Why do so many of our olympic athletes come from public school?

[ivykaty44]

and what would you do to change it?

I would hazard a guess that the sporting facilities / opportunities are better at private schools. Talent spotting and honing is likely to be more achievable with more time / money per pupil.

My tuppence.

Do you have any actual statistics?

Could be down to financial and family support- both vital in sport.

Many sports cost £££ to participate/train, so many athletes will be from better-off families.

It makes me really sad because I work with children who aren't given the opportunity to try different sports outside of school (even getting them to a footy club round the corner is beyond most of the parents) yet some of them are naturally talented and competitive.

Some schools don't allow any competitive sport- how is any talent going to be spotted if the student and parents aren't on the case?

However as Wiggo says though anyone can get on a bike, you don't need lots of money.

Some sports do need lots of resources- rowing, sailing, equestrian. All these will need parents with deep pockets or school scholarships.

I think schools need to be providing high quality lessons and developing links with good sports clubs. There should be county funds available for travel and kit expenses for those who show promise.

no actual statistics, tis in the news today and was earlier in July.
here
Notmyday - I agree with you but how does it get changed?

Yes to the the family support too!

I would like to see properly trained sports staff teaching all children a range of sports daily for an hour after "academic school" finishes. They could also talent spot. But no government is going to fund that.

Because in the schools I have encountered the focus is as much on after school extra curricular activities as it is on educational activities. Work hard play harder. You are expected to take part in sports and at least one club, you are expected to push yourself harder and further then you thought you could achieve. They have the time and facilites to do this.

State schools are working with a different mix and some of the students are just trying to stay healthy and alive with other responsibilities. I suspect that if you also looked at the young carers statistics they would the the reverse. Virtually non from public school and the rest from state school. You can't train hard if you are looking after the survival/ day-to-day needs of your siblings/parents etc.

Any statistic would also need to take into account how many were on full sporting scholarships to independent schools.

Change it? Well I don't think I would actually. Every state school in the country cannot be equipped with appropriate sporting facilities in case a promising athlete goes there.

I would try and increase awareness, funding and numbers of places at appropriate independent schools though.

However as Wiggo says though anyone can get on a bike, you don't need lots of money.

Nearly spat my tea over pc, well wiggo can come and check my bank balance as bikes are not cheap and bike clothing - just spent 90 quid on club two piece, very basic and 30 quid on helmet, then another 30 quid on helmet and 45 on new top after fall. This isn't taking in to consideration bike (she is tall enough to ride my road bike and I have given up for the moment - but that was 650 quids worth)

and that bike is the cheap end of the market!

I bought my bike second hand from The Bike Station. £30. £5 helmet from TESCO. Not expensive.

stargirl - did you race on it?

Some private schools give scholoarships for sports, DH's cousin went to one on a rugby scholoarship.

But generally they have much better facilities due to donation. And state schoools only have so much time in the timetable to address the curriculum, whereas if you are boarding you have more opportunity for sports clubs.

It's very expensive to do any sport at even the lowest level.
Kit, membership fees, coaching , travel etc

I competed at rowing as did my DH, but actually it is one of the cheaper sports to do as the clubs provide the equipment.

My DC do tennis and cycling and it is £££££ for these sports.

Why is it a problem what school athletes went to?

Out of sheer curiosity I looked at the fees for Millfield, they offer a 10% discount for sports scholarship - the fees are over 30k per year so 3000 discount leaving juts the matter of 27k to find. or did I get that wrong somewhere?

I'm pretty sure Millfield offer a full scholarship for sports as well as the partial discount.

That is the advertised sport scholarship.

To get a heftier discount you would need a bursary as well. These will exist at millfield, but will be much much more discreetly advertised (to stop every man and his wife applying for one).

At a school like millfield I would imagine that there are at least 3 in each year group on a full scholarship (may well be a lot, lot higher).

Improving access to these for the really really talented (but not rich) would be a better aim than whinging about public school athletes IMO.

I agree that there needs to be some careful scrutiny of the stats - Millfield, for example offeres very good sporting scolarships to talkented athletes.

Actually I don't think that schools can answer the need for the more specialised coaching that top young athletes need, but there should be much greater support for the out of school sporting clubs. I ran at national and a bit at european level as a teenager, due to the specialist training available through our county AAA club. All of us who trained with the club found it far more useful than anything that happened at school - because we were all traning and performing at a high level, because we had event specialist coaches, access to special coaching and training weekends all over the country during the winter (with access to indoor tracks).

Schools need to be able to refer talented students to specialist resources - and those young people need to be supported with expenses, kit, a mentor, advice, etc. Sometimes the coach for an away match left the centre of town at 5 or 6am on a saturday or sunday - that takes extreme parental support, or the cost of a taxi.

Improving access to decent sporting facilities would be excellent - the facilities don't have to be school based - just open access at affordable prices for all.

I've just remembered, the University I went to has the national tennis centre for Scotland and they trained school children, put them in accomodation and sent them to the local school. I assume this was with the parents permission, not in some sort of bootcamp training.

I got two bikes, buying it is the easy part. Now I can't ride a bike so how will I teach my kids? How will I hold thr handle bars of two bikes and push the pushchair at the same time? How will I take the bikes home once dds are tired of riding?

Lots of state schools do have good facilities though. Maybe not acres of grounds but they do have sports field for the main sports. What schools don't have is proper ground staff to maintain them. They employ contractors to mow the grass and they somehow 'burn ' the lines on for the running tracks etc. I don't know of any school that have a proper cricket pitch. At best it's an artificial between the football or rugby pitches. My own DS school hire club grounds for home matches and depend on a parent to open up.....That would be me or DH!
The sports hall etc at my DS school is new and the old gym has been refurbished and they do have squash courts etc. No tennis though.

I think it's more to do with parents having the money to buy expensive kit and the time and money to transport DC around.

Affordable prices for all? For a lot of people any price is not affordable!

affordable prices for all - you missed off the first part - which is open access for all.

By that I meant if the facilities are in a public school they are not available on open access to all, affordable at that I meant same price as going to a local leisure center or cheaper - my local track is 12 pounds per year for entry. The only other way would be for children to be free.