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

[ivykaty44]

and what would you do to change it?

Private schools supply more athletes for 2 reasons, firstly they usually have greatly superior sports facilities and a larger range of sports, then they encourage the competitive ethos in pupils unlike state schools where all too often the hopeless liberal 'give them all medals' ideology prevails!

It seems to me that only in places where there are state sports schools and children plucked out of families to attend them are teams more representative of society as a whole.

Countries that tend to depend on what is available in schools and individual clubs tend to come fourth and worse because what is available to choose from varies, the quality of the facilities varies, the level of competition can be spotty, and same goes for the quality of coaching.

Also -- we haven't seen much of sports like boxing or track yet, where people from all sorts of backgrounds compete.

they encourage the competitive ethos in pupils unlike state schools where all too often the hopeless liberal 'give them all medals' ideology prevails!

Is this actually true? In secondary schools? And if so, how come footballers manage to escape such dread liberalism, and succeed? Did a school once have a non-competitive sports day and get into the Daily Fail, thus sealing the reputation of state school sports as non-competitive? It just isn't my experience of secondary schools - nor of primary, actually, once the team is old enough to be in the saturday league and places are strictly dependant on trials.

ok so our shooter went to Millfield and one of our cyclists attended a specialist sports school in Germany as his dad was in the army. Should we really care what school people went to after all everyone in Team GB is inspiring a new generation to get involved. No one is going say that someone can not be selected for Team GB because they went to a private school - we want the best.

Yes sportpeople need to have hugh levels of talent and commitment as success is a long hard slog - and yes you do need mum and dad support for the taxi service, paying club fees and restocking the fridge.

I think the main problem we have is that some teens think it is easier to achieve fame and fortune by appearing on BB, being cast in TOWIE or winning X Factor.

It isn't my experience of secondary schools either. That is not to say that there is nothing that state schools can't learn from the independent sector when it comes from sport.

In my school, there were no sports teams for girls. There was football and basketball for the boys, but nothing for the girls,no hockey, no netball, nothing.

I actually ended up playing volleyball for another local school, and eventually to a national level. I once played tennis for my school because I saw a poster, at the school I played volleyball for, about a tournament and arranged it.

A few of us complained bitterly about the lack of sports for girls, but the bottom line was that they needed a teacher to give up their free time and none were willing.

That is one of the reasons my children will be going to a private secondary.

Could they only go to your school, in the past, otherwise?

Why do we want state schools to produce olympians? From what I can tell it doesn't seem to be good for financial security or a happy family life (unless you play football or cycling where the pros earn a significant sum). If DS shows an apptitude for sport I will encourage it, but possibly not to the level that is required to be an olympian because I'd hate all his childhood memories to be of focussing on one sport, spending every weekend training etc.

If people are willing to spend time and money on helping their DC reach that level, all well and good, but I'd rather focus on either something actually world changing (be that politics, science or whatever) or on just getting a steady career which enables them to have a happy stable family life.

If he was to be determined to go far in sport, I would of course be proud, but its not something I'd want to push for him to do.

Yawn. Yes it's the fault of crappy state school liberals who refuse to give up their coffee breaks to help pupils excel, not that those state school pupils would want to anyway as they are too busy using their breaks to have under age sex, take crack and fail maths.

Private schools are funded significantly more per pupil than state. Until there is a level playing field in terms of funding and over a significant period of time, we are not comparing like for like. Likewise, the vast majority of parents who earn enough money to pay for private school and are prepared to pay for schooling are perhaps going to be more motivated to help their children to succeed in life. If you're the kind of person motivated to spend 10k on school you are also perhaps the kind of person who's motivated to get up at 5am to take dcs to practice or pay £100s for the latest kit or equipment.

MrsHoarder has also pointed out (albeit inadvertendly) another reason why ex-public school boys/girls are so over represented in the medal tables - if you are at a state school, you need to have a parent who is committed and prepared to work hard, push and pay out a lot of money - give up their own sleep (5am swimming pool training sessions anyone?) in order to help their DCs get to the top of their game. If you are in state and your parents aren't particularly interested in sport, you are very unlikely to end up stood on a podium listening to God Save the Queen with some Olympic bing round your neck - however in private schools, often the DCs are being pushed and supported by the school, so if their parents aren't all that bothered about it, it doesn't limit their chances.

I see labour is being blamed, but I thought it was the Tories who sold off all the school playing fields?

Public school parents have the money. Taking any sport very seriously is expensive.

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but I think it was explicit in the "let's win more medals" strategy to focus in sports with high barriers to entry - rowing, horsey things, cycling etc... Where Britain could more realistically excel, against other nations, rather than sports that only require some ground and perhaps a ball to get started.

This tends to favour posher kids who have more access to these kind of sports versus kids from urban comprehensives who would tend to play football or do athletics more.

Money
League tables pressure
Lack of Olympic sport expertise
Cuts in funding of the excellent school sports partnership

This article goes into more detail.

By the way, it's a very hackneyed and largely inaccurate argument to say competitive sport is discouraged, especially in secondary schools.

It's the primary schools that I feel really sorry for though. The SSP programme gave the opportunity for schools to share expertise, widen their sports curriculum and train up future sports leaders (secondary students worked in primaries as coaches). No funding now after this year. That was a project that was having excellent results.

It's all many schools can do to encourage any extra curricular sports participation, as well as trying to promote fitness in the fight to reduce childhood obesity. Extra curricular sport involving girls drops right off in secondary schools and it's not due to lack of clubs, etc., it's due to peer pressure and cultural influences. Many schools are trying a range of different fitness options just to get girls interested and involved with fitness: that's where Zumba and aerobics come in. And last time I looked they weren't Olympic sports.

But it's nigh on impossible to go from zero to tri-athlete at age 15. An interest has to be established early on, together with opportunities to try different sports out. And that takes money and commitment, from educational funding and from home.

My point was that the only reason there was team sports provision at my school was if the staff had a particular passion for it and gave up their own free time. There was no way of changing that.

At least in a private school good sports provision will be one of the selling points and you have more influence if you are paying for it.

rezzle - I am able to pay the fees for sports clubs in instalments through the year, it isn't a problem for sports clubs to do this and most are eager to keep their members they certainly don't want to lose them or prevent them from starting due to lack of funds.

I would doubt any club if asked would say no to a payment plan, yes you have to have the balls to ask if it isn't offered, and I was offered the chance to pay in instalments.

I grew up in SOuth AFrica, where there is a culture of sport in schools. EVery child was obliged to participate in one after school sport in the summer and one in the winter. For the non-sporty, this was social tennis, social badminton, social swimming etc. For the more sporty, there was hockey/competative swimming, rugby, football, gymnastics, cross country, athletics, badminton, netball, basketball, volleyball....

In winter, I trained twice a week and matches on Saturday mornings (hockey) and also did volleyball all year and swimming every week for 1.5 hours (as well as swimming at home) My brother was very good at cross country and eventually joined a local running club after school.

There were obese children, but exercise was mandatory at least once a week.

But...the teachers took on the extra curricula activities - the male teachers gravitated towards Rugby (it is more a religion than a sport) and the PE teacher ran the hockey/gymnastics and netball.

Other teachers with specific interests would run a club - so a runner teacher would take the opportunity to run with a group of teenagers twice a week - it was his great love, so no great chore. Ditto the badminton teacher got some great games with his students.

They werent, overall, professional coaches, just teachers with an interest in a sport.

It helped also that the school day was from 8am to 2pm, with short breaks, so that the sport could be done immediately after school and teachers still had time for a social life and marking/planning.

My DCs state school isn't a specialist Sports school, but does drive for excellence in all areas, they have lots of sports teams, but also support Sports people in other sports, and has teams in other areas ( Maths, Science, Technology). It also has choirs, puts on major drama productions, fashion shows and art exhibitions.
I don't know secondary schools which give medals for everyone, but they do often celebrate everyone who tries, because it is much harder to get teenagers to take part in sport.

The Telegraph rather predictably has blamed lazy state school teachers who since the eighties are reluctant to do extra curricular sport without financial reward. Our PE staff are involved in things most lunchtimes , after schools and even weekends. However there is probably more of a reluctance of non PE staff to run extra curricular clubs because of the prevalence of revision classes. I have run clubs in the past but do much less now as in the run up to exams I hold some kind of academic session most lunch times and after school.

Having worked in a range of schools I have also noted that particularly in tougher schools the lunchtime is shortened to prevent any trouble , this means less time for lunch time clubs . The independent school I worked at had a long lunch, in part to allow for clubs.

Teachers were not helped by the £165 million cut to sport funding in schools introduced by this government, a 60% cut . However I do think that the present government is right to encourage clubs to make links with schools. I have noticed sports clubs being very successful in encouraging our students to take up sports such as tennis , rowing and volleyball . I know rowing nationally had worked hard to improve its appeal to state school students and Mo Sbihi may be a result of this. Scouts visit state schools looking for students showing potential , as a result half of the GB rowing team are from state schools. Other sports need to be doing this.

Having said all that when you look at our actual Olympic team, as one would hope the majority have come from state schools. ( 68%) 20% are from independents , although this figure is still very high when you consider that only 7% of the population ( or 60% of mumsnetters ) attend independent schools . That does. It mean the medals figure is of no significance.

Kelly Holmes went to her local state primary, then the local state comp here too which isn't the town's sports specialist place. She just joined the local athletics club and went from there (with a stint in the army).

No public school, no wads of money flying around - just sheer determination

Whatever the finance situation the parents have to be on board as the committment once beyond local level is full on. As a sports coach it often upset me when I had a talented child who could not attend competition because the parents couldn't be arsed to get themselves out of bed to take
their child to the local pick up point and/or be available to collect them from said point later that same day. On more than 1 occasion parents would not even walk their offspring down to the local park for a cross country race.
We would have children come to club who 'could not afford' track shoes (and I don't mean specialist spikes but a pair of decent running flats - trainers) yet they would be wearing a £75 pair of fashion trainers.
Most sports clubs, with a talented child on board will make exceptions to subs for families who have limited funds.

At the Beijing Olympics, 63% of the medals were won by former state school pupils, 37% by privately educated.

As captain hastings says, this is not proportionate with the overall numbers of 7/93% private vs state, but it's not as bleak as it might seem, especially when you consider the advantages the private sector has, as discussed in this thread.

But molly were those £75 fashion trainers bought on the never never from a catalogue , It must be harder to buy decent running shoes from a catalogue.

eatyourveg that backs up the idea from earlier in the thread that athletics is a cheaper sport and running etc is probably the cheapest.

It wonder if track and field is different from other olympic sports, in the % of state and private?