Talk:Secondary school/Archive 1

Waldorf/Steiner
Obviously its useful to have a translation of the term secondary school as it have different words to describe it. However if you look at the definition of Steiner school then this involves children of all ages. I don't think this should be in the list. Victuallers 14:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The Steiner schools seem to educate children right through from nursery school to secondary school age. As they do provide secondary education then I think it probably is correct to include them in a list of secondary schools. Dahliarose 20:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Pages important to the Schools Project
Shouldn't pages like this be top? I'll raise this on the Schools Project page Victuallers 14:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that this page should be of top importance. I think the High school page has already been rated as of top importance and the term secondary school is more all-embracing. Dahliarose 20:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Secondary school in England and Wales
I've now added a reference to show that secondary school in England and Wales goes up to age 18. Longmans Online Dictionary states that a secondary school is "school for children between the ages of 11 and 16 or 18". Microsoft's Encarta Dictionary which I have on CD states that it is a "school for eleven to eighteen-year-olds: a school for students who have completed their primary education, usually attended by children aged between eleven and eighteen". The Times has league tables of secondary schools' A level results.[ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/parentpower/league_tables.php?t=state_secondary_schools|here]. All these children are hardly likely to be taking A levels at the age of 16. References should be external and should prove the point you are trying to make. Other Wikipedia articles should not be referenced. The high school article clearly needs correcting. There has already been considerable discussion about the English use of the word high school on the high school talk page. The terminology is generally only used in the North of England. If anyone wants to include references to high school being an alternative term for secondary school throughout England then it must be referenced. Dahliarose (talk) 23:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My secondary school (or high school, as my school is actually called) takes students aged 11 to 16, as do all secondary, or high schools, in Manchester. If you look at the wikipedia article for secondary schools in Manchester you will see that all secondary schools listed are actually named high schools. I think a city of that size warrants the addition of 'high school' as a synonym for secondary school.


 * As for the idea that secondary ends at 19, that makes no sense. The National Curriculum for England and Wales lists Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 as years 7-9 and 10-11 respectively. After that, the government does not have an input in the syllabus taught, as compulsory education ends at 16. Yes, some schools do have attached sixth form colleges, but that is not the same thing as being part of a secondary school. The Direct.gov website states compulsory education is 5-16. Sixth form is optional.


 * I am an English born, English school educated, and now English school teacher. I think I know a little bit about England's education system. KillerKat 02:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Manchester seems to be something of an exception but the situation is already explained in the High school article. This article is about secondary school so perhaps you should expand on the Manchester situation in the high school article instead. High school is not however a synonym for high school throughout England (I challenge you to find a reference!). If it were then the DFES would classify all 11-18 schools, including grammar schools and academies, as high schools which they clearly don't. In the list you mention the schools are indeed mostly called high schools (there is even one which is an 11-18 high school!) but they are described as secondary schools. Manchester Grammar School can be described as a secondary school but it would never be described as a high school. Most schools that I know of here in the south-east don't have separate sixth form colleges - the sixth form is an integral part of the school. No one is saying that sixth form is compulsory but the schools where children are taught, between 16 and 18 are still classified as secondary schools and are still part of secondary education. In my Chambers Dictionary the definition of secondary school is a school which provides secondary education. It has nothing to do with the National Curriculum. Sixth form is a part of secondary education not further education. Dahliarose (talk) 08:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * First of all, Manchester Grammar school is an independent school, and so not really part of this conversation. If you read the article about further education you will see that it lists sixth form colleges as post-secondary education. You should also read the article about sixth form centres . There is also a page about the unofficially named Key Stage 5  that describes 16-18 education as post-compulsory. I know that, as they are wikipedia pages, they are subject to errors, but I think 3 pages, independent of one another, is enough proof. Perhaps the school your children go to does cater for 11-18, but that does not mean the entire country does, and that this wiki page shouldn't reflect other systems as well. There's a picture of the education system here  KillerKat 20:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Also see the 'Every Child Matters' website KillerKat 23:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjfletcher (talk • contribs)


 * The end of compulsory education at 16 has no bearing on the terminology of the word secondary school. I understand what a sixth form college is but the fact remains that they are in a minority in England and Wales as can be seen from the Wiki article you mentioned in which it states that there are only 90 sixth form colleges in England and Wales. The fact remains that the vast majority of secondary schools in England and Wales (3,000 plus at a rough estimate) cater for children between the ages of 11 and 18. Look at the Sunday Times Parent Power |pages and compare the number of schools in the 11-16 category and the general secondary category. Manchester is therefore an exception not the norm. Independent schools such as Manchester Grammar provide secondary education and are therefore secondary schools according to the dictionary definition. I'm not quite sure what you have in mind. As sixth form colleges are already the subject of a separate article I'm not sure that there is much to be gained by going into a lot of detail about them here. Dahliarose (talk) 09:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Your link doesn't work... I can't find any proof that shows that there are more schools to 18 than there are schools to 16 with attached sixth forms. The end of compulsory education does make a huge difference- that is the essence of secondary education. Even if schools have attached colleges, there are not truly secondary education... they are third education, and that term doesn't exist. Independent schools cannot be used as examples because they are exactly that- independent. We are talking about state run education. My point is, if there is evidence to show that even *some* schools end at 16, you cannot possibly claim that it is 'abnormal' for Manchester to end at 16. Exactly how much evidence do you have, apart from your own experience? KillerKat 23:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjfletcher (talk • contribs)


 * Here's the corrected link to the Sunday Times Parent Power page http://www.timesonline.co.uk/parentpower. This Wikipedia article is about secondary schools not just state schools. Independent schools are still secondary schools as is evidenced by the Sunday Times categorisations of these schools. Have a look at the OFSTED website http://www.ofsted.gov.uk and click on inspection reports and then secondary education. There are 3,320 schools listed. Some of these are middle schools which will reduce the number slightly, but with only 90 sixth form colleges in the whole of England it is clear that sixth form colleges are in the minority. There are 164 grammar schools in England, all of which are 11-18. Grammar schools only make up a small proportion of secondary schools. I only have experience of schools in four education authorities, all of which have 11-18 secondary schools. I've also worked on hundreds of Wikipedia school articles, nearly all of which are 11-18 schools. However, as you rightly say Wikipedia is not about individual experience. References need to be found to support specific viewpoints. Can you find a single reference to support your claim that secondary schools in England are exclusively for children aged 11-16?Dahliarose (talk) 13:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Liceum - What?
This article says that the term "Liceum" is used to describe secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland. As far as I know, this is completely untrue. I actually attend secondary school in Ireland, and as far as I know they are just called secondary schools.

Perhaps this is a regional thing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woofsie (talk • contribs) 16:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

reversion of Romania
Romania was vandalized here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Secondary_school&diff=next&oldid=345518315 NBSF (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Revision of Ireland Section
Re-wroth the Ireland section to add in information on the two cycles Junior and Senior as well as Transition year and linked them to their relavent Wiki pages as the info that was there was a small stub that didn't explain much about our secondary edication system. Also removed the quote that there are "734" as I can't find any citation for it. Unless someone can cite it, it is probably best to leave it out. Fantasyfacade (talk) 02:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Years, Grades and Ages
can we please use some common unit for each section? At the moment there are references to "year x", "Grade y" and "age z". I suggest we include the actual ages of the pupils? Markb (talk) 11:02, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

sp seconday
several instances of "seconday" where "secondary" should be; fixed a few.GinAndChronically (talk) 23:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Merged!
I have take the time to merge High school and this page. Article merged: See old talk-page here While there is now more content all in one place, a good chuck of it is still of poor quality. Please improve or update if you can.

I tried to retain most of the info in the merge, but you can always view the history of the high school article if you feel i've missed anything. DPM 08:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Secondary school. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160305081228/http://www.cesc-csce.ca/ to http://www.cesc-csce.ca

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 09:23, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Non-English names for secondary schools
I don't understand the reasoning behind listing non-English descriptions for secondary school. One is redirected to "high school" or "secondary school" anyway. so what is the point. Nor does linking these non-English words in an English Wikipedia make any sense. They are not now defined (redlinked), nor should they be. List should probably be deleted; or at best, not linked at all. ````

This is a Wikipedia entry in English, so why is Azerbaijan listed in Non-English Names for Secondary Schools as "Azərbaycan"? Nuttyskin (talk) 03:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Improvement by focussing on the title
There are two articles- equally badly written Secondary school and secondary education both are high profile. Secondary education is about the history and theory sociology and implementation of school systems. A secondary school is a mere element of secondary education. Its scope is restricted to the individual institutions and is far more difficult to define. Please tell me what it actually is. Two things are obvious, complete pages on the secondary education system of a particular country is over prominence. In my opinion, the country specific information belongs in a separate article which is then referred to with a main. The synopsis following should just give enough information to satisfy the general reader, for example a worker that is being deported and needs to know what adjustments his children will have to make!

This raises the interesting possibility that a country specific article School system in XXXXistan could be the landing page for main in both Secondary school and secondary education. Many of these articles exist. Can anyone suggest whyu it may be inappropriate to create a stub for countries where they are missing?

If no-one has specific objections I will start to clear out - cull- zap text from here or move it where possible to country specific article or neawly crated stub. We then need to address the problem of what non-country specific information do we need to include.

These paragraphs are also posted at Talk:Secondary education

ClemRutter (talk) 09:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I intend to copy not move text from here to the Secondary Education article- then pare back both articles so there is no overlap of systems and site specific text ClemRutter (talk) 16:19, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Attributions-

Then a section was copied back ! ClemRutter (talk) 15:15, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The article has change a lot in the last few weeks. I am continuing to reduce the synopsis of Secondary school so it can be contained in one paragraph. I then propose to include these description is a single continent section ClemRutter (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We now have a navbox template linkng the sec ed /sec school sections for each country. In this will be a link to a new list page where we can stable all the descriptions of individual countries- title not settled yet but on the lines of List of secondary education systems by country. ClemRutter (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We now have the new page List of secondary education systems by country and this does contain most of the information found here in the individual country sections- which I suggest is a duplication and thus redundant. Before this is deleted come some one else do a final check that we will lose nothing that is important. I think the revert/unrevert/rerevert argument for High school is now academic- and if we do decide to write something on an individual country is should not be on the lingustics of which part of the system could be called a high school- but more on the differences such as length of the school day, or whether Religion is a no-no and politics should be mandatory (like France) or the other way round like the UK, the balance between physical and academic, academic and vocational. ClemRutter (talk) 14:37, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Back to high school
Editors who watch this page may be interested in the recent discussion at Talk:High school. We now have a High school (North America) article. 13,000 links lead to High school; most intend the American meaning rather than Secondary school in general. With some effort and disruption, we could divert those links to more specific targets, then move the dab page to the High school title again. Another option is to point High school at the American article, after diverting incoming links meant for other topics. Comments are welcome at Talk:High school. Certes (talk) 23:23, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Revert merger of Secondary school and High school
I propose that high school be merged into secondary school. I think that the content in the "high school" article can easily be explained in the context of "secondary school". Article editor (talk) 00:06, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Merge - Yes, someone will need to do quite a bit of work to do the merge, but I support the proposal.   D b f i r s   00:56, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge - Looking at the number of times secondary school gets mentioned in the article on high school I would agree. I support the proposal.  &#127866;  Antiqueight  chat 15:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge - I also support a merge for the above reasons. — Quoth (talk) 11:24, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge - It's clear that high schools are secondary schools. Meters (talk) 00:14, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

While I obviously agree that "secondary school" is the more general, international concept of a school in secondary education, a "High school" is not just another name or otherwise the same as a "secondary school" – rather it's a specific type of secondary education within a specific tradition of education systems. Its main characteristics can be defined as: In legislations with more selective school systems such as Germany, high schools obviously aren't the predominant type of secondary schools, see how high schools are a specific type of secondary school there. In other legislations, high schools are called differently, such as "Higher Secondary" schools in India, or "Senior high schools" in the Philippines. In again other legislations without separate middle schools, broader secondary schools are often called just "secondary schools" – in fact, even some U.S. states gradually started replacing separate "high schools" (~ grades 9–12) and "middle schools" (~ grades 6–8) by unified "secondary schools" (~ grades 7–12).
 * is a comprehensive school that doesn't segregate between previous achievement or aptitude as selective schools do.
 * qualifies for higher education if completed
 * starts around grade 9, usually following middle school or "junior high school" (~ grades 6–8)

While this shows us that the matter is quite complicated, it clearly displays high schools are rarely a synonym of secondary school, but one of the latter's specific forms. Of course we may call this too complicated to bother making the difference, and therefore go forward merging all kinds of secondary schools to a single article – next candidates to merge in here would then be University-preparatory school, Grammar school, middle schools, Gymnasium (school). This would however be absolute nonsense, as every single of these secondary school types has common characteristics and a specific tradition that can and should be described in an independent article. In the same way, this merger was a particularly bad idea.

The discussion of the proposed merger has not been comprehensive at all. While the nominator already didn't give a compelling argument why the concept of "high school" should be explained in the context of "secondary school", others merely joined in or stated the obvious: that the two terms are related, with high schools being secondary schools, like in: apples are fruit. What we should have done instead, and should do now: Restore all content of the former High school that really is about high schools, and not just about some kind of secondary schools. Improve both articles separately. --PanchoS (talk) 11:07, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * If the two articles are to be kept separate then there needs to be a very clear distinction about what a high school is and the article shouldn't have secondary schools mentioned more than in passing because as I read it, it seemed to get very confused about the difference and the result to me was that high school is a small subset of secondary school which didn't have enough distinction to maintain a separate page of its own. I have no problem being wrong about that but if so the page on High schools needs to be very much cleared up.  &#9749;  Antiqueight  haver 13:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm fully with you: both articles were not very precise before either. We need to improve on this, but merging two articles lacking precision to a single one isn't exactly what improves clarity of the concepts and quality of the articles. --PanchoS (talk) 17:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose I'm willing to consider other options, but as the articles stood when merged, the merge was appropriate. There may be secondary schools which are not high schools, but Secondary school does not discuss them. The two articles were discussing the same concept. The secondary school article is discussing education "after primary school and before higher education". Secondary school made multiple references to "high school" and High school made multiple references to secondary school or education. The terms are virtually synonymous in the two articles. It appears that "high school" is not a universally defined concept, and I disagree with PanchoS's over-generalized defining characteristics of high schools. Canadian high schools, for example, disprove all three points:
 * Some public Canadian high schools are indeed selective, and require applicants to pass academic entrance exams (e.g., Old Scona Academic High School) or take auditions/provide portfolios for judging (e.g., Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts.
 * Graduating from a public Canadian high school does not necessarily qualify one for higher education. One may choose to take a vocational stream rather than an academic stream.
 * The Canadian province of Quebec does not have junior high schools or middle schools. High schools include grades 7 to 11, followed by two or three years of publicly funded college (for vocational training or to qualify for university). Meters (talk) 18:06, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Neutral: I supported the merge proposal from a British point of view, since High Schools here are normally just a subset of Secondary Schools that happen to have chosen that designation in their title. If the situation is very different in other countries, then I'm neutral about reversal of the merge.  If we did demerge, then the High School article would need to be separated into sections by country.    D b f i r s   19:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree: I agree with reverting the merge. High school is a subset of secondary school but in many parts of the world, and especially North America, they always seem to use the word high school. I would suggest that all the detailed information on secondary schools by country would be better placed in the article on secondary education. This page could then serve as a navigation page describing the different types of secondary schools. Unsigned comment added at 09:38, May 8, 2016 by editor Dahliarose.

In merging the articles I feel like both of the articles talked about generally the same thing: how the education is handled between ages of roughly 12-18. If we are to demerge the articles, then the high school article has to clearly state what a high school is and how it is different from a general secondary school. You mention University Preparatory and Gymnasiums, and looking at those articles they provide a clear distinction from regular secondary school. Middle school however could easily come under the heading of secondary school. I would suggest we could have sections devoted to types of secondary schools. Within those sections you can describe the specific differences, i.e. what makes a high school different than any other secondary school. De-merging to me just splits the information of what goes on from ages 12-18 into two different places. I would also like to note the the article Secondary education is also frustratingly similar. DPM 20:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

A merger was wrong. A High School is a much more enjoyable place of learning while a secondary school can't be called an enjoyable place. Undo the merger with immediate effect. Atul Kaushal 15:36, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Support the merger revert. High school, although a "subset" of secondary school, is equally important in academic terms and cannot be diluted / confused with secondary school. Both subjects are vast and need independent articles. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk)  14:56, 21 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose High school is an "enjoyable place of learning"?? Both subjects are "vast"?  There is no more foundation to such claims than the statements "I liked college" and "there are so many colleges".  Wikipedia should not have multiple articles on the same essential subject.  This is one of those instances.  Let the merge remain.  KDS4444 (talk) 13:03, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Support High School may be a subset of secondary school, but the distinction (even in the US) is one which is deep in culture. Elementary->Middle->High is generally the progression, and I don't feel like this is adequately explained in the article as is.  As such, I think the best option would be to revert this merge and leave a stub in high school.  Don4of4 [Talk] 14:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * ... so should the demerged article stub be entitled "High Schools in America"?   D b f i r s   14:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose without a clearer description of what a "High school" article would contain. Of the OP's three bullet point characteristics, I believe only the second is a world view of the term. As the OP says, it's complicated. Not only does the term mean different things in different countries, but in some countries where it is commonly used it can mean a wide range of things (much wider than the unsourced section on Bangladesh says, for example). Adequately explaining the different meanings would require context. Contrasting, in each country, high schools with secondary schools that aren't high schools would lead us back here.


 * asked, perhaps rhetorically, if the demerged article should be titled "High Schools in America". I like to think that Wikipedia can always do better than Encyclopædia Britannica, but it's worth noting that they have an article on Secondary education and one on High school (American education). I suggest supporters of a separate article try developing a "high school" section within secondary school. If it reaches a point where it could stand on its own, represents a reasonably comprehensive world view of the term, and doesn't largely duplicate this article, then I could support spinning it off (demerging) at that time. --Worldbruce (talk) 19:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Support per that there are many pages which still link to High school as well as secondary school, the terms are not always interchangeable. -  C HAMPION  (talk) (contributions) (logs) 22:25, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Agree A high school is not a secondary school. When you talk about high school, you use "high school" instead of "secondary school". It's true. everyone does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LittleWhole (talk • contribs) 01:14, February 15, 2017 (UTC)
 * "A high school is not a secondary school"? That's completely incorrect, and has nothing to do with why this is being discussed. The problem seems to be that the term "high school" has different meanings in different places. That differentiation can be included in the article, but the way the articles were originally written the two terms were being used virtually anonymously and the merger made sense. Meters (talk) 03:14, 15 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong Support I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to clean up the article on Secondary education which is about systems of education and how states attempt to fulfill their UNESCO commitments- and on secondary schools which are the organisation and the school buildings- design, sociology etc. I have made massive changes and the previous correct decisions are no longer relevant. I need the title High School for a disambiguation page- and on that page will be another article High school (USA). Other uses have already been explained. A Technical High School is an elite university for engineers.A high school is a girls grammar school, it is a standard 11-16 comprehensive school, and in the next authority a standard 11-16 comprehensive school or a shameful euphemism for a secondary modern school. There are two educational vocabularies at play in tertiary studies of secondary education- based on whether the academic grew up in a K12 system- or residual European system, and within that direct comparisons cannot be applied. I thought when I started editing these pages I was going to have massive problems, forever explaining the nuances between high school and secondary school. It didn't happen as few UK schools now have the word 'secondary' in their title. Secondary schools is really a an age-concept which affects other disciplines. Another linguistic battle will be Middle Schools which Uk side was mainly a 9-13 organisation- and elsewhere appears to take students upto 16.


 * Simplifying Secondary school (11-18) = Intermediate school (11-14) + High school (14-18). Secondary school (11-18) ≠ High school (14-18)


 * A lot of the unref ed material I am deleted seems to be stuff making comparisons with the naming of the organisations in each country that delivers ISCED level 2 and 3- trying to show ow they are really high schools- the merger has wasted a lot of editors time. It will be far easier to complete the task if High school could be refloated. ClemRutter (talk) 23:19, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Closure?: I don't see a way forward here. The article has changed from the one that was being discussed so the discussion has lost relevance. I am going to WP:BOLD and remove several hat notes and redirect the ==High school== in a different direction. When I have found one! This is to get the thing rolling again- please join in. ClemRutter (talk) 11:53, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note, ClemRutter's BOLD redirect was reverted by User:BD2412. Natg 19 (talk) 05:50, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing evidence for why secondary school wouldn't be the primary topic for high school. The most common usage for "high school" appears to be as a secondary school. I'd further redirect to the section Secondary school, which handles the primary dab cases better than the dab page ("high school" is not confusable with "High School Musical"). On a related note, I'm not seeing a substantive reason for why secondary school is split from secondary education as the former is simply the main instrument of the latter. Also relatedly, I see no reason for splitting High school (North America) from Secondary education in the United States—high schools, middle schools, junior highs can all be adequately covered in its scope, and the split should only be summary style as needed, as readers would expect to read about the concepts in the same space. (not watching, please ping) czar  13:59, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Parking a mental reference
<-ref>Naeim, M., Rahimi, H. R., Soltani, F., Farazandeh, F., Nejad, F. M., Sharafi, M. R., & Dizaj, Z. S. T. (2016). The role of life skills and self-efficacy in mental health among male students in High school. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCH & HEALTH SCIENCES, 5(7), 118-126. <-/ref>

No idea what the issue is, but if some one writes the article this could be useful. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:36, 22 January 2018 (UTC)