Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article advice

The WikiProject Schools article guidelines describes how the content of school articles should be organized, with the aim of providing general guidance to editors. It is recommended that they be read fully before starting a new article, in particular, the notability section.

Did you know?

That any new articles or articles with more than 1,500 characters of prose, that have an interesting or unusual fact in them should be suggested for the Did you know? box of the Main Page. Eligible articles must be no more than five days old. Articles which have been significantly expanded (at least fivefold) in the last five days are also eligible.

Notability

See also: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes § Education, and Wikipedia:Notability (high schools)

• Schools are exempt from speedy deletion criterion A7.
• Non-notable schools are generally redirected to a school district or locality.

Individual articles must usually meet the Wikipedia notability guideline. It has been the subject of years of discussion on how school articles should fit into this guideline. Many proposals have been made for a specific guideline for school article notability such as Wikipedia:Notability (schools), and although consensus has not always been reached, many standards are now observed by regular editors who clean-up, or propose articles for merging or deletion. Articles about educational institutions are officially covered by the organizations and companies sub-guideline.

In practice articles that are about an elementary/primary school or middle school will normally be merged into the locality article (such as a village or town). US school articles should normally be merged into the school district article or the appropriate locality article if this is not available. Exceptions to this are when a school article of any level does, or can be shown to clearly have the potential of meeting the notability guideline. School district and high/secondary school articles are usually kept, as they are almost always considered notable, unless their existence cannot be verified in order to stop hoaxes. Due to continued controversy over deletion of school articles they are formally exempt from the speedy deletion A7 criterion, though not A1 or any other of the general or article criteria.

It is recommended that editors only create a school article when its content shows that it already passes the notability guideline by displaying significant coverage in reliable sources. Drafting an article in the user space (such as at Special:Mypage/School article) or personal sandbox and then moving it into the main space when it is ready to be seen by everyone is an effective way of avoiding deletion.

General tips

1. Start your article in your sandbox especially if it's your first Wikipedia article, before you post it to the main page where everyone in the world will see it immediately. If you are not sure how to do this, ask a schools project member from the lists at WP:WPSCH/P.
2. Avoid stubs. Only add schools that you are willing to do significant research on, and complete most of the generally required page sections. Don't automatically assume that someone else is interested enough in your school to finish it for you. Under certain conditions, very poorly made articles might simply get deleted and your effort will be lost.
3. Avoid short sections. Consider combining sentences in to flowing paragraphs of prose. Remember that books don't have one-line chapters. Section headings are large and too many in a small area make the page look ugly. Delete empty sections.
4. Avoid advertising. Don't use promotional language about your school or words that boost its image. Remember that this is an encyclopedia - it's not a school brochure, website, or Facebook entry.
5. Avoid ambiguity. Include the country of your school in the lead section. Wikipedia is read worldwide, and not everyone speaks the same English as you; some words have very different meanings in different countries. Dates should always be written in full i.e. 4 July 1984 in the body as well as in inline references. Abbreviations must be written out in full at the first occurrence, and local terminology must be explained or wiki-linked, for example, K–12, Twelfth grade, Reception, sixth form, whereas the letter K in the British school system is usually an abbreviation for Key Stage. Kindergarten is a pre-school in most European countries but part of the school system in North America. A prep school in the UK is an independent (private) primary/elementary school whereas in America it prepares students for entry to university. A grammar school is a selective secondary school in Europe but an elementary school in North America. A college in the USA is usually a university, but in the United Kingdom, with the exception of the Oxford and Cambridge universities, a college is an institution providing secondary education such as a secondary school, a sixth form college, a job training school, or a college of further education.
6. Avoid bulk additions. The mass creation of short school articles is strongly discouraged (see the Jimbo Wales statement at the top of this page) and can even cause authors to be blocked for disruptive editing.
7. Write a strong lead. Be sure to write a lead that concisely summarizes the school into one or two paragraphs which make sense to someone who may know nothing about the school in question, and remember to include the country where the school is located.
8. Support your contributions. Before you start an article on a school, or make additions, it is strongly suggested you first have an adequate amount of verifiable information about the school readily available, written in reliable published sources, independent of the school. This will make meeting the recommended content requirements far easier than trying to find all the information after you have already started the article (or hoping others will).
9. Images.: Using images and school crests, emblems, or logos can greatly enhance articles, but only use them when they help illustrate the topic (e.g. are relevant), and ensure that they are freely licensed or in the public domain (See Wikipedia:Image use policy). In most cases, the only way to accomplish this is for you to take the photo yourself and uploading it following the instructions for licencing. For crests, emblems, or logos, see the special instructions in the infobox section.
10. Infobox. Wikipedia Infoboxes are an important element of many page types. They provide an overview of essential school information in a format that is common to all school articles. (See the main infobox section below). Flag icons should not be used.
11. Go back to your new article in a day or two to see if it has been tagged for you to do something urgent to it. Someone might even have listed it for deletion.
12. Return to your article frequently. A Wikipedia article, like all encyclopedias, is always a work in progress. Heads change, the number of students changes, new inspections are published, some former students (alumni) become famous, and someone may have changed your edits and damaged your work.
13. Get help! Check out the various lists of coordinators and active members of this project at WP:WPSCH/P and don't hesitate to ask for help on their talk page, many of them are beginners too and you can help each other, while some of the lists are of really cool experts who just love to help out.
14. Be bold! If you have already edited Wikipedia pages, you probably know what perfect articles look like. They cover everything they should without going on forever. Common sense could have told you almost all of the items mentioned above. Ultimately, assume good faith and go out there and write some good articles!

Neutral point of view

Take care to maintain a neutral point of view when describing a school. It is especially important to avoid vague praise, and overly descriptive adjectives, even if sourced.

Avoid mission statements and goals. They are generally promotional.

Avoid comparing schools (sports results, exam results) to introduce rivalry or to promote the school. Although written for colleges and universities, the advice in Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism also applies here. Some examples that have been found in the past:

• "School X has had a long and glorious tradition."
• "School X has been consistently been ranked as one of the top public high schools in both the state and country."
• "School X has one of the lowest admissions rates in the country."
• "School X has 98% A-level passes, school Y 12 miles away has 75%."

Structure

Follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style and only make links that are relevant to the context. Days, months and years should not be linked in school articles unless the inclusion of such a link is of specific relevance to the article, and if a complete date is required, write the date in full, e.g.: 5 November 1985.

The key to writing a good school article is to explain why the school is unique. What makes it different from every other school? Does it have special programs? A history of championship sports teams? Famous alumni? Has there been a noteworthy event there?

Sections of the article

The following section names are for guidance only, and may be adjusted to suit local spelling, custom, and organization. Do not use very short sections; very short articles are best kept to a single section only and avoids unnecessary page clutter.

Infobox

All school articles should have an infobox. This gives readers quick, concise information about the subject.

Selecting the correct Infobox

Please see the complete listing of infobox templates. Select the one the sounds like it would be most specific to your subject. Please use one of the existing templates; do not create a new infobox template for any school subject without discussing it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools first. Please do not copy and use infoboxes from other school pages, they may well be the wrong ones, or use older deprecated versions. Also note that infoboxes contain programme code that you cannot see, it is essential that you read the relative infobox documentation and the examples. Below are some shortcuts to the most common templates used for pre-tertiary institutions:

Article subject	Infobox to use
Australia	{{Infobox school}}
Canada	{{Infobox Education in Canada}}
Canada School District*	{{Infobox Canadian school district}}
Ireland	{{Infobox Irish school}}
New Zealand	{{Infobox NZ school}}
Singapore	{{Infobox Singapore School}}
UK	{{Infobox UK school}}
USA School	{{Infobox school}}
USA School District*	{{Infobox school district}}
* Indicates exceptions exist. See the see the complete listing of infobox templates.

Infobox contents

Provide the basic details about the school, include a street address, and the name of the county (UK), state/province (Australia, Canada, India, USA, etc.), Landkreis (Germany, Austria), Département (France), canton (Switzerland) etc., Post Code/Zip, and geographical coordinates. For the UK, use the constituent country: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales - these countries have their own governments/assemblies and education departments.

• Do not include:

• Contact details such as phone, fax, email.(policy)
• Deputy heads/principals
  
• Deputy chairpersons
  
• Temporary positions
  
• Pre and post nominals (Dr, BA, BSc, MA, PhD, etc.)
• Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, unless the gender is not obvious. For example John F. Doe or Mary Bloggs or J. Doe (Ms) or M. Bloggs (Mr). (Note that as marital status can change and is not necessary to know, for females it is always more correct to use 'Ms'.
• Flag icons
  

• Do provide a referenced source for the number of students, or at least the year in brackets i.e. (2007). Round up or down to the nearest 10, and use the abbreviation approx if only very appropriate.
• Do include the school motto. If it is not in English, place it in italics.
• Do include an image of the school's crest or logo (generally not larger than about 150 pixels). You can either copy this from a school's website or scan it from a school document. You must provide a source, and for the licence on the upload form, choose logo in the drop down menu for the copyright licences, and copy and paste this fair use rationale in the fair use/description field:

:Fair use in '''[[page name]]'''
:Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws, and :the stricter requirements of Wikipedia's non-free content policies, because:
:# Source: '''[http:// school website]''' Retrieved '''DD/month/year'''
:# It illustrates an educational article about the entity that the logo represents.
:# The image is used as a school infobox illustration.
:# It is a low resolution image, and thus not suitable for production of counterfeit goods.
:# The logo is not used in such a way that a reader would be confused into believing that the article is written or authorized by the owner of the logo.
:# It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.

Other sections

• Introduction/lead – Give the full official name of the school in bold text, and detail about its location (town/municipality, county/state/province, and country). Add a few facts about the school that make it unique. Provide the name of the founder and founding name, and affiliation with any larger school system, if applicable. Include brief statistics on the number of pupils (always state the date when the information is current and be cautious about having too many statistics that will need to be updated frequently). Summarize the main sections of the article – history, alumni, buildings, etc.
• History – Describe the history of the school, including noteworthy milestones in its development.
• Campus/school site – Describe the overall shape and size of the school site/campus. Ideally a picture of the school should be included if a free image is available. Mention any famous buildings or stadia and their architects if interesting or notable, and consider creating a Building(s) section where appropriate, as in City of London School#Buildings. Do not include detail of each building, its classrooms, or equipment.
• Curriculum – Provide a brief description of the school's curriculum. Does it follow a national curriculum or does it set its own subjects? Focus specifically on aspects of the curriculum which are unique to the school. Is it the only school in the locality which teaches Mandarin, Latin or Greek? Does it have a culinary academy? Do not make long lists of every subject taught - people can get that from the school's brochure or web site. Do not include school performance tables - people can get that from the school's brochure or web site.
• Extracurricular activities – Mention the sports team(s) of the school and what is notable about them. Here is also a good place to mention specific traditions of school, like students' union/student council activities, a student newspaper, clubs, regular activities, etc. The heading may be changed accordingly in regard to the importance of sports, clubs, traditions, students' unions etc. For example, alternative headings could be Students' Union, Sports and Traditions or Students' Union Activities. Specific students should not be mentioned unless they are notable in their own right. Major extra curricular championships should be appropriately listed in a "Sports", "Athletics", or "Activities" section. Major extra curricular championships will be defined as the highest possible championship a team can win from that activity's organizing committee. In the United States, this would nominally be a "state championship". Individual awards should generally not be listed. National championships, when referenced, may also be listed.
• Awards and recognition – A list of notable awards and recognition received by the school, staff, or students. Such a list should only include awards which are themselves notable, and if the school received the same type of awards in multiple years, they should not be listed separately. If the list becomes too long it should be split into a separate sub-article with a summary left in the main article. Awards and recognition may also be mentioned in other sections of the article at editor's discretion, even if the awards themselves are not notable. For awards/recognition given to school clubs or sport teams, list them in the appropriate section e.g. Sports and traditions. See the guideline under the Extracurricular activities section for details on alternative headings that may be used for information on school clubs and sports. If the school has received only a a few academic awards, consider putting them as prose under the Curriculum section.
• Notable alumni – If possible, provide a list of notable alumni of the school with appropriate and sourced detail on each, moving the list to a separate article if it is too large. The section may also include an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details where available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, and any alumni society. See #Alumni for further guidance.
• Notable teachers/faculty – The names of current and former teachers should only be included if they are notable in their own right (for example, they are published authors or they have won a teaching award), or they have been the subject of multiple non-trivial press coverage.
• Former headteachers/principals – A list of former headteachers/principals, with a short description of their achievements, is often useful. Long lists should be split into a separate article (such as the List of headmasters at Eton College).
• References – Provide verifiable reliable sources of information about the school, that are independent of the school itself. An article should not rely solely on what its subject has to say about itself (as with any article in Wikipedia). A school's own website is not an independent source. References from third-party sources are particularly important for school awards and contentious statements. For private schools in North America, an accreditation body or government source should be provided to show the organization is a legitimate school, for the UK this will generally be Ofsted. There is no requirement on Wikipedia for sources used in articles to be online; either online or offline sources can be used as long as they are correctly cited, reliable, and published. If a resource is online, consider the future possibility it will go offline (newspapers often allow free reading only for recent stories), and provide sufficient information so that the story will still be found (author, publication, full article title, date, and if possible the archive URL). Wikipedia:Manual of Style (footnotes) contains technical details on how to correctly format footnotes.
• External links – Give a link to the website of the school, preferably one in the English language. Include other informational links that might interest readers, but whose contents might be beyond the scope of inclusion in the article (for example, links to the school's Parent Teacher Association).

School district and list of schools articles

Should you wish to create or improve an article on a school district or create a list of schools article, a fine example can be found at Dallas Independent School District, and a list at List of schools of the Dallas Independent School District. A less complicated example list is List of Clark County School District schools.

What not to include

School articles should only contain material of encyclopaedic interest; lists should be kept to a minimum; prose with context to the individual school is preferred. Remember that Wikipedia is not a directory, a host of primary source material, or a place for advertising. Special care should be taken in regards to the mention of individual students or providing information that would allow individual students to be identified (particularly where they are underage).

School articles should specifically not include:

• Any mention (including lists) of pupils, parents, administrative staff, school secretaries, non-executive teachers, etc., unless supported by reliable sources, and even then conforming to our biography of living persons policy.
• Details of individual pupils and extracurricular awards they have been awarded.
• Excessive amounts of detail about the school uniform or dress code, unless it has seen significant coverage in multiple secondary sources. However, the uniform may still be mentioned briefly without this level of coverage, particularly if it is unusual.
• School timetables and bell schedules.
• Trivia which is only of interest to pupils in the school (such as daily lunch menus, location of the toilets, a room-by-room description of the school facilities).
• Current school events which are only of short-term interest.
• Telephone numbers, fax numbers, and e-mail addresses (postal addresses are acceptable in infoboxes).
• Country or regional flags, including within infoboxes.
• Lists of colleges and universities that have accepted students from the school.
• Copies of the school's mission statement, aims, or goals – these are generally considered promotional.
• Comparisons of sports results, exam results, etc. between schools which introduces rivalry unless third party reliable sources themselves make such comparisons, otherwise this is a form of original research. Such content can also be considered promotional, and although written for colleges and universities, the advice in Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism also applies here.
• The lyrics of the school song. However, the lyrics may be placed on Wikisource and linked to from the article using {{Wikisource}} if it can be verified that the song is in the public domain or has been released by the copyright holder under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence. See Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights for guidance on when material will enter the public domain.

Applicable categories

Try to avoid overcategorization. Generally all of Category:Education, but especially articles in the subcategories of

• Category:High schools and secondary schools by country for secondary schools and high schools, divided by country and then subdivided by state, county or region
• Category:Middle schools for middle schools, divided by country and then subdivided by state or region
• Category:Elementary and primary schools for elementary or primary schools, divided by country and then subdivided by state, county or region
• Category:Private schools for private (non–government run) schools
• Category:Educational institutions by year of establishment categorized by year the school was founded, divided by century, decade, and then year.
• Category:School districts (for schools in Australia, Canada, and the USA)

See also:

• List of schools by country
• List of the oldest schools in the world
• Category:Education by country
• Category:Public education in the United States for American public school (government-run) systems and broader public education topics, divided by state.

Sources

History

Some schools have published histories. Check the online catalogue at WorldCat. For UK schools the best reference is COPAC. Smaller schools might not have deposited a school history with one of the major deposit libraries so check the catalogue of the relevant local library (most are now online). Even if you do not live in the locality it is possible to borrow any book for a modest fee via the inter-library loan system

Many schools have buildings which are of architectural importance. Some English schools have been classified by English Heritage as listed buildings and are included on the Images of England website, while some American schools are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Statistics

Australia

• SchoolChoice provides information on a number of New South Wales and Victorian schools (mostly private schools), including history, enrolment numbers, facilities, location and occasionally alumni. Please note that fees and revenue information should not be included in Australian school articles.
• Australian Boarding Schools' Association has a fairly comprehensive listing of boarding schools in all the states of Australia. Includes introductory information about schools, enrolment statistics, contact details and year levels offered.
• Australian Schools Directory Provides fairly detailed information on schools with featured pages.

United Kingdom

(Note: Following major changes in UK government in 2010, some some UK agencies have changes their focus and/or their websites. See also: Independent School Inspections.)

• England: Schools are inspected by Ofsted. Reports are online and as PDF. Independent (private) schools are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI).

• Schools finder is a government site and has detailed statistics for English schools including the size of the school, the school profile if available, and a link to the school’s Ofsted report.
• EduBase is a government site and has details on schools past, present, and future.
• Most English county councils and district councils have comprehensive websites which provide details of school admissions policies and other useful information. The Department for Education has a local authorities address finder.
• The Department for Education website has comprehensive statistics including school performance tables and local statistics about education.
• The Department for Education standards website, which contained comprehensive lists of Beacon Schools, academies, and specialist schools, has been "decommissioned" following the United Kingdom general election, 2010, and an archive can be found here.

• Northern Ireland: Schools are inspected by DfE NI Schools, and by ETI. ISC-member independent schools are inspected by ETI.
• Scotland: Schools are inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE). Information on all Scotland's schools is provided by Scottish Schools Online. ISC-member independent schools are inspected by HMIE.
• Wales: Schools are inspected by Estyn. Stats are published by the Welsh Government Assembly. More information on Welsh schools is also provided by Schools in Wales. ISC-member independent schools are inspected by Estyn.

Awards

(Note: These are examples only and the list is not intended to be exhaustive. Contributors are welcome to add other notable international or national awards here so that they can be researched and used by other school article editors.)

Award should only be mentioned if they themselves are notable. Not all awards are genuine awards. Local awards for Beautiful Gardens around the schoolyard, or Good Food for the school canteen do not really count.

In the United Kingdom, information on awards is available at UK teaching awards, and at School Achievement Award Scheme. Budget allocations for a Specialism College (in the UK) are not items for the 'Awards' section.

In the United States, information on awards is available at Blue Ribbon Schools Program run by the United States Department of Education and at Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Program (BRSE). See also Wikipedia article: Blue Ribbon Schools Program.

In Australia, the Citizenship Award Order of Australia in Queensland confers awards to primary and secondary schools in Queensland each year. Such awards could contribute to the level of notability required for primary school articles. [People's Choice Awards] gives one prize per year for a school video from over 1,100 registered contenders.

Global: The International School Award for cross-cultural school projects is administered by the British Council in the UK and with partners in many other countries.

Alumni

See also: Wikipedia:Namechecking

All alumni information must be referenced. See Wikipedia:Footnoting for technical help. Individual alumni need a citation to a) to verify that they did indeed attend the school, and b) to verify the statement of their notability in their short one or two line description. When alumni have their own articles in mainspace, it is not necessary for their notability to be referenced, as long as it is done in the biographical articles. Be sure to check the existing biography article to ensure that it demonstrates alumni status with a cited reference.

Who should be included?

Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included should meet Wikipedia notability criteria. All alumni meeting these criteria are to be included on an alumni list, regardless of how much time they have spent on a school roll, from one day to several years, and whether or not they graduated.

Style of entries

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (embedded lists) guideline invites consideration of whether information might be more appropriately presented in list or prose form. As the notable alumni of a school typically form an assorted group with little in common, describing all of them in prose would be clumsy. Unless there are very few notable alumni, lists are recommended as the most accessible way of presenting all of them. Adding a prose summary is encouraged, particularly if the list is split off as a separate article.

Entries should be bulleted and have a one- or two-line description declaring notability. Links to articles related to an entry are encouraged, but beware of overlinking, for example if many alumni have entered parliament, there is no need to link to the parliament of a certain country more than once. A decision about which entries to red link, in the case of many entries without their own article, should be made by editors at individual pages. After a description, state when they graduated or what years they attended. After that, list any school awards or positions e.g. school captain.

Alumni should be categorized according to the field that made them famous: e.g. politics, medicine, academia. It is acceptable to list someone in more than one field, provided that this is mentioned in a side note. Add something like: "(Also listed in sport)".

Other ways to categorize entries include purely alphabetically, but it has been expressed that this is not particularly helpful to the reader.

As all alumni who attended a school for any amount of time must be included across all alumni articles, some attendees will have attended more than one school. Place in brackets the name of any other schools that they attended.

• Most Rev Sir Marcus Loane KBE, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney (1966–1982) (also attended King's School)

Separate alumni pages;

If a list of alumni in a school article becomes quite large, consider moving it to another page entitled "List of...". It is not necessary to include "notable" in the article title, as all articles in the mainspace needs to follow notability guidelines. Have a look at other alumni pages in Category:Lists of people by school affiliation, for an example of a separate alumni page see List of Old Malvernians with its summary. If the alumni are listed in a separate article, the alumni section in the school article should link to the list article and provide a brief summary. See Harrow School#Notable alumni or Baltimore City College#Notable alumni for examples of such summaries.

Notable alumni sources;

Alumni to be included should meet Wikipedia notability criteria, and must be verifiable; a biography page in Wikipedia that does not provide a source cannot be used as a reference. The following is a list of external sources which contain notable alumni from various schools. Ideally this should be used for sources that are selective (separating the most notable from the rest of the alumni). When using information from one of these sources, always try to confirm it with another source (such as a newspaper article specifically about the person) and don't automatically assume any source is comprehensive, even in its field of expertise. Ideally you should confirm something from both sides (e.g. the school acknowledges the individual, and the individual acknowledges the school).

International sources

• Australian Dictionary of Biography – The Australian Dictionary of Biography has a quite comprehensive database of notable Australians. Most bios seem to mention the person's high school and university (if applicable).

United States

Athletes:

• The Baseball Cube has a very extensive database of baseball players, with the data searchable by city, high school, college, team, etc.
• National High School Baseball Coaches Association contains lists of BCA award winners back to 1992, including National Senior Players of the Year Winners, Coaches of the Year and Assistant Coaches of the Year (by District), and National Groundskeeper/Field of the Year; District and National High School Baseball Coaches Association All American Teams, 2005 through 2007; National, District, and BCA/Louisville Slugger State Players of Year. The BCA Hall Of Fame lists coaches inducted after meeting criteria, including 20 years of varsity coaching experience, and being elected.
• Women's United Soccer Association – Each players biography seems to have the high school the player attended.

Local sources:

• Boston Public Schools – Includes various notable people like Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Lists about a dozen schools.
• Baltimore County Public Schools – Already partly used for Dulaney High School, but not all names could be used yet, either because their notability isn't confirmed, or a particular school doesn't have an article.

Other less reliable sources:

• Celebrity Prep Schools – This appears to rely heavily on tips. So you probably shouldn't use it as a single source, but once you get two names (famous person and school), it might be easier to find a better more reliable source.

Individual alumni information;

Use this sub-page for recording school alumni who can't yet be placed in an article (e.g. the school article doesn't exist yet). When an article is made, the info can be moved there. By linking from this sub-page, somebody who creates the article would see this in the backlinks.

References

Return to main project page of WikiProject Schools.