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

[ivykaty44]

and what would you do to change it?

We're doing quite well in the shooting aren't we? I thought guns were rife amonst the poorer elements of our society!

I went to a state primary with a pool and as a teen went to Dartford Harriers - I seem to recall they asked for a few quid. Literally 2 quid. And a blind eye was turned when the teens couldn't cough up.

I also went to boarding school - I'd imagine that the sports mentality comes about because there's fuck all else to do.

I agree in an ideal world schools would enable children to pursue a sporting interest. My children take part in football , volleyball, rugby, tennis, running and sailing off the top of my head and I am very grateful for it. However if my son wanted to take part in an obscure sport I would see that as my role and would not expect the school to hire in specialist staff and equipment.

I have worked in boarding schools with amazing sporting facilities , we benefited from 30k in fees and having staff and children on site most evenings and weekends.

I didn't mean that I thought state schools should sort out DS's sporting needs, I am just a little jealous of the choice on offer at the local private school ( and the fact that the school buses the kids to off campus activities and matches, I have three DS's and can't be at either side of the county simultaneously to enable DS to try all the sports he would like.

I am surprised at the lack of transport , despite having no climbing wall or boxing ring we do have minibuses to take the children to and from events

wiggly You have to encourage them to all do the same sport or at least one that takes place in the same part of the country easier said than done :o

Sorry being a bit vague, school matches are covered but local clubs ( DS did athletics before a recent injury) require parent ferrying.

captainhastings. In many cases state kids don't even have access to fairly common sports such as rugby, not just the more specialist sports.

How old are your dcs wiggly?

There are 3 Kayakers from my DCs school, but we have a great local club which talent scouts.

I think it's up to sports clubs to do more outreach stuff in schools.I can't see how a PE teacher can have the expertise to spot let alone develop raw talent over a wide range of sports.

My friend should win gold tomorrow; she is from state school

My oldest has just turned 14, headfairy, then 11 and 8.

We shouldn't be smug about good facilities though, thebest is right, some schools do have poor facilities even if the Daily Fail exaggerates the problem.

carycach - do you mean the coaches go in and talk to the pupils and invite them for a training session?

Re: someone's earlier comment about the rowers- one of them went to Gordonstoun- same school as Zara et al

I went to a private school and a girl in my class competed at 2 commomwealth games. Our on site facilities were shit but the school did own grounds a couple of miles away which were used for games lessons (once a week)/practice/saturday matches. I dont think the pupils who came in at secondary level got much more sport than they would have had at an ok comp. There was no choice in sports- if you werent good at the school's speciality then tough. The school day was so long I dont remember anyone doing out of school sports (except skiing/horse riding).

As a parent now, I can see how you need money and a car to really get your DC into sport. I also dont think 2 ft working parents could do it without GP/club help. Training is usually 4-6pm, when parents are at work. After school care is fun but not sporty.

And I have no idea how parents of 2+ DC s esp of different genders/ages manage the taxiing to training/events!

I think there should be multi sport scouts going around ALL primary schools identifying talent. Then specialist state (part boarding) schools for talented DCs to go to at age 12 or whatever.

Plus get girls to not see sport as 'unfeminine'. Ive heard some say they dont want to do sport so they dont become too muscular!

I'm not sure it has that much to do with the school athletes attend - I think it has an awful lot to do with the parents they have who are (a) prepared to fork out for kit (b) chase opportunities such as school scholarships where possible (c) hoik their talented offspring round to endless county/regional heats of their particular sport, get up early to take them to training pre-school, take them to sessions after school and at weekends. I think it takes a particular type of parent to want to do that and that parent will probably have to have a certain amount of resourcefulness and discipline as well as deep pockets. My children would have to be absolute prodigies whose talent oozed from every pore for me to want to get onto that sort of treadmill - it sounds zero fun.

A good friend of mine was working until recently for a charity up here that sends Olympic standard athletes to do motivational workshops with school kids, so there are some things going on.

In my view its more about were yu live for instance its a bot of a slog doing saling if you live in london no matter how much money you have much easier if you live in cornwall ect

Its nit about who can afford the sad fact that many working class children just dont think certian sports are cool go into any london school and try amd get boys who usually play football to swich to lay pigon shooting or gym

Its somtimes about money somtimes about class sometimes its about culture And also gender some sports are squarley seen as male of female

My dc are lucky enough to go to a very sport orientated state primary and do some form of physical activity most days.However,a friends DD was talent spotted whilst she was ice skating and asked to join training for the national squad.As there is no rink in our nearest city,her mum has to get her and her sister up at 5am several mornings a week,to drive to another county to train,and asked permission from the headmaster to take her dd out 15 minutes early one day a week so she could attend after school training.He refused,until the trainer sent him a letter stating that the dd was a possible future olympian skater.The HT met the mum at the gates that very day,saying that it was a misunderstanding and of course her dd could go early.

However,friend's dd is the only state school pupil on the squad and her mum says that 'it isn't for the likes of us.' I dread to think of her fuel costs every week,plus it means that her other dd has had to give up activities because her mum can't be in two places at once.

My dds both ride and are lucky enough to have ponies at home,but we are fortunate in that it is cheap to keep them where we live,and I work part time,so am around to take them riding every day.They do ride 6 days a week unless the weather makes it dangerous,but it means no other clubs or activities as we can't afford either the money or the time for anything else.If we had to pay for livery and I worked full time,it would be very very difficult us to do it and for them to have progressed as far as they have.They love their riding and work hard at it so I don't mind the time and financial sacrifice it entails.

I have a 7 year old daughter who is mad into sport, she'll play anything. Her school runs a fair few clubs but its more for exercise than for talent spotting if that makes sense. She went to gymnastics for a couple of years but it was too expensive for us to continue. I'm afraid that nowdays £180 a year is too much and she also has 2 younger sisters who would want to go as well.

To be fair - she liked gymnastics but lets just say I don't think I was cutting short an Olympic prodigy. I think its mainly due to money, I know a few boxers who've competed in Olympic games/World Championships and they've got on really well. But when they were younger, people were really snobby about them boxing.

Although my state primary was lucky enough to have MASSIVE playing fields, there was absolutely zero interest from the staff in providing any range of sport at all. It was football for the boys and netball for the girls, rounders in the summer - and in fact the school was really only interested in boys' sport competitively - typical Tyneside mens' culture mentality. We only got a girls' netball team after my mum kicked up a stink about the sexism of it at a PTA meeting.

I really think the cultural dominance of football - and men's football at that - is very damaging to promoting a national culture of sport. It gives people the message that it's the only sport that counts and that if you don't like football you don't like sport. Not to mention the fact that at the top levels it is all about the men's game.

In contrast the girls' independent senior school I went to gave us the opportunity to take part in a much wider range of sports, and supported people who were really excellent - we had a top ranked tennis junior who was allowed time off for tournaments etc., and lots of girls who competed at county level in a wide range of sport. And it was very definitely "OK" to be sporty there as a girl.

But a supportive normal school is not necessarily enough - look at Andy Murray. One reason he is at the top now is because he made a tough decision to go to that training academy in Spain as a teenager. If he hadn't done that I doubt that he would have been able to reach the top simply by training in Britain.

I don't think it's down to going to private school as such but down to having money.

My dd 7 has been glued to the horse riding and all she's been going on about is learning to ride,has done for years.She goes riding on her birthday once a year as we simply don't have the money for lessons,kit etc. Ditto the boys wanting to do judo. Training,kit,lessons,time all costs money and if you're not rich your child doesn't do it end of. They can't even become talented and then supported financially.

As much as I'm enjoying watching the Olympics it is seriously annoying me that many of those competing obviously had money to get where they are,ditto those watching it(sick of seeing Cameron etc with front row seats at all the top events). Would have loved to take the kids to watch the cycling but out of our league. Basically the likes of us(the majority)don't get to compete,don't get to watch it-we just pay for it all.It's a rich mans playground.

Oh btw as parents yu do have aduty to choose the right school for your child my child attends a specilist sports and applied learing school

They do rock climbing on a monday week and are learning handball also learning an asian sport kabadi (hope i spelt it right most likey not)

My brother played top flight football and every saturday involved us just being driven to matches and having to support him Any event any of us had always came seconed to that if my dad couldnt drop us on the way we didnt go
if yu want your child do be at high level in sports you basically have to fuck off the rest of your family

Even when i told my dad that i was getting married he was like i hope its not on a weekend

When you watch docu about athletes the siblings were usually sidelined in favour of the meets and compations and many mums dont really want to do that

To be honest, it's easy to make excuses why school don't do a, b, c to enable children to excel in sport and parents can't because of x, y, z. I'd be a millionaire if I had £1 every time I heard parents say they don't have enough time/money etc to exercise yet running around a sports field while the kids kick a ball in the middle costs nothing. I think you'll find the ones that excel in sport may do so because they have parents who take part themselves and set a good example.

MrsBoJangles I went to school in that well known home of sailing Croydon, but we managed to go to sailing lessons once a week on a lake under the Heathrow flight path. Glamorous it wasn't, but it must have done the trick in lighting a fire in my belly because I have sailed around the world now :o

"Tom Daley is a bit different though isn't he as he was bullied at state school for being so clever and therefore moved to the private/public system to avoid this."

From what I remember he was being bullied because of the diving, they were calling him speedo boy! He didn't go to private school until he was already quite successful, year 10 or 11 I think. Until then he went to a pretty rubbish comprehensive which I would imagine only offered the basic sports.