Lord Moynihan’s comments about the dominance of private school athletes in Team GB have caused a stir. He suggests that the fact that half of our medals in Beijing were won by athletes who attended fee paying schools is ‘one of the worst statistics in sport’.
He’s right and it’s worrying. But rather than hand-wringing and suggesting the imposition of quotas, we should be asking what independent schools are doing well and what state schools aren’t. We should be celebrating our medallist and their incredible achievements, whilst also asking what state schools can do to improve the statistics that Lord Moynihan found so shocking.
If you analyse the statistics in greater detail, you would find that around 20 per cent of this year’s GB Olympic team went to private school, but, in 2008 they represented around half of the medallists. In other words, independent schools are much better at producing athletes who go on to the very top of their sport.
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