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?

It’s about opportunities. Piano lessons cost £30-50 per hour depending on the teacher, plus £2k for an electric piano so DC can practise with headphones on. Sport costs at least £10 per hour and either needs to be facilitated by a private school or by a non-working parent who ferries DC around.

But NSEA is u/a level, isn't it?

I think the USP of a good private school is that they will help you to do both.

It's not unusual for dcs to get all 8s and 9s, play first team sport and play at least one instrument at dds school (not dd unfortunately )

It's not affiliated, no. Goes up to 1.10.

Private school children are not 'sportier'. There are certainly some specific sports that have a high proportion of private school educated athletes (rugby union, cricket, equestrian, rowing) but you won't find many footballers, rugby league players, track and field athletes or boxers who went to private schools.

Private schools are selective, so they can deliberately pick pupils who have already shown ability/interest in things like sport and music as well as being academic. The pupils are tremendously advantaged in terms of the time, money and facilities invested in their education. Take the music example - if your family is wealthy and your school has an orchestra and access to lots of different instruments and music tutors and so on, of course you're more likely to learn to play more instruments and sit more music exams and have more tuition than an equally talented child from a family who can't afford to pay for music lessons beyond 30 minutes after a school once a week playing the recorder. And if you go to a school that has extensive playing fields, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, an indoor pool, a fencing club and the best coaching available, then I don't think it's any surprise that you might be more enthusiastic about sport and have more opportunity to train than a kid whose PE lessons consist of the odd game of rounders an an asphalt playground supervised by a bored sadist.

I was reading comments on a famous FB parenting groups about clubs and after school activities.

You can tell all the difference the parents and their attitude make. It was shocking the number of posters proudly claiming they couldn't be bothered to take their children every day, and a club possibly 2 clubs a week was more than enough. The children could just "relax" at home and have pj days at the weekend.

Meanwhile, the ones who prioritise sport and education and make sacrifice to encourage via private, or physically chauffeur them around to their clubs have an enormous impact.

Money matters a lot, but it's not all. Some school sports or clubs with a small yearly fee are accessible.

It's not about private vs state, it's about money and parental involvement.

DD is in an independent, 12 and piano grade 5, which is by no means outstanding. We pay for her piano lessons in the same way we would if she was in a state school, the only difference is that she can have those lessons on school premises during school hours. But she could have equally achieved the same level if she had lessons at home. DS has no interest in music, he's a grade 4 and rarely practices, and he'd still be the same if he had lessons at home.

Sports are a bit different, as they've been exposed to many sports at school, facilities are excellent and Saturdays are spent at games, so that was all beneficial to them developing a love of sports. That being said, the sport DD loves and does most is unrelated to school.

For every child who succeeds in these endeavours at private school, there are some who manage not to achieve in sport or music. I am looking at my own kids here ;-) They had no natural talent and we don’t have the drive and push either so they managed to ignore those kinds of opportunities. Did well academically though.

I am always interested when people talk about state school kids having ‘life experience’ and living in the ‘real world’. Private school kids also have life experience and live in a world that is real to them, but just different in some ways to state school kids.

But when I went to university, you couldn’t tell who had been at state or private. It was all a mishmash and did not show in academic or sport or musical achievement.

My job involves music for children and some of the most talented young musicians I know are at state schools. But having said that I also know that the percentage or privately educated pupils who play instruments is far higher then the percentage of state educated pupils and more of them continue with their instruments at senior school. The primary schools in my local area have next to no music facilities- the most any offer is 20mins a week with a peripatetic teacher with little choice of instrument (and at extra expense) or a choir run by a non-specialist member of staff. Secondary schools have a music department on paper but this is actually one teacher with very few resources. Most state secondary schools here offer less than one music lesson per week for pupils before CGSE options and those lessons are in large classes. None of the local schools have their own band/orchestra. The LEA music team tell me that number of pupils in LEA schools who play instruments has been falling every year since instrument lessons stopped being funded by the LEA.

Friends who send their children to local independent schools tell me that their children have very small classes, individual and group music lessons, a wide variety of instrument lessons available in school and lots of opportunities to try new instruments. The school day is longer to include the instrument lessons, sports and bands/orchestras etc but the parents' view is that this is much easier to manage than having to find music teachers and musical opportunities separately and juggle how to get their DC to them.

My nieces and nephews go to a very good private school, my DH works with loads of people that send their child to private school, not one of them has kept up their instrument in year 9 let alone year10/11, sport yes but not an instrument as they are not to a standard that would be worth the compromise in reducing time spent on studies.

I went to a private school until I was 12 and actually yes, the classic instruments were pushed - I played the Cello and the Piano but we didn't produce anybody who went on to be in famous bands, in Hip Hop or even pop groups, so I am unsure how the OP can argue it produces 'better' musicians. If you are going to be 'good' in those genres, you need to be in an environment that encourages self expression something private schools are not keen on and you need to have experienced a bit of adversity, what do you experience in the bubble wrap of private school, where everyone is of the same wealth and background and where you have paid for that segregation from the rest of us!

It's possible for kids whose parents can afford it to access sports and music. And more parents who can afford independent education can also afford to fund extracurricular activities.
Plus there is a big difference between being able to access something and being able to excel at it. My DS plays a team sport. At grassroots level it is extremely inclusive. By the time you get to national level, at any age, the teams are almost entirely current/former private school pupils, and the relatively few state school pupils tend to be fairly well off too.
My son plays at regional level. The coaching is every week at a venue over 2 hours drive from our home. Matches are all over the country. This weekend we had two, in different cities several hundred miles apart and both 3-4 hours from home. A week's training camp in the school holidays typically costs us £1200 - £1400 by the time you've added fuel and overnight stays on the way there and back. Strangely, though there are some good kids from the nearby council estate who play at out local club, none is participating at regional or even county level. Why might that be I wonder? What mysterious factor could it be that is preventing kids from lower income families progressing? After all, they can access sport, there's no big secret.

It may not produce 'better' sports people or musicians, but dd's sports day was packed with 17 year old girls still doing sport and running about not caring about being sweaty or bothered by what anyone thinks of them. Some were clearly fantastic athletes but lots were just regular girls who are fit, healthy and happy. That's priceless as far as I'm concerned.

I am always interested when people talk about state school kids having ‘life experience’ and living in the ‘real world’. Private school kids also have life experience and live in a world that is real to them, but just different in some ways to state school kids.

knowing that "the real world" might just as well be an oversubscribed state school in a leafy privileged neighbourhood, or a struggling multi-cultural school in the worst gang-infected centre of a deprived area, I would ignore any reference to "life experience" 😂

A week's training camp in the school holidays typically costs us £1200 - £1400 by the time you've added fuel and overnight stays on the way there and back

Blimey! What sport is it? Gold leaf origami? And I say that as the mother of a horse rider!

One or two clubs per week IS enough especially for primary aged kids and it is a lot more than many kids are able to access. It's also kind of easier to say that it isn't down to money when it is. Taking children to and from activities is prohibitively expensive for many. Also if you're working long hours it might not be possible or else really exhausting to do this after a full day at work. Mine do a sport pretty much 5 days a week and I work full time. The giving lifts thing is knackering and requires confusing logistics as they mostly train in different locations from each other. I imagine that in many ways it is easier if the majority of extra curricular activities are taking place in school grounds.

This is actually a really important point. Early teens is prime age for girls to give up sport so I'm happy that DD is at a school that makes multiple sports compulsory and that they have 6 PE sessions per week. I don't care whether she is good at them, just that she enjoys them and is happy running around getting sweaty with a group of friends.

One or two clubs per week IS enough especially for primary aged kids

if you have the luxury to let the kids play football in the park after school, go on bike rides, go swimming and basically spend energy after school and at weekend, yes possibly.
But it's untrue that 2 clubs are enough when the alternative is to go home and watch tv.

This is incredible, I wish my children's school offered this. (Or had a music teacher, at the moment... :D)

We'll have to disagree on this. There are plenty of other options in between, both indoor and outdoor. I don't find them to be bursting with energy after a day at school.

My god. I don’t know which university you went to, but at mine you could absolutely tell who went to private and who went to state. It was night and day.

My first boyfriend
was privately educated and I went to the local comp. The sports and music facilities he had available to him where absolutely unbelievable, compared to how awful they were in my school. Mind you, the school was much pushier about sport. He was pushed to play many sports for the school because he was good at it. My school had a much more relaxed attitude. He also had parents that paid for private tennis lessons etc.

I should have said residential. I don't actually think the costs are at all unreasonable for a week of full board, high quality coaching and evening activities, but it is completely out of reach for most lower income families. Plus they are always at a private school at the opposite end of the country to us which adds a good few hundred pounds to the overall costs. If you live nearby and just go for the day activities I am sure it is a fraction of the cost but there is nothing like that in our region. I'm spending about £300 on a single day's coaching next month, most of which is travel and accommodation. But if you want to progress beyond club/school level round here there's no real alternative.

“Enough” for what purpose?

Who gives a shit though? I don’t.

They need to be better than private school kids. (See: the state of Britain.)

Even if you go to a comprehensive state school in a 'leafy privileged' area, the school can't discriminate against people who don't have enough money. You do realise that the large radius of intake for oversubscribed schools will inevitably include children in (brace yourself as you may feel queasy hearing the word) living in social housing or sharing a room with their Mum as they live in a bedsit and are in-between rentals, that live with their grandparents as their Dad is in prison and their Mum has left them. The disruption in classes, even in 'leafy privileged' areas has to be tolerated i.e they are not going to be able to expel those children, like they can easily do in private schools. Children fighting and bringing knives in to schools 'even' in 'leafy privileged' areas. Not having enough money to be driven around for sport events, even if they are organised (which is rare), being a latch key kid as your parents both have to work full time to pay their massive mortgage in a 'leafy privileged' area.

Your comment alone shows how ignorant you are of this 'real world' as you have no clue about how it works. There is a baseline of wealth for a child to be able to go to private school so there are 'no money' worries, this is very much not the 'real world' and when you pay for that segregation (which you are, even if you don't admit it), paying for your children to be protected from the realities of the not so attractive lives of others. So no, I don't think living in that bubble is exactly the setting for great self expression that is needed for creating the best musicians!