By Jordan Baker
Scots College once had an altitude training facility for its sports teams. Shore has underwater cameras in its pool. Cranbrook has four tennis courts and two playing fields. Four private schools on the “golden mile” of the upper Pacific Highway have 17 basketball courts between them.
Yet in Sydney’s inner west, 12 public primary schools have just pulled out of their only regular interschool sports competition because the buses they need to get to poorly drained council playing fields are too expensive and unreliable, and the teachers don’t have the time to attend.
Cranbrook School spent $125 million on a redevelopment that included an aquatic centre.
Sport is at the pointy end of the growing divide between private and public education in Sydney. It’s where resource-stretched public schools are cutting back, and some cashed-up private schools are doubling down on their resources advantage. As public schools reduce sport, some private schools are building multimillion-dollar aquatic and fitness centres.
The results of this long-term trend were on show at the Paris Olympic Games last month.
Two-thirds of Australian children are educated in government schools, but only one-third of the 12 individual gold medal-winning Olympians attended public high schools (the kayaking Fox sisters, who had the benefit of being trained by Olympian parents, were two of them).
In sports such as rowing, private schools own millions of dollars worth of rowing facilities and hire internationally renowned coaches. Australia sent 37 rowers to Paris; all but one were graduates of independent high schools.
The King’s School bought its boat shed in Putney for $3.7 million in 2004 and paid $3.3 for the adjoining property a year later.Credit: Janie Barrett
Fewer public schools are now willing to devote teacher time to regular interschool sports or to ask parents to pay the rising cost of the buses. This means students whose parents can’t afford weekend club fees (soccer can reach $1500 a season) or who don’t have the time miss out entirely.
At the beginning of the year, 15 north shore public primary schools cancelled their zone’s weekly Primary Schools Sports Association (PSSA) competition after the bus transport bill went from $50 to $100 a term. They replaced weekly games with two gala days a term.
Late last month, a dozen inner west schools did the same thing. The NSW Department of Education couldn’t say how many more zones have cancelled weekly PSSA competition. “The department does not keep data,” a spokesman said.
The inner west principals cited rising transport costs and difficulties in securing buses amid driver shortages, the amount of time students spent off campus, the demands of the new curriculum, and the frequent closure of sporting fields due to rain (this season was particularly sodden).
‘They are killing off sport’
Many inner west parents are unhappy about the decision. “They are killing off sport in public schools,” said one mother, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect her child, who lives for Friday afternoon sport. “Why should the private schools have that holistic education, and the other kids miss out?”
Parents said PSSA had given their children sporting opportunities they would not have had otherwise. They pointed out that weekly games not only gave students a better shot at learning and improving their sport than an occasional gala day but also boosted their children’s sense of pride and belonging.
Parent Haylee Kerans (at back of group) with students from Summer Hill Public School. Credit: Louise Kennerley
Haylee Keran’s daughter attends Summer Hill Public School. She’s not particularly sporty but adores PSSA netball. “It was something we took for granted in public schools when I was a kid, and that’s how I learned I loved netball,” she said.
“There was a lot of heated debate [about the decision] within the P&C from parents who pointed that not all kids are able to do weekend sport – if they’re in split families, they have commitments, they can’t afford it – it gives those kids that opportunity.”
Others, however, argued the cost was now too high to justify continuing.
Primary schools are the last bastions of regular interschool sport in the government system. Many high schools have abandoned it altogether, with principals telling the Herald on the condition of anonymity they’re stretched in too many directions and don’t have the resources amid a teacher shortage.
“Buses, teachers, safety, qualified, trained staff, it’s not easy,” said one. “It’s a shame because kids love representing their school.”
‘A spectrum of benefits’
University of Newcastle Professor David Lubans, who studies the benefits of activity for school-aged children, said the value of team sport went beyond the physical to the emotional, social and psychological.
“If the coaching is good and the environment is good, they’re learning self-regulation, how to interact with others, how to manage their emotions, it contributes to their self-esteem,” he said.
“There’s a spectrum of benefits. There’s quite compelling evidence for the academic-related benefits of being active as well.”
A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education could not tell this masthead how many primary school networks had pulled out of regular interschool sport but said students who no longer participated would still get the mandated 150 minutes a week of activity.
“In making this change, the Inner West PSSA considered factors such as rising bus and other transportation costs, time students spend away from their schools due to travel, professional learning needs of staff and the impact of frequent sporting ground closures,” he said.
“The IWPSSA believes that the move to gala days will allow schools to provide a more consistent and manageable approach to their competitions.”
A spokeswoman for Education Minister Prue Car admitted “school children are losing out” but blamed the former government’s privatisation of the bus network. “We no longer have government bus providers that can respond directly to school needs,” she said.
A Scots spokesman disputed that its former chamber with a fan that could reduce air pressure to simulate being in the Snowy Mountains could be described as an altitude training facility and said it no longer had that facility on its campus.
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