Talk:Private schools in the United Kingdom/Archive 2

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Archive 1

Archive 2

What is a public school?

Latest comment: 11 years ago20 comments5 people in discussion

I think public school should be prominent in the intro, as the redirect comes here. However, my edit was removed by Rangoon11, saying "only a small proportion of independent schools in the UK are regarded as public schools." Why redirect such an important topic, and yet say it isn't important enough to get headline prominence? Either we should restore the "public school" page, or be more inclusive of public schools in this article. Hyper3 (talk) 00:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

On re-reading I see there is some mention a few sentences down. Sigh.Hyper3 (talk) 00:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that adding bold type face to the first use of 'public school' in the lead, as I have just done, should work.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

The article currently says: "Around 10% of independent schools in the UK, which are in general older, more expensive, more exclusive and members of the Headmasters' and Headmindastresses' Conference,[1] are known in England and Wales (but not in Scotland or Northern Ireland) as "'public schools"."

What is the source for the claim that only %10 of independent secondary schools are members of the headmasters conference? -- PBS (talk) 16:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Independent Schools Council says it "represent over 1,200 independent schools. These schools are ranked among the best in the world and educate more than 500,000 children". That number includes children under 12 who are not at secondary schools and those between 11 and 13 at prep-schools.

The HMC top ten facts page says "201,998 pupils are taught in HMC Schools in the UK and Ireland" and "One in five of all those attending the UK's top ten universities come from HMC's 252 schools. "

So the Independent Schools Council schools 1,221[1] of which 252 belong to the HMC[2]. Some of the numbers of both are for foreign (Non UK) schools) but even using the gross figures which are skewed against the HMC (because it includes schools not in the secondary school system) the numbers word out as 201,998/500,000 and 252/1,221 (40% by pupils and 20% by schools) is nowhere near the 10% stated in the article. -- PBS (talk) 16:44, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Note that not all private schools in the UK are members of the ISC. There are around 2,600 private schools in the UK [3], and the HMC currently has 252 members.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

To be clear and to be able to talk about "your source" it is McCormack, Steve (22 September 2011), Why a private education may be more affordable than you think Fees at independent schools are high but there are funds available to soften the blow.

The number in McCormack is for all private schools including primary: "a small private primary school". This means that you are not comparing like with like and the 10% is both misleading and meaningless, as no one has ever stated that primary schools (or prep schools) are public schools. Do you have a figure for the percentage for secondary school education which would be a more meaningful number? -- PBS (talk) 11:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I take your point, since an HMC school must have a sixth form, although note that many HMC schools do have a lower school so there is overlap and giving a percentage is therefore rather arbitrary anyhow. I'm not personally wedded to the 10 per cent number and I don't believe I was the one who actually added it. Although note that third party sources often do describe members of the HMC and all private schools in the UK in the same breath without stating clearly that a school without a sixth form cannot be an HMC member or a "public school".[4].Rangoon11 (talk) 12:19, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a very useful tool called WikiBlame which is usually used to find who is responsible for copy right violations, but it is also a useful tool for finding out who added what when to an article. In this case the 10% was introduced here by Pol098 01:02, 10 January 2012. You presumably copied the wording to the articlePublic School (UK) with this edit 01:25, 10 January 2012 (23 minutes later). The original assertion was inserted into this article at 00:30, 4 January 2012 here "(roughly 10 per cent of the total)" by Rangoon11 without a source. -- PBS (talk) 15:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It was agreed in 2005 after a requested move debate to move the article on Public schools to this page (see above #Page move). On 10 January 2012 Rangoon11 altered the redirect that pointed to this article into a page with this series of edits. The lead statement of that change was "The term public school is commonly used in the United Kingdom to refer to a select group of about 10% of the independent schools", yet no reliable source has been presented to back up that statement, or that distinguishes "Public School" from Independent School. When we debated this in 2005 it was clear that school such as Eton College describe themselves as independent schools[5] and not public schools (can you find one independent school that describes itself a "Public School"?). The most common use of "Public School" in reliable sources was in broadsheet newspapers and when they use the term, if they define it, they link it to membership of the HMC. I suggest that the article Public School is a content/POV fork and I propose to reintegrate the text of the two articles and make the article Public School (United Kingdom) back into a redirect, unless it can be show that the modern usage of the term "Public School" has a clear definition and is more than an synonym for independent school that belongs to the HMC. -- PBS (talk) 11:13, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

There seem to be two merged threads in the section. The first one is a query over whether public schools "make up some 10% of these" and if this claim can be supported, the other being a suggestion that we merge the public school article into this one. Can we pull these two apart?

Can I suggest that if the 10% claim is not properly sourced that we simply removed it until it is?
With regard to the merge proposal, I don't think that would be useful and would favour developing separate articles for the distinct types of independent school, in particular to discuss prep schools separately from public schools separately from other notable types of independent school type (including Montessori schools for one). Is there general agreement that Public Schools focus on 13-18 and are also "in general, older, more expensive and more exclusive"? Is there also agreement that it is the schools which are part of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference which are called public schools?

-- PeterEastern (talk) 03:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

A century ago "public school" had a fairly clear definition, but has since been broadened and diffused to the point where the schools that have always been agreed to meet the definition no longer use the term. Your criteria are contradictory. The members of the HMC are very diverse, and most of them cover the 11-18 range. Besides, we already have an article on the HMC. This is no basis for a separate "public school" topic. Kanguole 09:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for coming back to me. By way of context, I have no great knowledge of such schools other than to have had the benefit?? of being sent away to boarding school at the age of 8; also that my father taught at one of the 'major English public schools' all his career as he would have put it. I unfortunately appear to have got rid of his copy of 'the history of the English Public School' or whatever it was called which I wanted to refer to last night. I am however prepared to work on my knowledge. To be clear, we can define the scope of a WP article in any reasonable way we choose and we can outline the article scope in the lead. WP is not a dictionary and the lead should not cover all uses of a word, but should instead cover a single notably subject and define what that is. It can have an 'about' banner if appropriate to guide people to other articles which use similar terms. What seems very clear to me is that what I know of as a 'public school' and what is culturally recognised by the term (13-18 education, boarding, high academic achievement, privileged, exclusivity, toffs, fagging, Tom Brown School days, Eton collars, etc etc ) really belongs in an article with that title. Similarly, an article on Prep Schools can deal with some of the physiological issues associated with boarding from 8yo. Surely it doesn't make sense to try and pack all of that into a single article about 'independent schools' which covers day and boarding schools for kids from about 3 to probably 18 simply because the term public school has blurry edges? PeterEastern (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, you're talking about the older, more focussed, sense of the term, along the lines of Sidney Smith's "an endowed place of education of old standing, to which the sons of gentlemen resort in considerable numbers" (1810) or Edward Mack's "non-local endowed boarding schools for the upper classes" (1938). That is quite different different from membership of the HMC, an organization originally set up to promote the interests of the non-Clarendon endowed schools, but which the Clarendon schools later joined. Few of the former direct grant grammar schools that make up the backbone of the HMC would fit your definition. For such an article to work, it would have to focus on the historical definition. Kanguole 13:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for coming back to me. I am totally open to discuss the appropriate scope for an article with the title 'Public school (United Kingdom)' or similar. The only thing I would resist is to merge all types of independent school into one general article. As to the exact scope of the article, I suggest we accept some blurriness and go with the consensus. If you are ok with having such an article, then possibly we should start fiddling with the definition in the lead and about banner until we are happy. We can then flesh out the articles. Are there any other types of independent school which should have UK specific articles (other than prep school which already has one)? PeterEastern (talk) 13:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Also... regarding the former direct grant grammar schools, can I suggest we focus the public school article on these top elite schools along the lines of the older definition (and the current article) as this will provide a useful platform to discuss issues of elitism, make-up of the Cabinet, social justice and it also fits with a corny part of British culture as viewed from overseas. Personally, I would like to see the article cover the evolution of these schools from their origins to today, showing how they have changed (and have not changed!). One interesting subject will be how corporal punishment was banned from state schools by some act of parliament 20 years back, but was retained for the elite. Odd that parliament specifically allowed their own children only to be beaten. To include the totally separate heritage of the former grammar schools would dilute this message. Would it be appropriate to cover that in the Grammar school article and should that article be focused on the British Grammar School system, regardless of where in the world it now operates, which is pretty much how the article is written anyway. Possibly we should mention grammar schools in the lead for this article. PeterEastern (talk) 13:40, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

As I've suggested above, I think a "public school" article based on something equivalent to Mack's carefully worded definition would be reasonable, but not one based on HMC membership. Kanguole 15:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I have updated the lead to reflect this conversation and removed reference to HMC. I had previously removed the reference to '10%' which I think addresses both issues raised in this thread. (I would o course be happy to see the 10% claim reinstated if supported by a suitable reference). PeterEastern (talk) 22:38, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

WP uses reliable third party sources, rather than the likes or dislikes of its editors, and there can be no doubt that 1. "public schools" is a highly notable topic for a WP article, with vast coverage in reliable sources; 2. "public school" is not the same as "independent school in the United Kingdom", it is a separate but related topic; 3. although the definition of what constitutes a public school has changed over time, there is no doubt that membership of the HMC is now regarded as forming part of the definition of the topic. I understand that some may not like it - like some dislike the very idea of public schools, or indeed independent schools in general - but third party sources going back over decades clearly state this. Rangoon11 (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure where you are coming from on some of this, however I have adjusted the lead again with a view to accommodating your input. I have taken out the citations you added to the lead since a lead should normally summarise content from the body of the article and does not need to repeat these citations except for any particularly controversial content. PeterEastern (talk) 20:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

What is a public school (continued)

Latest comment: 11 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion

Thank you Peter for teasing out the 10% issue. The reason I raised it with the current article Public school (United Kingdom) was because that statistic was used to recreate the article Public school (United Kingdom) when there had been a long debate back in 2005 to move the page from Public school to Independent School. It that debate several issues were raised:

Public School is not a UK term public school in Scotland means state school (so the current dab extension is wrong).
The schools commonly called "Public Schools" refer to themselves as independent schools.
A survey of current reliable English (and Welsh?) sources that use the term Public Schools (particularly reliable London newspapers) define Public school as members of the HMC. To date no evidence has been presented that the majority of such reliable sources define Public Schools any other way than by the member ship of the HMC. So the text "The term public school is sometimes used to refer to a group of older, more expensive and exclusive fee-paying privat schools" in the public school article needs a sources as does the clause in this article that says "Some of older, more expensive and more exclusive schools catering for the 13-18 age-range in England and Wales are known as Public schools," to support those statements because the the majority of modern reliable English sources that define public school do so as an independent school that is a member of the HMC.

I also do not think you can use definitions that pre-date World War II as a way to define what is meant by a "public school" today. I think we can ignore a 1810 definition, and what makes the 1938 "non-local endowed boarding schools for the upper classes" (So out goes Westminster!) and better than the Flemming report of 1944, which had to consider the legal position for possible future legislation, and basically said that a public school is a member of the HMC?[6]. The Flemming type definition was also used by the The Donnison Report (1970):

The main function of the Commission will be to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools with the State system of education. For the immediate purpose of the Commission public schools are defined as those independent schools now in membership of the Headmasters' Conference, Governing Bodies' Association or Governing Bodies of Girls' Schools Association.

Both these definitions seem to be similar to the popular 21st century definition that equates public schools to those who are members of the HMC.

AFAICT the the only way one could glean what the term "The term public school is sometimes used to refer to a group of older, more expensive and exclusive fee-paying privat schools" means would be to list the schools found guilty of involvement in the independent school fee fixing scandal because clearly those schools considered themselves a self selecting cartel who are in competition with each other, but as I know of know reliable sources that draws that conclusion, it can not be used as a way to determine what is an English public school.

The original reason for recreating the article (the 10%) has been shown to have no foundation in sources, unless someone can show that there is a well known definition that makes a distinction between public school and independent school that belongs to the HMC, the POV fork should reintegrated into this article (see WP:REDUNDANTFORK). If there is a need in the future to create such an article as part of a summary style then it should be given a neutral descriptive name such as Independent secondary school (United Kingdom) if Scotland and Northern Ireland are to be included, or Independent secondary school (England and Wales) if not (although I notice that Monmouth School was not part of the fee fixing fixing!) -- Also as the article is only 31k in size I see no need for a summary style article at present.

-- PBS (talk) 17:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the above. Personally I am keen for there to be an article that relates to the schools traditionally called public schools that had a huge impact on British Empire, and at the top of the Social structure of the United Kingdom. As the article identifies, these schools still educate a surprising number of our leaders (for better or worse) and play a key part in maintaining a social pecking order, with a distinction being made between attendance at a 'major public schools' (Harrow, Eton etc), 'minor public schools', and other independent secondary schools: [7][8][9][10][11][12] The fact that the schools don't identify themselves as such only reflects how British understated elitism works. Personally I suggest we keep an article based on the traditional definitions, but that we should possibly focus it on the heritage of these schools. Surely there is enough content to create a great article based on this historical definition? Needless to say, WP is not a dictionary, and we can define the scope of an article as we see fit. Rolling these schools into a pot with every other fee paying school would miss the point. PeterEastern (talk) 20:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Then I suggest you write an article with a descriptive names such as the "impact of public schools on the British Empire". PBS (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Given that these schools, and their impact on the social structure, are still very much in evidence I suggest that the current title is fine. PeterEastern (talk) 06:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

This sentence in the lead "Some of older, more expensive and more exclusive schools catering for the 13-18 age-range in England and Wales are known as Public schools, the term 'public' being derived from the fact that they were open to pupils regardless of where they lived or their religion." needs to be changed because all the modern definitions of public school (since World War II) defines public school as synonymous with membership of the HMC, and this article should reflect that, and not try to imply that there is some other definition of "Some of older, more expensive" which is not backed up with a reliable source. PBS (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The HMC definition of public school seems to have drifted so far from the more common 'elitist' school usage (as evidenced by the numerous reference I have provided above) as to not be a suitable basis for an article. In addition the HMC website doesn't use to term in its own website, preferring the phrase "the world’s leading independent schools"[13] and only makes one reference to the term public school on a page where it is quoting from The Times.[14] (an article which incidentally supports the current current 'elitist' scope). PeterEastern (talk) 06:03, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Stats

Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Does anyone know/can find any stats for:

breakdown to primary/ secondary numbers educated privately
amount of university students from private school

ThanksChendy (talk) 09:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Breakdown per university is published each year in the papers, breakdown by age I have never seen - it would be an extremely useful figure as the '7% privately educated' is averaged over the whole population, and given the greater attendance in higher years (especially 16-18) the actual number of people educated in the private system for some of their childhood will be markedly greater than this figure. It might take some digging through gov.uk or the HMC.

Ed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.231.105 (talk) 13:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Reference 1 (Hensher) does not provide a primary souce for the "7% ... 18%" figure but just states the figures. 87.114.228.201 (talk) 11:27, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

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Funding

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Wikipedia infobox template for UK schools asks for a description of "What type of school is it, and how is it funded?" ^[1] Most of the UK independent schools just have Independent but don't explain that they're fee-paying. Should not 'fee-paying' be included to explain how these schools are funded? Garageland66 (talk) 13:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

References

^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_UK_school

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Charitable status

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The citation in this section was missing, but in any case it is highly dubious that 'most' private schools have CS. Most members of the ISC do (c. 1000 out of 1269) but that represents less than half the total. Since it is generally the smaller, less proposperous and less famous schools - which are mostly businesses - that are not members of the ISC, there is good reason to think the proportion of private schools that have CS isn't much above 40%. We need a reliable source that gives more info on this.90.255.199.75 (talk) 20:28, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Public Schools are not the same as Independent Schools

Latest comment: 7 years ago12 comments10 people in discussion

I stumbled across this page by accident and I disagree with the definition that (UK) public schools are synonymous with independent schools. Public schools specifically refer to independent secondary schools e.g. Eton, Harrow, St Paul's etc. Independent primary schools in the UK are referred to as Prep(aratory) schools and this distinction should be made clear in this article. Vivenot 11:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Most Scottish independent schools have primary schools -- but they don't call them preparatory schools. In Scotland that term is reserved for primary schools offering an English education. To my knowledge a few prep schools do exist in Scotland. They are generally used by pupils intending to attend an independent/public school in England. So once again Scottish usage differs from English usage and it would be misleading to call either one, UK usage.-- Derek Ross | Talk 14:59, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Second paragraph "The term Public school has traditionally been used in England and Wales for the elite of such independent schools that provide 13 to 18 education. " --Philip Baird Shearer 13:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

That was my edit in response to 'Vivenot'!--Westminsterboy 13:55, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

This seems to have reverted to the (wrong) thing of simply saying that independent = public. Shall I put it back? Or is there a reason for that? Knole Jonathan (talk) 13:43, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

My objection is more to the redirect from Public school (England) to Independent school (UK). They are not the same thing and there should be two separate articles.Vivenot 14:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I've just looked at the move discussion above. I didn't see it earlier as I have to do some work as well as Wiki-ing (?!). It sounds like you had a lot of fun discussing the move. Although I appreciate the vote is now closed, the resulting move/redirect has created a slightly incorrect wiki article. Public school (England) should be a separate article linked as a subset of Independent school (UK). I hope this clarifies, but I can understand if people do not want to open this can of worms again! Vivenot 14:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

In theory I think you're correct; doing the split in a "clean" manner is problematic, though. Trouble is "public school" is a historical and popular term that's no longer really used "officially", so it tends to be as clear as mud what it "correctly" refers to. When people start referring to titular (and previously actual) grammar schools as "public schools", it's clear there's not a coherent definition. Ideally I'd think the Public school (England) (or whatever else) article should be focussed on the historical sense, rather than trying to split out a "subset" of present schools to treat of separately. Alai 04:47, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Heres a point... never mind the 'public school's act' since thats like saying that countries presently in the EU are not in it because they were not listed 20 years ago! I agree that not all HMC schools share a public 'ethos' but it is silly to abandon the definition completely. At the end of the day the more 'prominent' schools now have fees in the range of £5000-£8000 per term... if this is not an acceptable modern definition then what is?.... people seem to forget that many of todays prominent Public Schools (ie the most popular and well known) are in fact ex-charity schools that used foundationers, it is absurd to say that these schools are not 'public' since for the past 100/200 years they have had a definitive Public School image regardless of if they are listed in the act or not! MoleValley, 20:17, 7 September 2006

It always makes me smile when I read an article in some trashy tabloid where the poorly informed writer refers to some unknown and irrelevant independent day school for girls aged 11-18 as a 'public school'. It isn't. There are only about 50 real public schools in Britain and only about half of those are top ones. If you have been to one of those top schools then you will know what the definition of a public school is - an independent school which does, or has historically, catered for boys aged 13 to 18 in a predominant boarding environment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.158.44 (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but Public School really is very well defined. An act was passed in 1868 and I don't really see how there is room for discourse here. The nine schools listed there are public schools, the rest are not. They are called public schools because the act removed them from influence by Crown or Clergy. The above analogy is not valid. It's more like saying we can flout the definition of this cathedral because King's College Chapel is really rather large. Image is irrelevant, law isn't. Styxis (talk) 11:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

That is a definition, but not the only one:

Public Schools Club (1866): Charterhouse, Harrow, Rugby, Eton, Westminster and Winchester.
Edward C. Mack's definition (1938) is commonly used in academic studies: "non-local endowed boarding schools for the upper classes".
The Public Schools Commission (1944): "schools which are in membership of the Governing Bodies Association or the Headmaster's Conference".

Kanguole 12:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

The Public Schools Act 1868 provides for the governance of "certain Public Schools in England." It does not define the term "public school" as claimed in the article, or limit the term to the schools listed in the act. Weburbia (talk) 17:46, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

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External links modified

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Independent school (United Kingdom). 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:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:17, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

England and Wales

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Why are England and Wales combined when Education has been devolved for 20 years? - 2A00:23C0:C211:3900:C819:3442:756C:729C (talk) 18:03, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

[1] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_UK_school

[1]