Private schools set students up to succeed regardless of their ability or inclination to do so, writes Madeleine Chapman. 

One of the reasons – perhaps the main reason – I’m able to write this editorial, and be in my current position, is because I spent two years attending a private school. That’s not hyperbole. As a year 11 student at a public school, I was good at sport, average in the classroom and planning to go to university in my home city and then be a teacher in the suburb I grew up in.

That was a reasonable and noble plan, and one I’d had since I was 10 years old. Then I got a scholarship to a private school for my last two years of high school and was introduced to a new and foreign concept: the expectation of success.

The expectation of success is something I’ve only ever experienced in its purest form while at private school. In my sports teams there was an expectation of success in that we had to believe we could win every game, even when we knew we couldn’t. And there was an expectation of success at home in that my parents had high hopes for all of their children. But at private school, there was a genuine expectation that every single student would succeed, regardless of their innate ability or inclination to do so. 

This expectation worked wonders for me. I went from being largely left to my own devices (and therefore own motivation) to being dragged along in the name of school-wide success. Every resource was made available, every schedule rearranged to make it work for me. The class sizes halved. At private school, when I argued about the themes in Handmaid’s Tale with my English teacher, I was being an engaged, albeit annoying, learner. When I did the same thing the year before, I was just a pain in the arse and disrupting the class. 

It’s amazing what that expectation does to a young person. When failure isn’t even on the list of options, it changes your mindset. My grades improved, despite my lingering disorganisation. I went from being a lazy but just-above-average student to a slightly-less-lazy, below-average student. I was heavily encouraged to apply for university scholarships and was given glowing references on the school letterhead. When I got a full-ride scholarship to the University of Auckland, I was one of many in my year group to get such recognition. I was also one of few students to pass NCEA level three without a merit or excellence endorsement. In other words, everyone succeeded as expected. 

Reading all the reports this week on Sam Uffindell’s behaviour while at two different private schools and then university reminds me of this expectation and what happens when it’s applied to those who don’t need it. When an expectation of success has been ingrained throughout childhood, very little will stand in the way of achieving that outcome. While an expulsion from a public school is often a turning point (for better or worse) in a young person’s life, Uffindell’s expulsion* from King’s acted simply as a speed bump. His suspension from St Paul’s (another private institution) was another speed bump. 

(*The particular language used – that Uffindell was “asked to leave” rather than “expelled” – in the original reporting points to the reputation protection found at most private schools. An expulsion is bad for a student’s record, but it’s also bad for a school’s record. Expelling a student tells future parents that, despite massive financial investment, the school failed to ensure a child’s future success. Instead, students who bring down the school’s reputation are simply “asked to leave” and never spoken of again.)

At no point in his schooling did anyone, himself included, stop to consider that maybe Uffindell just wasn’t meant to rise to a seat of power in parliament. That maybe someone who was violent and a bully and had no respect for rules wasn’t well-suited to later represent a people and place that he would decry as having a “lack of accountability, a sense of impunity”. 

For most people, this conclusion would’ve been reached immediately. But there’s a perseverance within private schooling. A student failing, despite being shrouded in privilege, is a failure not just of the student but of the school. So on march the Uffindells of the world, because meeting the expectation of success doesn’t necessarily have to include succeeding at being a decent person. 

I remember at the public school I went to, the overarching belief was that the “mean girls” would peak in high school and get a rude awakening once they entered the real world. Looking back on my old classmates, it rings true. Students who got expelled certainly didn’t pop up elsewhere, immediately thriving. 

At private school, this theory doesn’t apply. That Uffindell – a self-described bully – left school with a less-than-ideal record and has only risen in the world since is unsurprising. He wouldn’t have struggled to find a job thanks to the connections meshed in private schooling communities, where doors are opened thanks to a last name and personal histories can be kindly overlooked. He certainly wasn’t given up on after failing to meet basic societal expectations. The shame of being a bully and delinquent student didn’t define his life. Instead, success befell him as it was expected to.

In his maiden speech mere days ago, Uffindell talked about being young and learning lessons from his father. “My dad taught me to play to win – and I did. And I loved it. Now we don’t even keep the score.” 

His speech, before any of these revelations surfaced and he was just another MP, was criticised for being “like last place in a third-form speech competition”. 

My parents spent more for me to go to private school for two years (on half-price fees) than they did on my nine siblings’ schooling combined. I was the social investment in my family and I’d like to think it paid off. I was an unmotivated teenager who got the resource and push I needed to work harder thanks to high standards and expectations. The vast majority of my classmates were kind and diligent and generous, and I enjoy seeing their successes now. That’s where private schooling works well.

But at the same time, those same standards and expectations take young people who are, by pure chance, born into privilege, and instills the idea that you will succeed because of who you are and where you went to school. It’s what leads mediocre students into high-paying jobs and then a short-lived political career where they’ll decry New Zealand’s “acceptance of mediocrity” in their maiden speech. 

I have no doubt that, regardless of what comes out in the internal review and what actions are taken, Uffindell will continue to succeed in life. Of course he will, it was decreed the moment he put on a school uniform.