The proportion of privately educated athletes in the Team GB squad has increased to a third of all competitors, a study has found.
Of the 318 athletes in the 2024 Team GB squad schooled in the UK, 106 or 33.3% were privately educated, up nine percentage points from 24% in the 2016 team that travelled to Rio de Janeiro in 2016, analysis by the Good Schools Guide revealed.
Nationally, Department for Education statistics show only 9% of secondary schoolchildren in England attend a private secondary school, underlining the disproportionate impact paid-for education has on progress to the highest echelons of sporting achievement.
Elsewhere, the data shows there were 36 schools with more than one former pupil competing for Great Britain at this year’s Olympics in Paris. The three schools with the most are all private – Plymouth College in Devon with six, Millfield School in Somerset with five and Whitgift School in Croydon with four.
Some sports feature a greater proportion of privately educated athletes than others; 52% of the rowing squad and 47% of the hockey squad were privately educated while, in contrast, only 8% of the cycling squad was privately educated. All four of Team GB’s modern pentathletes attended private school.
Grace Moody-Stuart, director of the Good Schools Guide Education Consultants, said: “It can hardly be a surprise that schools fortunate enough to have astro-pitches, rowing clubs and 50-metre swimming pools are the ones delivering the nation’s Olympians.
“But facilities are only part of the story. These schools identify talent at an early age and offer places at considerable discounts, often for free, in the hope of helping realise that sporting potential.
“The best set-ups seamlessly interweave training and competitions with academic work, and pupils have at their disposal the collective experience and wisdom of seasoned coaches, not to mention on-site strength and conditioning teams, nutritionists and sports psychologists.”
The analysis found that athletes educated at all-girls’ schools “feature disproportionately” in the team.
Nearly one in four (23%) of sportswomen competing as part of Team GB had attended a single-sex state or private school, according to the report.
Moody-Stuart added: “Parents don’t necessarily choose private schools for a better education but rather a different education.
“State schools can be hamstrung by academic targets but private schools have the independence and resources to channel pupils in other directions, notably in this case, sport.
“Independent schools honing young talent go the extra mile to ensure a student’s school day works with their ambitions. We know of 5am wake-up calls for training, on-site nutritionists and physiotherapists, extended absences for international competitions, all alongside an academic timetable and full school life.
“Parents whose sporty children attend private school hand over some of the responsibility for early mornings, training, ferrying and feeding but, for those who can afford it or who are talented enough to win scholarships, the results are evidenced in the disproportionate number of privately educated sportsmen and women in this squad.”
Team GB has been approached for comment.
