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'50% of medals from 7% of population'

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "
    50 per cent of the medals won by Team GB in Beijing in 2008 were secured by athletes educated in the independent sector, who made up just seven per cent of the population.

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    "
    Lord Moynihan has condemned the dominance of public school-educated athletes in Team GB as “wholly unacceptable” and called for an overhaul of the education system to increase the number of state-school pupils winning medals

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    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9446407/Team-GB-chief-dominance-of-public-schools-in-is-unaccepable.html

    Posted 12 years ago #
  2. crowriver
    Member

    Maybe if they hadn't flogged off all the school playing fields at the behest of the Tories...

    Posted 12 years ago #
  3. custard
    Member

    TBH its not as simple as he makes out
    yes private schools offer greater facilities and opportunities.
    however you also have a greater posibility of involved parents,parents with time for extra curricula activities and funds to go with it etc

    Posted 12 years ago #
  4. crowriver
    Member

    @custard, this latter also goes for the state schools in middle class areas, eg. in Edinburgh Gillespie's, Boroughmuir. What they lack though are the same level of facilities, budgets for equipment, etc. as the better private schools.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  5. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Perhaps it's just simply that success breeds success? [Ducks for cover]

    Posted 12 years ago #
  6. crowriver
    Member

    @Baldcyclist: It might be more accurate to say that those with control of resources arrange the system to try and ensure that their offspring continue to control the resources.

    The aristocracy is a good example of this social model in practice over many generations.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  7. Tom
    Member

    We did rugby, cricket, athletics, swimming, cross-country and circuit training. Also volleyball, basketball, badminton, trampolining etc. All compulsory and pursued with determination by the PE teachers who got kids to the Scottish Championships. It was a comprehensive.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  8. Nelly
    Member

    There is more emphasis on sport in fee paying schools.

    Cant blame them, but state schools need to put it further up the agenda.

    I speak as a former pupil of Gilmerton primary, and Liberton high - sport not exactly top of their agenda - probably why I dont have Olympic medals on the sideboard.........

    Posted 12 years ago #
  9. Tom
    Member

    Hard to see how much more emphasis could have been made on sport in our school. The sporty kids were top of the tree.

    Whan I did teacher training seven years after leaving and after teachers had decided to withhold the time they had previously given free to support extra-curricular activities the head-teacher of the school I worked in described school sport as a sop to the non-academic kids. That was a big change.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  10. crowriver
    Member

    @Tom, there was plenty of sport in the comprehensives where I was schooled too. However the teachers' strikes of the mid-1980s changed a lot of things. I'm not sure we can really blame teachers for that: they were trying to defend jobs and government funding for schools, which was being cut and/or changed.

    In wealthier areas, parents of children in state schools step into the breach to support extra-curricular activities (mirroring some aspects of private education). In poorer areas they don't or often simply can't take the time out of work. This is as true of primary schools as it of secondary.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  11. 559
    Member

    My kids were at a secondary school in Edinburgh, though now left, it appeared that the PE teachers had little enthusiam to teach sports, when doing badminton they provided no skills training.
    IMHO success at sports comes down to the teachers attitude,regardless of quality of facilities.

    Posted 12 years ago #

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