Sporting Advantage

St Leonards Mayfield School Netball

Britain’s future as a sporting nation is dependent on our boarding schools. Before you dismiss that statement as mere hype – a journalistic ploy to capture your attention – just consider the evidence.

Private educated athletes made up a third of Team GB’s medal winners at the Rio Olympics in 2016. In rowing and women’s hockey the disparity between the independent and state sectors was even more marked – half the medal winners in these sports were privately educated.

The Sutton Trust, a charity working to promote social mobility, has voiced its concern over the figures. Sir Peter Lampl, the chairman of the Sutton Trust gave his view on why the private school alumni seemed over-represented among the medallists. ‘Although some state schools have improved their support for competitive sport over the last decade, they (the athletes) are still more likely to benefit from ample time set aside for sport, excellent sporting facilities and highly qualified coaches.’ Little wonder then that the Trust estimated that Team GB’s top Olympians are four times more likely to have been privately educated than the population as a whole.

Millfield is an example of a school offering all the key components for sporting success that Lampl identifies. Little more than a few Nissen huts when it was founded in 1935, now it has, among other facilities, a 50 metre swimming pool the like of which you won’t find in many cities, a Tartan athletics track, three all-weather hockey pitches, tennis courts, county standard cricket squares and beautifully manicured football fields. As for coaching staff, Millfield can offer 12 different teachers coaching its 15 squads in cricket alone, led by Ashes-winning bowler, Richard Ellison. They also have a performance analyst, a physio and nutritionists on call.

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Time at bat

The Somerset school is not alone in offering top-class facilities. Ed Smith, the former England batsman and now Test Match Special radio commentator, was educated at Tonbridge, Kent and recently reflected on his school days. ‘At Tonbridge we had grass nets, ten synthetic turf nets and, come the weekend, the wickets were always in pristine condition,’ he explains.

Yet Ed had no idea at the time how privileged he was to play on such wickets. It was only when he reached Cambridge, where he scored a century on his first class debut for the university, aged 18, did he appreciate the facilities of his schooldays. ‘University cricket was very good,’ he says. ‘Yet you couldn’t get grass nets to the standards we enjoyed at school.’

Unsurprisingly, privately educated cricketers now make up a significant part of the England test team. Stuart Broad was educated at Oakham; the captain and top batsman, Joe Root was a sixth-former at Worksop College and Jonny Bairstow went to St Peter’s York. Recently returned to the ranks after a successful spell as captain, Alistair Cook spent his schooldays in Bedford while Gary Ballance is an old Harrovian.

The public schools, with their long traditions of playing other top schools, have a head start in one important respect. Many leading cricketers, including those who played test cricket are recruited as ‘pros’ coaching the boys, and sometimes the girls, during the summer term. Cook, for example, was coached at Bedford by Derek Randall, once of Nottinghamshire and England. John Lever is at Bancroft’s while Philip DeFreitas is the current pro at Magdalen College School, Oxford.

Stuart Broad believes that the structure of the boarding school day is also an important factor in their success. ‘We would play sport most afternoons and every evening and the sports facilities were always open to us, he says. ‘The coaches, Frank Hayes and David Steele, were both ex-England players so you can see why I have done well.’

Around two thirds of the England rugby squad are also privately educated but you don’t have to be a budding professional to enjoy the sporting aspect of boarding school – there’s something for everyone at all levels of ability. As well as the traditional team sports, many schools now offer activities such as golf, squash, ballet, trampolining, water polo, lacrosse and basketball. If you simply want to keep in shape, over 750 independent schools have fitness training and at some you can take self-defence classes.

Website39_0223Girls and Boys

One of the more disturbing statistics to come from Sport England’s Active People Survey is that only 30.3% of women play sport at least once a week compared to 40.9% of men. The independent sector works hard to redress the balance. A high profile campaign has recently been run in schools aimed at persuading girls that sport is not just for boys. Girls have bought into the idea that sporty, muscular physiques are more attractive than the waif-like bodies that have created so many health problems since the Twiggy look caught on in the 1960s. Visits from women athletics and cricket stars have been extremely well received. ‘Having healthy, female role models – who are not skinny but are sweating and working hard – helps challenge the notion of what are icons of beauty,’ says Lucy Pearson, headmistress of Cheadle Hume School, a coeducational private school where they have doubled the number of girls’ sports teams. ‘At the same time they can be feminine.’

A sure sign of the success of this initiative is that girls are increasingly taking up sports more associated with boys – football, rugby and cricket being particlarly popular. Girls’ teams take part in the Rosslyn Park Schools Sevens. Roger Nicholson, director of sport at Brighton College says that girls’ cricket teams play boys’ teams and the College now even has an annual match against Harrow. ‘The sport has grown nationally and we’re very proud to be part of it, ‘he says. ‘We now have a proper programme with A, B and C girls’ teams.’

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Sporting attitude

An inquiry published in June 2014 by education standards watchdog Ofsted revealed there are ‘unacceptable discrepancies’ between the number of state and independent schools competing in sport at an elite level. Whereas you will be hard pushed to find any former independent school pupil who hasn’t  represented his or her school, house or dormitory at some sport or other, Ofsted found only 13% of state school heads insisted all pupils took part in competitive sports.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, who was chief inspector of schools in England and Head of Ofsted between 2012 and 2016, admires the culture of healthy competition that runs through the UK’s independent schools. ‘It is not resources that are the key to independent schools’ success but attitude,’ he says. ‘Children are expected to compete, train and practise, secure in the knowledge that teachers will go the extra mile to help them. Children’s education is the poorer if they are deprived of the chance to compete.’There will always be those who believe that innate talent is more important than expert tuition and state-of-the-art facilities. Nobody is better placed to see both sides of the argument than Ed Smith. Coming from a big teaching family, with parents and grandparents who have worked in both the state and the private sectors, Ed uses his ‘big sister’ Rebecca to draw the comparison between those two worlds.

‘In a sense my sister and I were part of an accidental educational experiment,’ he says. ‘Take two children with similar genes and similar talent: send one to a state school and the other to an independent school. What happened to my sister’s sporting experience was that she ran out of opportunities – not completely but significantly. What happened to my sporting experience was that I received the best sporting education money could buy. I played cricket for England. She didn’t play for any team, in any sport, ever again.’

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