Wellington College headmaster: Private schools obsessed with exam performance instead of offering broad curriculum

'I am deeply concerned for our young children, whose experience of education is now so exam-heavy and whose preparation for life and the workplace is so light'

The Wellington College headmaster has long campaigned for the introduction of lessons in “happiness” at his school as a result of a belief that a child’s wellbeing is just as important as good exam results. (Flickr/RTPeat)

Private schools have become obsessed by exam performance and are no longer offering their pupils a rich and broad curriculum, Wellington College’s headmaster Sir Anthony Seldon will say in his final parting shot to the school on 23 May.

Sir Anthony, who leaves the top performing independent school this summer and will become vice-chancellor of Buckingham University - the UK’s first private university - in September, will warn the private sector has “damaged because of the tyranny of league tables”.

“Private schools, in their hunt for exam-focused parents from Britain and abroad, have narrowed the range of their educational opportunities and become overly focused on exams and league table performance to the exclusion of much else,” he will add in his farewell speech day oration.

(Getty images)

Sir Anthony will also voice concern that the university sector has also “allowed exams to become overly dominant to the detriment of all-round education and intellectual development of their students”.

He will add: “I am deeply concerned for our young children, whose experience of education is now so exam-heavy and whose preparation for life and the workplace is so light.

“One independent school now looks much like another for all the attempts to portray themselves as different. Parents are being denied real choice in provision and we lack the force, individually and collectively to challenge the monolithic state regime in education.”

Sir Anthony has long campaigned for the introduction of lessons in “happiness” at his school as a result of a belief that a child’s wellbeing is just as important as good exam results.