Talk:Van Asch College

Assessment
Hello all, and thank you for contributing to this school site. I'm part of the WikiProject_Schools/Assessment team, and I'm reviewing this page, I'm currently giving it a grade of Stub on the Wikipedia 1.0 Assessment Scale and an importance of Med on this importance scale.

My reasoning is as follows: Need more information on the school, programs offered, demographics, etc... Could also use pictures and sourced information Adam McCormick 05:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have changed the assessment rating to Mid for the various projects because of the history of the school. Being 140 years old and the first NZ state school, and only one until 1958, educating people affected by deafness is not just an obscure piece of trivia. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:53, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

deaf versus Deaf
I have added a section on Deaf staff. Please note that I have used "deaf" to describe the staff members as my reference is the van Asch page on history, which uses deaf with a small "d". I see no reason to correct this to "Deaf" as I would presume if the teching staff in question were unhappy at being called "deaf" they'd have had this corrected in their individual entries on the van Asch page. The auxiliary staff I mention would have been pre the big "D" movement (I believe this is fairly recent?), so I don't see a reason to identify them as Deaf.

Anyone disagree with my rationale? Justinep 14:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Name Change (or lack of?)
I can't seem to find a reference online for the name change to Van Asch College. Even their own website still use the old name Van Asch Deaf Education Centre. So I propose changing the name of this article back to Van Asch Deaf Education Centre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by James.pole (talk • contribs) 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * See this timeline of the van Asch Deaf Education Centre, which is the current name that was adopted in 1995. The timeline indicates the name van Asch College was adopted in 1980 at the time of the school centennial. This article should be moved to Van Asch Deaf Education Centre, however that page contains an article with history that has been changed to a redirect, rather than being merged with this article in a Move. - 210.86.82.145 (talk) 10:09, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I've had a look and "Van Asch Deaf Education Centre" appears to be the common name. The only mentions of "Van Asch College" in the local newspaper, The Press, are a couple of obituaries (where teachers were being referred to who worked there when that was the school's name). I support moving the page. Any dissent?  Schwede 66  19:03, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia article naming policy gives Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness and Consistency to all be factors one should consider when choosing a title. Policy also prefers that articles be given a common name in preference to an official name, as this is more robust against official name changes. The fact that the obituaries refer to Van Asch College suggests that this is a commonly understood name, while the Van Asch Deaf Education Centre is a more recent official name describing a change in the functionality of the educational institution occupying the grounds. It is reasonable that a search of internet articles returns the official name since 1995 because of the recentness of the name change and the historic name fall into a digital black hole of history between digitization of pre-World War 2 official records, books and paper news media in New Zealand and the creation of the internet. Consequently very little will appear on-line for the fifty years between 1945 and 1995. You have to research in paper. Anyway, from the third term of 2020, the Van Asch Deaf Education Centre has been merged into a national school for deaf education called Ko Taku Reo. So the official name of the school has changed again and the school reorganized to support mainstream students who are deaf. Yet the residential campus remains and is still referred to by the name of van Asch. For most of its existence this school and its campus was known as the Sumner School for the Deaf and while I don't advocate using that cumbersome official name, I do think, of the choices available, using Van Asch College is much more succinct title, commonly understood and recognised, consistent with other school names, and probably better describes the purpose of the campus as well as the institution occupying it for most of it existence. I oppose moving the article! - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:49, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just modified 1 one external link on Van Asch College. 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/20070802072152/http://www.nzsign.co.nz/History.aspx to http://www.nzsign.co.nz/History.aspx

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Merger in 2020 is not a closure
The 2020 merger has not seen the van Asch campus close. Instead it has become the South Island residential campus of Ko Taku Reo or Deaf Education New Zealand. I think describing the school in the past tense and implying it has closed is misleading, rather it has become part of something bigger and better. Deaf education is still delivered from the site but instead of being merely a bricks and mortar school it has become part of a distributed institution that is nationwide and serves more than 2700 students. Someone who is more familiar with the latest developments in this 140 year old Sumner institution needs to comment on this article. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 03:09, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If the school site is still being used for education of deaf students, and it refers to itself as simply a part of Ko Taku Reo, then yes, you're probably right that the school hasn't 'closed' and it is my mistake for writing that this school has closed. Thanks for pointing that out. Violetnights (talk) 02:14, 29 November 2020 (UTC)