User talk:Valproctor

Welcome!
Hello, Valproctor, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
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Ipswich Academy
Hi. I reverted your substantial edits to the school page just now as it seemed that you were removing the majority of any critical judgements against the school. Given that it received a rather poor section 8 report in the summer of 2012 it seems odd that you chose not to include any evidence from that in your edits - it, for example, provides evidence of the school's sixth form as well as it's size. It's really important that we try to maintain a WP:NPOV with articles and I find that school articles are particularly prone to editing which can distort the perception of the school.

I think I've caught most of the clear factual changes you introduced into the article. Perhaps you'd like to check them and then have a wee go at introducing some balance into the article. I'll keep an eye on it in case you need a hand with things like referencing. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi - the criticisms on the page are entirely subjective and I would like to see the evidence you have about the community not being happy about our learning model - that is why I removed that bit. Surely Wikipedia is about facts, not about subjective opinions? The school has improved enormously since becoming an Academy and I do feel this should be reflected in otherwise very negative and unsubstantiated claims, rather than harking back to the days when it was an under-performing school?Valproctor (talk) 14:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi. Yes, wikipedia needs to be about facts, not subjective criticisms or praise. If we can find stuff in third party sources, particularly if they're balanced articles and not obvious fluff pieces, then it's fabulous to be able to add those sorts of things to articles. Which is why the only criticism of the methods is referenced from an Evening Star article from 2009 - albeit one that doesn't appear to be online anymore (Archant changed the way they reference articles a while back and do tend to remove older ones). The way the criticism is worded is fairly vague and waffly - some would say that by itself it fails to be critical enough and is an example of the use of weasel words, but it's probably fair as it is (although it could well be out of date nowadays).


 * If you can find similar articles - Archant or the BBC are good potential sources - then that's fab to add stuff in linked to those articles. As I said previously, I can help to deal with referencing if necessary if you can find the articles.


 * There is also the existence of the section 8 report I noted above. At the moment it's not referenced anywhere in the article - indeed, the only reference to Ofsted is from back in 2008 which is also a long while ago. I'm sure we could refer to that section 8 report - but there are phrases like "Progress is inadequate for all groups of students..." which might not be all that glowing about the school. I appreciate that that is a subjective opinion in many respects - unfortunately it's the subjective opinion of an Ofsted suit and would be treated as a reliable third party source by many.


 * I appreciate your pov and difficulties entirely. The key things I want to see in school articles are balance and sourcing. If you can write the article so that it provides those then I'd be happy with it. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2012 (UTC)