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swimming
Does your average state school have a swimming pool in the grounds?
Anecdote alert but my eldest swims with a club who utilise various local pools, mainly council leisure centres one the club rents from a private school on Saturday morning. Full size 25m indoor pool available to the kids year round. The school has a swim team, they enter competitions, and clearly foster the competitive environment. There's posters up with quotes from kids about how they're going to qualify for this competition or set that time etc. Compare to the school my kid goes to to and it's worlds away.
Hardly surprising that places like that will churn out great swimmers really.
Arducius-
I mentioned swimming as Camden is one of the top clubs in the country and runs out of the Swiss Cottage leisure centre. It’s not school based, but it’s definitely not elitist
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My local pool closed a few years ago owing to the need for a roof that needed fixing, then replacing. Then the whole place closed. Now it’s just sat crumbling.
Whole generations of would be swimmer now not swimming
cookiemonster
Light_EDDed
Assuming that it’s the case that “successful sports people are more likely to visit fee-paying schools than state schools” (and I don’t see any data supporting this), then why is that the case?
It’s not like, dunno, football, fishing or swimming are the preserve of the ultra wealthy. Horsey stuff, maybe rowing, some racquet sports, then yes.
But in general terms the barrier wouldn’t seem to be “successful sports people are too posh to visit state schools”.