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Private schools told: Do your part to secure Olympic legacy
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent07.10.08
Private schools are being urged today to open up more of their sports facilities to state schools ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games.
An Evening Standard survey of independent schools found some had no arrangements for allowing state-educated children to use their swimming pools, sports pitches or gyms.
Critics said these institutions - which charge thousands of pounds a term - must do more to help children in their communities and ensure a legacy for grassroots sport from the Games.
Private schools also face growing pressure to help poorer children in order to justify the lucrative tax breaks that accompany their charitable status.
The Standard is campaigning to secure a sports legacy for the 2012 Games through boosting participation and improving community facilities.
Children's minister Kevin Brennan called on private and state schools to co-operate closely. "All need to work together if we are to create a proper 2012 legacy," he said. "We are doing a huge amount to build links between the state and independent sectors to boost sport standards for all young people."
The Standard contacted the top 20 independent schools in London, ranked by their GCSE results, to examine their arrangements for sharing sports facilities with the community.
Of the 14 that responded, every one said they were in favour of making facilities available - in principle.
Some were hiring out gyms, allweather pitches and swimming pools to state pupils and community clubs at very low cost, or even providing them for free. But four had no system for sharing sports grounds with state schools.
Others only hired out facilities for one or two hours a week to a local club, and charged high prices.
In the case of City of London School for Girls, no outsiders were using the sports facilities regularly. A spokeswoman for the school said there had not been the demand from comprehensives to use the facilities, which include an indoor pool, all-weather pitch and gym at its Barbican site.
But she stressed that the school worked with local groups of state pupils in a programme designed to help develop their academic potential.
Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, in Elstree, also has no agreements with the local state sector for use of sports facilities. Managers at Haberdashers' said it was too far from the nearest state school to make it worthwhile for them to visit. One said: "We'd love them to come but we are in the middle of nowhere. It's very difficult."
But one senior figure at a top independent school criticised a lacklustre approach among some of his colleagues. The source, who did not want to be named, said: "There is not enough being done. There is a hell of a lot of talent in the state sector but they have not always got the facilities and finances."
Lorna Duggleby, headmistress of Bromley High School, said independent schools had a crucial role. "We have access to better facilities than most of the other schools in this area," Mrs Duggleby said.
"We think it is only right and proper these facilities are shared with children who otherwise might not have the chance."
Good-quality pitches and pools were "assets" that should not be "lying waste in the evenings", she added: "If we have one young person that uses the facilities who might not otherwise have done and who is able to benefit from that - and perhaps even take part in the Olympics - then it has been worthwhile."
Graham Able, master of Dulwich College, said co-operation with local state schools was a long-standing arrangement: "Letting out the fields to primary schools is as much a product of longterm self-interest as anything else.
"Youngsters from primary schools come and see us and some will apply to us in due course."
COLLEGE WHERE STUDENTS SHARE THEIR SKILLS
AT King's College School in Wimbledon, pupils have learned to share not just their facilities but their sporting skills.
Every Friday afternoon, Year 7 pupils from Coombe Boys' School and Coombe Girls' School in New Malden - both in the state sector - travel to make use of the sports pitches at KCS.
Sixth-formers help coach the 12-year-olds in football, rugby and tennis. The volunteering fits well with the school's ethos and forms part of the community service element of the International Baccalaureate, which KCS pupils study instead of A-levels.
Liam Kane, a former Leicester City footballer who is now director of sport at KCS, said: "There is certainly scope for more collaboration and partnership between state schools and independent schools.
"I think it's important no matter what school you work in, whether it's the independent sector or state sector. We have gone into physical education because we want to see young talent thrive and perform.
"We can all see what a good Olympics has done for the country in terms of morale. Whether they come from the independent or state sector is irrelevant. We want the best for the youth of today."
KCS lends its swimming pool for life-saving classes free of charge.
During the summer holidays the Greenhouse Project for disadvantaged children moves in. In addition to the sports fields and all-weather pitch, the project is given use of the school's minibus.
Reader views (15)
Why are the Government putting pressure on private schools in this way? There is plenty of money swirling around for decent sports facilities, but the likes of Ed Balls and Andy Burnham would rather spend it on ineffective social marketing campaigns like Change4Life (£74million), competition managers (£30 million)and the offer of "free swimming" in pools that have closed or lie derelict.
At any point during their time in power Labour could have chosen to safeguard sport and leisure facilities, so that councils couldn't just close them down without warning or consultation, often years before any replacement was on the horizon.
# Places like Harlow, Minehead and Ilford have no public swimming pool at the moment.
# Residents in Matlock Derbyshire lost their only sports centre last year and their only pool was shut in July with a possible re-opening date in February 2009
# Herefordshire Council have closed the St Martin's LEA Pool used by 38 other schools!!
# Ipswich Borough Council have allowed our Olympic sized lido, Broomhill Pool to lie derelict for six years
# The BSF programme is destroying sports facilities in schools
The DCMS won't take any action and the ASA won't speak up. So don't blame private schools for the choices that the Govt have quite deliberately made to starve grassroots sport of proper funding.
- Sally Wainman, Ipswich Suffolk
Michael Riley - dead right! How could they possibly control it.
- Charlie, London
Please dont forget that those parents who are struggling to send their children private are already contributing to the state education sector for facilities their children are not using.
- Mark, London
Brown's government just gets worse. What Olympic legacy? The only legacy the 2012 Olympics will have is massive debt and a load of so called athletes and spectators who will become illegal immigrants.
- Michael Riley, L;ondon
So now we know, the olympic legacy is going to come from the private schools. We will see swimming pools closed down (like Ilford, which now comes bottome of the list fro swimmingfacilities per head of population) and BSF schools loosing theirs, but it's OK because the private schools have got them! If it wasn't so predictable it would beggar belief!!
Look at the appendix to the GLA report on the sate of swimming pools in London at http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/edcst/2008/oct14/item05.pdf
It is frightening reading, and as for diving!! 24 Boroughs without any facility at all (and two of those that have (4 pools)have no general public access! What we are doing is making sure that our athletes are committed to their sport - If they wont travel for hours to get to facilities we don't want them - is this talent identification???
- John Whitby, Peterborough, Cambs
Given that only 8% of children attend an independent school, it would be interesting to learn how many British Olympic 2008 medal winners were privately educated. I seem to remember that almost 50% of the 2000 medal winners had an independent school background.
Seems to me that the sector is already doing its bit without any recognition or reward!
- Hugh, Maidenhead, Berkshire
mmm, so the Government sells off all the State Schools' playing fields, and then panicking and realising that we are hosting the Olympics blames the Independent Schools for not sharing theirs!
Surreal lack of logic here. Nothing wrong with examples like KCS - great community service etc. but to say that the Private sector should pick up blame and responsibility for the public sector's incompetence is not really appropriate.
Perhaps a bit of funding towards sports should go into the State Sector?
- Anonymous, Gloucestershire
Yet again another stealth tax. Get schools paid for by private citizens, to subsidise the totally inadequate state system. Balls by name...
I believe it was in the Labour mandate when they first came to power, "Education, Education, Education". Yet another policy reneged on. Bit like the vote on the European Constitution.
I wonder what they will print on their toilet paper at the next election?
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
The state should look and learn from the Private Schools. They are the ones getting it right NOT Labour!
- Anna Gilbert, Colchester Essex
Unless they are obliged to do so by law (eg as a requirement of their charitable status (laugh)) I doubt they will bother. Private schools want to set themselves apart from the state sector. They are by their very nature elitist. We should be providing proper facilities in our state schools (and maybe getting the independent sector to pay towards the cost) rather than encouraging state school kids to visit schools they will never be able to attend as some sort of consolation prize.
- Lj, London
Didn't most of our medal winners come from Private schools?
- Mark, Watford
Rubbish , parents pay for the best facilities in Private Schools , I went to one and we went to the local park for cricket and tennis as it was a small private school. Why don't state schools ditch the computers and calculators and teach reading and writing from books, then they would have more money for Sports, a large field and a bit of kit
- Sally Smith, london,united kingdom
Sure but then we parents who pay huge school fees must get them deducted from our taxes or else its just confiscation of private property by tthe Nu Labor Socialist failures. Chuck them out quick before they cause even more damage.
- James, New Malden, Surrey
Oh dear, and what happened to all of the council facilites? Didn't Nu Labour sell them on to property developers or private consortiums? Nice one Gordo.
- Bob, Cheam
So the Labour state schools are failing and the privately paid for extra schools have to step in?! But Crash Gordon said the Labour schools were the best look at the statistics?!?? Haha Nu Labor is a joke.
- Georgie, Islington, London
