Talk:Westminster School

Assessment
It has been requested that I review the assessments of this article. First, I am going to maintain the article's existing high importance rating for WikiProject Schools, an argument could even be made for Top importance though I will leave that to a separate discussion. This article merits at least a C-class, so I will not demote it, however will compare it against the B-class criteria to see if it merits B-class:


 * Criterion 1: Article has lots of references and uses inline citations, but there are noticeable gaps in the references. There appear to be a few gaps in the History section for example of historical claims that will need full sourcing, but currently appear to have no refs. There are big gaps in the Westminster Jargon and Houses section. Also, too many alumni claims have no refs to support them. Lack of use of citation templates while not needed for B-class/GA also bring down the quality of the article.
 * Criterion 2: Enough for B-class, though one noticeable omission is the lack of info on academics and curriculum. See WP:WPSCH/AG for help.
 * Criterion 3: The article is well structured, the lead section needs to be a lot bigger for an article of this size and should summarise the entire article, see WP:LEAD for help, but this is not a problem for B-class.
 * Criterion 4: No serious issues with article flow, though for GA some WP:MOS issues will need to be corrected. Full stops should be before references, and images should be laid out per WP:MOSIMAGE e.g. not having text sandwiched between images. Also, bold should not be used to make article headings as done here to explain jargon.
 * Criterion 5: Has enough pictures and a school logo.
 * Criterion 6: Technical terms are explained.

So the article currently passes criteria 2,3,4,5 and 6, but fails criterion 1, and articles need to pass all these criteria to get B-class. So while nearly B-class, I am assessing the article as C-class for now.

Oh yes and an opinion was requested on the length of the article, the article is 58KB in total so it is not in danger zone yet and only readable prose counts at WP:SIZERULE and after a test I found the readable prose for this article is under 30KB. One easy way of reducing article size is to move all the alumni list into the former pupils sub-article and just have a brief prose summary in this article. Camaron · Christopher · talk 14:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding jargon/slang marked as "obsolete"
Would it be possible to indicate how long ago the relevant terms became obsolete? I'm reading John Rae's Westminster diary, The Old Boys' Network, and he uses "begging a play" as though it was current at the time. In the entry for 16 October 1973, Rae mentions that "I have asked Gerald Ellison ... to come to Latin prayers and beg a play" (lower-case p).

On a slightly different, but related, note, in the entry for 23 October 1975, Rae gives boys (plural) a digniora, and specifically refers to it as being Maundy money. When did that change? Loganberry (Talk) 18:55, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Promotional sentence
This sentence seems not to be suitable for an encyclopedia: "Prospective donors are particularly invited to note the School's gratitude to benefactors." I propose its deletion. Pemboid (talk) 12:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, and I have deleted it. -- Alarics (talk) 14:14, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Photo
Changed caption of photo - which does not show the facade of the school. None of the range of buildings of The Sanctuary house the school, which doesn't really have a facade as such. The photo does, however, show the War Memorial to boys who died in the Crimean War. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.30.108.33 (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Links
In view of close links between Westminster School and Oxford and Cambridge universities, the high number going to the latter two need not have any academic significance. Common staff are the norm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.96.198 (talk) 14:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * See Greg Winter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.96.198 (talk) 14:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Christopher Lewis appears.

Advert
I agree that this is an advertisement. I have been trying to get the spamming out for years. There is very little else I can do without being sued for libel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.21.223 (talk) 15:08, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 17 one external links on Westminster School. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081011183946/http://www.westminster-abbey.org/contact/dean-and-chapter/31717 to http://www.westminster-abbey.org/contact/dean-and-chapter/31717
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Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 09:24, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Westminster School. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for https://www.westminster.org.uk/admissions/fees

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

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Private School
I would suggest that Westminster school be described as a private school. The description independent is vague and unclear. Wikipedia is global and most readers recognise organisations as being either public sector or private sector. 'Independent school' is an Anglocentric term and is just not a recognised term in most countries. It only serves to open up questions; independent from whom? Independen from what?

Over the last ten years most UK public sector secondary schools have converted to academies and are therefore independent. They're independent of central government and Local Education Authority control. This development has made it all the more confusing to describe private schools as independent. If you take private healthcare; go to the BUPA article and in the opening paragraph it is described as a private hospital. If private schools have private school in the opening paragraph the link takes the reader to an article that makes explicitly clear:

Private schools, also known as independent schools, non-governmental, or nonstate schools,[1] are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students tuition, rather than relying on mandatory taxation through public (government) funding; at some private schools students may be able to get a scholarship, which makes the cost cheaper, depending on a talent the student may have (e.g. sport scholarship, art scholarship, academic scholarship), financial need, or tax credit scholarships that might be available.

That is clear, unambiguous and uneqivocal. (Garageland66 (talk) 01:10, 30 August 2016 (UTC)).


 * It is made fairly clear in the link to independent school what the term means. If the reader is unclear about the term, they need only click on it. This is exaclty as clear as having private school there and having them click on that. Benboy00 (talk) 19:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Clicking on private school is also takes the reader to an article fully explaining the term. However most readers don't click on links. Leaving independent is only confusing and unclear. Independent of what? This has already been explained. (Garageland66 (talk) 19:03, 9 September 2016 (UTC))


 * What has been explained to you is that you are editing disruptively on several different articles to push your own point of view, and you should be in no doubt as to where that will lead if you choose to continue. The articles are perfectly clear on the schools' independence of government as they stand, and a consensus of other editors is perfectly clear about the situation, too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Infobox
The infoboxes for the seven historic English public schools are, at present, inconsistent. Five have the School Type  listed as ‘Independent’, one has it as ‘Private’ and only one has it as ‘Public’. Can I propose that, for the sake of consistency, they all have ‘Public School’ in the infobox. They are defined as such by the 1868 Public Schools Act. Is there a consensus on this? Garageland66 (talk) 11:37, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Style
For such a prestigious school, the style of prose in this article is less than scholarly. Partially cleaned up by the WP:WPCH, there is a lot left to do, in particular the pruning out of non essential detail and content. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:27, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The style should be the same for all articles, regardless of the degree of snobiness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.48.238.18 (talk) 11:32, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 11 external links on Westminster 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:
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When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 15 external links on Westminster 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/20140620040128/http://www.westminster.org.uk/about-us/head-masters-thoughts.html to http://www.westminster.org.uk/about-us/head-masters-thoughts.html
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150711113646/https://www.westminster.org.uk/about-westminster/about-us/the-governing-body/ to https://www.westminster.org.uk/about-westminster/about-us/the-governing-body/
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.westminster.org.uk/westminster/admissions/fees/
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Apparently Fred-Wee Fart-Ham went on the study PhilThe at Jesus college after going here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.162.228 (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2020 (UTC)