-5 times the annual budget, freedom to select and kick out anybody they don't want, you'd see similar results.

They're often better at sport because with a longer school day, they do more.

They make it compulsory to attend a certain number of extra curriculars.

They offer a wider range of sports for pupils to choose from and have the equipment to teach and practise it well.

They incentivise at some schools - different tie if you've represented the school for example. Achieving at sport is celebrated.

They have supportive parents who trust the school and are paying for a service - they don't write spurious notes to let their kid avoid PE.

Do the boys do Saturday mornings.

I remember the army, navy etc at the boy's private school on a Saturday

They incentivise at some schools - different tie if you've represented the school for example. Achieving at sport is celebrated. They have supportive parents who trust the school and are paying for a service - they don't write spurious notes to let their kid avoid PE

this.

The posters that say “oooh they finish at 2.50pm” etc. Annoying. Have had private school parents say same to me in real life too.

I wish my parents had sent me to a school where they had music and proper sports coaching. They sent me to a public school but nobody there was offered the chance to learn a musical instrument.

I even bought my own plastic recorder and tried to teach myself.

As for sports, I can do the breaststroke poorly but not front crawl. Football coaching was poor, usually the most popular in front and the least popular (often fat) one in goal. No one noticed that I had the upper body strength that might have suited a particular athletic activity.

So not all public schools are that good. Academically mine might have been but if you get left behind you get labelled as a thicko.

The sixth Duke of Westminster went to Harrow because Eton wouldn't take him. He left school without qualifications. People would think that he must have been stupid or lazy. However, his later life showed he was neither, despite being a billionaire.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Obviously privately educated kids are just 10x better as human beings in every other way so that's just one more.

Shame they can't just close state schools and save the country money and just send kids whose parents can't afford private straight down the mines. Dont need an education for that, it's wasted on 'em, innit.

The hours work out about the same over the year. State school kids have shorter days but longer terms. Just remind them of that.