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Infant school

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Infant school (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 27 October 2024, 09:32 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): Llewee (talk) 17:03, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

People who grew up in the UK might remember attending an infant school or the "infants" of their primary school. What they might not be aware of is that the concept has a long and complicated history; stretching from New York to New Zealand.

This is my second featured nomination. The article has recently been promoted to good status (See:Talk:Infant school/GA1). Thank you to anyone who decides to review it.Llewee (talk) 17:03, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt

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  • Since the movement began in Scotland, could some lead mention be done as to whether infant schools flourished in Scotland?
  • Frustratingly, I haven't been able to find much information about Scotland. Charitable infant schools certainly existed there in the early part of the movement but Scotland seems to drop out of the story at the middle of the 19th century. Presumably infant schools weren't adopted into the state system there to the same extent.--Llewee (talk) 21:31, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to David Salmon and Winifred Hindshaw," What is their profession?
  • "manager Robert Owen". Is manager the proper term or was the the owner or some such?
  • "He saw child labour as damaging and forbid children under the age of ten from working in his factory." Should forbid be forbade.
  • "Various other figures — including Robert Pole, David Goyder, William Wilson, William Allen and Thomas Bilby — also established infant schools and wrote books about the subject." Given that these are apparently not notable, though I did not check, are they worth naming?
  • "Academic David Turner" this and also Owen above, I thought false titles were disfavoured in British English?
  • "T.B Stephens" Is this properly punctuated?
  • "making it easier for them to pay infant schools relatively low fees.[47]" An apostrophe somewhere, likely after schools
  • "The number of children under seven in schools for older children also rose." I'm not a fan of having "also rose" refer back to a previous section. Perhaps begin, "Like workers' wages, the number of ..."
  • "it would be sometime" some time?
More soon.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Some teachers failed to teach reading to poorer pupils, with no reason to develop an interest in the subject outside of school. " This sentence doesn't read as complete.
  • "For instance, an employee of the Board of Education, Lord Eustace Percy later wrote in his memoirs:" He appears to have been president of the Board of Education (and earlier, parliamentary secretary), which are political positions held by members of Parliament. He was not an employee.
  • "Infant-stage children solving puzzles at a school in Dominion of New Zealand (c. 1900 – c. 1947)" I would omit "Dominion of".
  • "In order to encourage the freed workers to remain working there and spread Christianity among their children." Not a sentence.
  • the owners power: missing apostrophe
  • "a system of state funded schooling in Ireland " redirects to Stanley letter. WP:EASTEREGG would seem to have some relevance.
  • I'm surprised throughout the Ireland section, there is no mention of religion.
  • The Catholic Church is mentioned a lot in the book. I've added more information about its influence into the article but I'm trying to keep the focus on topics that are specifically relevant to infant schools/classes.--Llewee (talk) 17:31, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "skepticism". I thought this was "scepticism" in BrEng.
  • Overtime maybe over time
That's it for now. I guess what strikes me at first glance is that this seems mostly about the past, the history, without much discussion of what present-day infant schools are like. Thoughts?--Wehwalt (talk) 01:27, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wehwalt I think less information specific to infant schools exists for more recent times because they have gradually lost some of their separate identity. I have tried to flesh out the "part of primary education" section with more information.--Llewee (talk) 23:09, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support certainly on prose. I'm hedging some on comprehensiveness for the reasons stated above, but hope to be able to enter a full support following additional reviews. Wehwalt (talk) 13:30, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Generalissima

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Some general notes:

  • I'm not sure thefreedictionary.com is the best source to use for the first ref; also, Collins and Merriam-Webster both state that its simply in use "in the UK". Since these have at least some history in Scotland, I think that'll be better to use.
  • Ref 98 has an error that needs fixing.
  • Grimshaw (1931) and Morgan (1936) needs the publisher put in title case.
  • Capitalise Co in Longmans, Green, and Co.
  • You wikilink RTE News in bibliography, but not BBC News. Try for consistency one way or another here.
  • Some of your sources aren't in title case and need to be converted to such; Garland, Keane et al, Lehane, Lewis, Pence, and Salmon.
  • University of Wales Press needs a location (Cardiff), as does Palgrave Macmillan (London), Routledge (Abingdon), Peter Lang (Laussane), and Taylor & Francis (Milton Park). Alternatively, remove location from all the cites that have it.
  • You need to wikilink either all publishers or none of them.
  • Take "others=Internet Archive" out of the Pence cite. They didn't make the book. Also take out the via, since you (rightfully) Yaren't saying Via Jstor for the JSTOR cites.
  • Add a space between the initials T.B Turner.
  • May et al Doesn't have an ISBN.
  • This is a very broad article in a field thats well-studied, so obviously we can't use all sourcing. I do feel like you're underusing modern educational journal articles though, and there might be some good ones we can find. Some sources that came up from a search which might be useful:
    • Shannon, R. L., & Shannon, D. M. (1992). The British Infant School: A Reconsideration. The Educational Forum, 56(1), 61–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131729109335177 - Good sourcing for its influence outside of the UK.
    • Monks, Claire P., and Sarah O’Toole. "Bullying in preschool and infant school." The Wiley Blackwell handbook of bullying: A comprehensive and international review of research and intervention 2 (2021): 2-19.
    • Burger, Kaspar. "Entanglement and transnational transfer in the history of infant schools in Great Britain and salles d’asile in France, 1816–1881." History of Education 43, no. 3 (2014): 304-333.
    • Luc, Jean-Noël. "The spread of infant school models in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century." In The Development of Early Childhood Education in Europe and North America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, pp. 31-50. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015.
    • Raveaud, Maroussia. "Assessment in French and English infant schools: assessing the work, the child or the culture?." Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 11, no. 2 (2004): 193-211.
    • Blatchford, Peter, Viv Moriarty, Suzanne Edmonds, and Clare Martin. "Relationships between class size and teaching: A multimethod analysis of English infant schools." American Educational Research Journal 39, no. 1 (2002): 101-132.

That's about it for now. Let me know when you want me to take a second look, @Llewee:. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 18:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Generalissima, I have responded to each of your points now and expanded the article with information from journals. I hope you will be able to have another look when you have time.--Llewee (talk) 11:36, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Took a look back over - apologies that this took a while - but I think it's in a lot better spot now! Happy to support on source review. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 02:58, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:British_Central_School_Borough_Road.png: when and where was this first published? Ditto File:Infant_gallery.png, File:Beckside_Infants_c.1900s_(archive_ref_DDPD-2-2-8)_(25384528296).jpg, File:First_Infant_School_in_Green_Street,_New_York_MET_MM82866.jpg
  • I've replaced this image with File:St Marys Infants School children in Saturday Market, Beverley for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee 1899 (archive ref DDPD-2-2-8) (25381071806).jpg. It was taken in 1897 and does not appear to have been published until it was released on Flickr in 2016.--Llewee (talk) 10:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Which_is_your_Right_Hand%3F_A_study_in_an_Infant_School._(Graphic,_1898).jpg: copyright terms turn over on the new year, so life+100 tagging won't be correct until 1 January 2025.
  • File:The_dog_(BM_1846,1219.12).jpg: the permission field and the licensing tags are contradictory here - NC images are considered non-free for our purposes
  • File:The_Infant_Model_School,_with_Owen's_Original_clocktower.png: what is the specific source?

Also, not an image issue, but I would suggest a thorough review of the article for style. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:33, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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  • There are 9,279 words, which will take half an hour to read. That's 0.3 tomats, so a third of a short novel. This is pushing the upper end of WP:SIZE, and reduces the odds that the whole article will get read.
  • It is missing obvious links to articles such as Moral education, Physical exercise, and Playground. I've looked at a sample of 188 randomly selected articles over 5,000 words in length, and they typically have between 200 and 500 links to other articles (median of 312, mean of 376). Infant school is at the low end, so it could be a case of needing more links, or it could be a case of not choosing the right links. I think that the former is more likely than the latter.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:33, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pessimistic drive-by from UC

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I'm not sure that this article really is what it says on the tin -- there is comparatively little, indeed almost nothing as far as I can see, about what an infant school actually is in the modern day, how they work, what it's like inside them, how important they are, the problems facing them, and so on. What we currently have, I think, is closer to an article like History of primary education in the United Kingdom.

Similarly, I think the section on Ireland would be better re-thought: as the scope of the article is currently conceived, we need one, and yet it really doesn't have the substance to do what it needs to do -- we have barely anything there after the 1960s, which clearly won't do for an article that purports to be the port of call for infant schools in Ireland as they exist right now.

Unfortunately, I am not sure that these issues can be easily remedied, at least not within the scope of an FAC. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:31, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UndercoverClassicist I have added more information on present day infant schools in the UK and will do more research into them in Ireland. I think the overall structure of the article is inevitable as they are mainly notable for their historic role. There aren't that many separate infant schools left and the term doesn't seem to be used much officially.--Llewee (talk) 20:36, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Our article says that 10% of children of the relevant age attended one in 2018, and there are 1,700 of them -- that's not a small number, though it is obviously much smaller than the figure for primary schools. More generally, throughout the article, I think the distinction between those two things often gets muddy: as alluded above, I don't get the sense that the article really knows how it defines its scope between "infant schools" and "the education of children under about 8". UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:18, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the most part, with the exception of the earliest infant schools, I don't think there is much distinction between the two. The article says the term infant school "might refer to a separate school or a department within a larger school". The UK government uses the term infant classes for all children in the relevant age group.--Llewee (talk) 12:10, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but we have this article (Infant school), a separate article for primary education (Primary school), a specific article for primary education in Wales and a lengthy article on education in England with relevant sections that don't fully overlap any of those categorisations. We then have History of education in Ireland and Education in the Republic of Ireland on the Irish material.
In my view, this is a scope-of-article problem, not a scope-of-subject one -- I think it would help for you to have a look at that set of articles, work out how they do (or should) fit together, and then think about where the material you want to write about would be best located. As it stands, I think this article is quite a comprehensive history of how young children have been educated in Britain, but it wouldn't be enough for the article about cars to be primarily a history of how cars used to be built. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My view is that infant schools were a distinctive institution and phase of schooling in the past but have merged into primary education over time. "Infant school" is only really a notable topic for a Wikipedia article because of the history. The balance of the sources available seems to support that. In any case, I've updated the information about Ireland.--Llewee (talk) 17:55, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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This has been open for over six weeks and hasn't garnered a consensus to promote, and comments seem to have stalled. I have added it to Urgents, but unless it receives several further in depth reviews over the next week or so I am afraid that it is going to be archived. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 15:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments and support from Gerda

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I was invited and am willing to take a look, but have no idea of the topic, being familiar only with German and US varieties of Kindergarten and preschool. But sometimes the view of someone from outside might help ;) I'll write as I read, turning to the lead last. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:53, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much Gerda, I will answer some of the later comments first and then circle back to deal with the more complicated issues in the early sections.--Llewee (talk) 15:50, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead image

  • The image of just some building tells me nothing. How about the one about "right hand" further below. I want to see an infant ;)
    done, I have added that 1898 drawing which is a nice image--Llewee (talk) 16:41, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Intro

  • "An infant school is a type of school or school department for young children. Today, it is mainly used in England and Wales." It is unclear to me what "it" means in the second sentence, the type, or perhaps rather that specific name for it.
    clarified--Llewee (talk) 21:11, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Terminology

  • I suggest not to start with infant school (lower case, not expected at the beginning), but perhaps say: The term "infant school" ...*
    done--Llewee (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "age ranges for the group they cater to" - why "they"? So far it was singular.
    changed to "age ranges for this phase of education"
  • I never need more than three refs for on fact.
    I have moved the dictionary definitions from a note into the body of the article.--Llewee (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • For someone completely unfamiliar, Reception, even with a link, comes as too much of a surprise, - perhaps turn the sentence around to prepare it?
    reworked this sentence--Llewee (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Similarly, Early Years Foundation Stage is a pompous term, - stage means podium for me ;) - perhaps pipe to early childhood education which makes more sense to me?
    I've changed the working to "integrated into preschool education" to try and use less jargon.--Llewee (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd make 3 paras for UK, Wales and Ireland, or one.
    I have two paragraphs one covering the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and another for Ireland or more precisely the republic. I'd like to keep the Republic of Ireland in its own paragraph in order to not give the impression its in the same category to the various parts of the UK.--Llewee (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Background

  • I think that for me it would be easier to first read Background, then Terminology.
    I think that would be a bit disjointed. As the terminology section is about the present day, it would effectively be setting the scene in circa-1800 then returning to the present before going back to the 1810s.--Llewee (talk) 17:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wonder if - after saying it's new, and I don't know if we have to mention the two people without an article - we can tell the story chronologically: first the common situation in the 19th century of one classroom schools, then take it from there.
    Do you mean moving the terminology section lower down the article?
    That was my point further up but I understand if not, as you explained. No, I meant, I wouldn't begin with the idea, then say what was previously and even later say what was before the 19th century. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I have reorganised the first paragraph of the background section along the lines you suggested.--Llewee (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First establishments

Theory ...

Evolution

  • I notice names of scholars who - without article - should get a little introduction about when they wrote these things and why it seems significant.
    I think I have dealt with all instances of this. Please tell me if I have missed any.--Llewee (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you introduced them, it's just that my memory fails to recognise easily that a name was already mentioned in the previous section. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Worldwide spread

Teaching methods

Infant departments

Need a break, read until header "Shift to child-centered approach". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:05, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I read now - without problems - until Ireland. I will take a look at headers and there levels because I don't recall any similar England - Scptland that would have prepared me for Ireland being a different topic. I'll be out tomorrow, patience please. Thank you for changes. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:52, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

19th century

  • "Attempts were made to introduce kindergarten methods into infant classes during the 1880s and 1890s. The method was treated as a separate subject within an academically focused curriculum." - methods, - what does "the method" mean then?
    Changed to plural.--Llewee (talk) 12:57, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

20th century

  • "Wider society was sceptical of the changes." - what's wider society?
    relevant text on page 152 - "...parents and the wider community were ill-informed about the rationale for the content and methodologies promoted in the programme of 1900 and began to question the educational value of handwork. There were requests for a return to the all important study of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic by parents, the wider community, the Catholic Church and not least the teachers (O’Connell, 1968: 336–7)."
    page 175 - "...it would appear that parents remained unconvinced of the educational value of the reform. As early as 1901, Mr Downing, the Chief Inspector, indicated that there was a ‘grievous lack of public interest in the National Schools’. He questioned how this attitude ‘of indifference, is to be met, and their interest enlisted’ (Sixty-eighth Report of the CNEI for 1901, Appendix, Section I: 72). By 1912–1913 Miss Austin could report that while the attitude of the public towards the education of infants was of a negative nature, it was improving (Seventy-ninth Report of the CNEI for 1912–1913, Appendix, Section I: 137). In relation to the context of the time, although many parents were not educated, nevertheless, they did not seem to value handwork. For them, schoolwork involved analysis and conceptualisation with less stress on manual instruction."--Llewee (talk) 13:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think if you don't want more detail from those sources, it might help to say "parents and the wider society". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:55, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I've added some detail to that section which should make it clearer.--Llewee (talk) 12:15, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "teaching in infant classes in the Irish Free State was made solely Irish-medium" - "teaching was made"
    I'm not quite sure what you mean here, it was a reform by the new Irish government.--Llewee (talk) 13:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I just wondered about the verb "made" which sounds kind of weak, but I'm no native speaker of English which may explain some questions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:05, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "more varied teacher methods" - what are teacher methods?
    corrected to "teaching methods"--Llewee (talk) 13:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll turn to the lead after sleep. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:47, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

  • I recommend to make Ireland an extra paragraph, matching a level-2 header.
  • For my taste, the lead could be a bit longer to reflect the structure of the article. In old style, the TOC gave an overview, but now we get only the most important headers if we don't dig deeper. If you want to leave it as it as, fine. - I am pretty busy (Rohan de Saram + 3 Bach cantatas + two more who recently died + RL), so will look at your replies later, perhaps later today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:32, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure about these changes. I think the pre-independence Irish history broadly mirrors England and Wales. So if you added another paragraph it would add a degree of repetition. The heading already feels quite long to me. It's 372 works which is at the upper end of the usual length for featured articles.--Llewee (talk) 13:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Understand. What you might do for distinction at a glance is: place "In Ireland" first in the third sentence. I am ready to support the article for featured quality. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:05, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    done--Llewee (talk) 21:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Crisco 1492

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Reserving a space. Hopefully I'm not too late! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 20:54, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Graphic should be in italics per MOS:NAMESANDTITLES (normally I'd do this myself, but as you indicated that this is your second FAC, I wanted to flag it for future reference)
  • to convert - Feels like "to convert" or "to convert the empire's non-Christian subjects" would work better
  • rote-learning - why the hyphen? It does not seem to be used as a compound adjective, and the article on rote learning does not indicate that it's used as a compound noun in BrE
  • The term Infant school - Capitalization correct here?
  • Cambridge and other dictionaries - should be in italics per MOS:NAMESANDTITLES
  • reasonably common - "reasonably" feels like a judgement call. Perhaps "somewhat" if you are using reasonable to temper "common"
  • The concept of a school for very young children is a relatively modern phenomenon as the idea that formal education can be tailored to the specific needs of young children is relatively new. - Is "relatively modern" in the source? I don't think I would have assumed that a concept of a school for young children is an ancient one, simply because formal education has historically been the purview of the wealthy (helps today too), and the early 19th century is 200 years ago at this point.
  • climbing boys, climbing - climbing ... climbing
  • The British and Foreign School Society (founded 1808) and the National Society for Promoting Religious Education (founded 1811) were established to found new "voluntary schools". - "found" and derivatives thrice in one sentence. Is it reasonable to cut "founded" from the years of establishment?
  • Information about this infant school is quite limited, accounts often focus more on the uniqueness of the experiment rather than the activities that took place in the school. - Run on sentence; feels like it should be a semi-colon or have a conjunction
  • "singing, dancing, and marching" - I doubt that MOS:QUOTE would require quotations here, as this is not attributing a value judgement, and the content has limited means of expression.
  • Laura Novo, an academic, - Anything more specific?
  • an Infant School run by the Home and Colonial Infant School Society - as this is used as a generic noun, I'd nix the caps on "Infant School"
  • Glasgow Herald - Another MOS:NAMESANDTITLES tag
  • steam-power - Same question as rote-learning; is the hyphen correct in BrE?

Down to #Integration into state system and rote learning. I've been making minor adjustments while reading. I don't think anything is controversial, but please review.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 21:38, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for making those changes, there do not seem to be any issues. I've done most of this first batch. I can't access the source for the newness thing at the moment because wayback machine is being a pain. If I remember correctly it said it's modern or words to that effect but it's an extremely old book.--Llewee (talk) 12:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a tonal shift in the discussion of Ireland. I'm seeing a lot more simple sentences than were above. Might be worth revisiting
    I have tried to cut down on the number of short sentences in the Ireland section.--Llewee (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As above, I've made some edits. Please review.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:22, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chris Woodrich, those changes are also fine. I have changed "such students" to "these pupils". The term pupils is generally used for schoolchildren in the UK. That appears to also be the case in Ireland (See:Student#Ireland). I have responded to all your comments now.--Llewee (talk) 21:10, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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