Talk:Public school (United Kingdom)/Archive 1

July 2009

This article, and Public school (government funded), was split from Public school; all prior discussions remain on Talk:Public school. --Una Smith (talk) 14:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Missing pieces

The article doesn't seem to mention clearly that English public schools are for the privileged, the rich and the "well-born"; the role they play in the traditionally class-stratified English society; the old-boy networking benefits of attending these schools, and so forth. These aspects of public schools are of primary importance, and they should be at least mentioned more prominently in the article.74.196.205.92 (talk) 03:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I have been bold and made this page into a disambiguation page. The UK information was a WP:content fork of Independent school (UK) the rest of the information is now in stubs pages for the other the countries.

That this was a content fork is clear from the history of this page the contents of which were at some point moved to Independent school (UK) see Talk:Independent school (UK)/Archive 1#Requested move -- PBS (talk) 11:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote

I removed the hatnote, citing Wikipedia:Hatnote#Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous (WP:NAMB) but my revision was reverted by another editor. Nobody types "public school (UK)" into the search box and expects to see the article public school. The hatnote should be removed because there is no need to disambiguate the article name, as it is not ambiguous. --Joshua Issac (talk) 23:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Slang

I'm tempted to remove this entire section. It seems to include an extremely small selection of words. Most are unsourced, some are obsolete, some are not specific to public schools but widely used, some are only in very limited use and suspect. It would of course be possible to include hundreds of words but this is an arbitrary and fairly poor list. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 19:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree, no objections to removal from me.Rangoon11 (talk) 19:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

It's gone. I've just noticed there was a notice at the foot by another user making much the same point. I don't think it's a good idea to encourage lists of slang; they tend to encourage lots of rubbish.--Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 22:58, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

The adjective "Public" is (perhaps) more historic than semantic for UK "Public Schools"

The fact that this page has been split from Public_school_(government_funded) appears to indicate there's a semantic issue here. Since "Public schools" in the UK are not (directly) government funded, it's presumably an historic misnomer for them to be described in this way (i.e. "Public"). My opinion is that people unfamiliar with the history of education in the UK will find such terminology significantly misleading unless a clear explanation is provided (sorry I haven't the time right now but I'll check back!). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.9.73 (talk) 23:45, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I have updated the banner to link to State school. I think it now does the job. PeterEastern (talk) 09:09, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

A public school in Scotland

And I've added some clarification that the term is used of English private schools but in Scotland has traditionally referred to (local) government funded schools. . . dave souza, talk 22:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Winchester

The article on Winchester College says it is boarding only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.149.124.220 (talk) 17:40, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Infobox

The infoboxes for the seven historic English public schools are, at present, inconsistent. Five have the School Type listed as ‘Independent’, one has it as ‘Private’ and only one has it as ‘Public’. Can I propose that, for the sake of consistency, they all have ‘Public School’ in the infobox. They are defined as such by the 1868 Public Schools Act. Is there a consensus on this? Garageland66 (talk) 11:26, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality

The definitions and assertions in this article are not very WP:NPOV. The first ISI reference is actually a self-reference as the ISI represents Indy schools. There is a quite different set of definitions in the Good Schools Guide which contradict much of what is written here. For instance, it says ‘’”Independent schools, public schools and private schools are essentially the same thing...”’’ which would hint towards merging this article with Independent school. Additionally it suggests the term “public school” is an archaic term.

I think ideally the article needs a minimum of a rewrite, using NPOV refs from reliable sources. It may be better to actually merge the 2 articles. Any comments? Fob.schools (talk) 21:10, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Who actually are (or were?) the Independent Schools Information Service? I can find no reliable data on them. Bagunceiro (talk) 22:13, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

They are a trade body setup by independent schools to ‘replicate’ what Ofsted does in state schools. But they are not independent. Fob.schools (talk) 03:52, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I would like to make the case to keep this page rather than merge it with independent schools. The seven English original 'public schools' are a historic and unique set of schools that were created by the Public Schools Act 1868 Garageland66 (talk) 20:40, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Then this article needs a complete rewrite to focus only on those schools. Is that something you can do? Fob.schools (talk) 22:53, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

"Independent schools" is a much broader grouping than "public schools" in the UK sense. For example they include:

• Fee-paying schools in other countries, not the UK.
• Independent schools in the UK for pupils aged less than about 13. These are generlly described as "private" schools.
• A number of former direct-grant grammar schools, which provide a similar offering to "public schools" but for whatever reason choose not to describe themselves as such.

With regard to the nine (not seven) schools covered by the Public Schools Act,

• (a) They were not "created" by the Act; some (most) of them were already hundreds of years old.
• (b) There are also many other public schools, including ancient foundations, which were not covered by the Act.
• (c) Therefore that particular group of nine schools cannot be said to be either "original" or "unique".----Ehrenkater (talk) 19:47, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I have it clear in my mind that this article is a mess, and because of WP importance as a source of reference we are perpetuating that mess. To me, writing about the definition in the 1868 Act is safe- but later definitions are marketing hype. The article is padded with a lot of text from the history of education that is interesting but off focus, and the lead is a manifesto. I am going to repackage what is there along the lines I have discussed. I expect to get reverted, and look to other editors to join in culling posts POV posts.ClemRutter (talk) 07:19, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The 1868 Act does not define "public school" - it is an act to reform and regulate a few particular schools. This is made clear in the preamble itself: "An Act to make further Provision for the good Government and Extension of certain Public Schools in England." This is because the Clarendon Commission was set up to look into complaints about those particular schools - other public schools (such as mine, the oldest of them all) were either running in good order, or managed to keep their heads below the parapet! If you need a definition, then I suggest the OED is the most reliable and neutral source. JCBradfield (talk) 10:05, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent starting point. The present definition, which suggests there are just 7 public schools, seems calculated to give a highly misleading impression to the casual and uninformed reader. The Clarendon Commission and 1868 Act are worth mentioning in the lede, but not to the extent of making them the basis of the definition. We have to accept (and to make clear to the reader) that there is no absolute definition of a public school. For the benefit of those without immediate access to it, here is the OED's definition and discussion:

“ Originally, in Britain and Ireland: any of a class of grammar schools founded or endowed for public use and subject to public management or control (frequently contrasted with private school ...). Later, chiefly from the 19th cent. and also in some other countries of the former British Empire: a fee-paying secondary school which developed from former endowed grammar schools, or was modelled on similar lines, and which takes pupils from beyond the local constituency and usually offers boarding facilities.

Down to the 18th cent. public school was very generally opposed to 'private school', and education in a 'public school' was also contrasted with education at home under a tutor.... The term was officially used in July 1860 in the appointment of a Royal Commission, and in 1867 in 'An Act for the better government and extension of certain Public Schools'. As this act applied to the ancient endowed grammar schools or colleges of Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Harrow, Rugby, Charterhouse, and Shrewsbury, these have sometimes been spoken of as ‘the Seven Public Schools’; but the name is generally used to include other schools of similar organization.

Traditionally, pupils in the higher forms were prepared mainly for the universities and for public service. N[ew] E[nglish] D[ictionary] (1909) notes: 'As it is a general characteristic of these large schools that order is maintained and discipline administered to a great extent by the elder pupils themselves, this has come to be a recognized feature of the English public school, and is often the prominent notion in such phrases as "a public school education" or "training", "the English public school system", and the like.'

”

Incidentally, there has previously been discussion about the use of the term "public school" in Scotland to mean "state school" (as in the US). It may be noted that the OED identifies the Scottish usage as "now hist[oric]", and suggests from its citations that it died out in the early C20. GrindtXX (talk) 11:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

GrindtXX If that was an offer to do some major changes- can I say yes please. Just about anyone can do a reasonable article on a specific school but these meta articles that span several centuries are far more of a challlege. Do please have a go.ClemRutter (talk) 15:06, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Public school (England and Wales)

As "public school" means something different in Scotland, shouldn't this article be renamed "Public school (England and Wales)"? -- Dr Greg  talk  19:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree if this counter-intuitive useage of public school isn't even standardised across the entire island then it should be marked as a local variant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.110.35 (talk) 21:19, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Generally agreeing with Dr Greg, but just wanted to point out to his respondant that the UK is not an "entire island" (Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Isles of Scilly, Anglesey, etc?) ... perhaps disambiguiation can be employed if necessary? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.37.133.90 (talk) 22:42, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

• Agree with Dr Greg.--Mais oui! (talk) 04:50, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
• Are you really claiming that if someone said "he went to public school" then everybody in Scotland would assume he went to a state school? Frankly, I think that's utter rubbish. I think the term "public school" as defined here is understood throughout the entire United Kingdom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it should stay with UK. In Scotland 'Public School' will mean different things to different people. There is no easy all-encompassing definition and the Scottish ambiguity should be explained in the article.TomboPC (talk) 11:36, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Case for retention

The number of contrasting and conflicting views (above) are a reasonable case for the existence of this page which can explain the varying nuances. The term 'Public School' (in a British sense) cannot be restricted to a single definition and so the differences should be explained in the article. TomboPC (talk) 11:42, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

If thats the case then the lead para needs to change. Something like this perhaps ...

A public school is a term generally used in the United Kingdom to refer to any fee-paying private school. Traditionally it referred to one of seven private schools given independence from direct jurisdiction by the Public Schools Act 1868: Charterhouse, Eton College, Harrow School, Rugby School, Shrewsbury School, Westminster School, and Winchester College. These were all-male boarding schools, but many now accept day pupils as well as boarders. By the 1930s the 'public school' label applied to twenty-four schools.

Honing the structure

A lot of good work has been done in the last month. I don't want interrupt anyones flow- so I am posting here. Can we pay attention to the function, length and structure of the lede. The first sentence should sum up the whole subject, no ifs or conditions, so it can be understood by a non-English speaker.MOS:FIRST. A lot of the stuff in the lede at the moment is too detailed and could be put into a separate paragraph. ClemRutter (talk) 09:15, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

The lead is so much better- but still lacks the structure it needs. It only addresses the point of 'definition'. Nothing about current stats- nothing about the problem of social class that is treated (badly) in the article. I suggest we create a paragraph 'Definition' where how and maybe 'why?' can be done. There is an obvious break point already. Still a lot of fun ahead!

ClemRutter (talk) 21:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Hjamesberglen: I think your changes of Weds 18:02 needs further discussion. True, if this were a flat file it reads better.We are trying to work to our Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. I added ==Definition== to remove facts from the lead. The lead should be a synopsis of the article, each paragraph should be expanded with a section in the article. Conventionally, ==History== is the first section or failing that, something called overview-I think that reintroducing new facts into the lead is wrong, and placing ==Minor public schools== above ==History== can't be justified. I have read these policies, and re-read and this is my best interpretation but there is plenty of room for negotiation. ClemRutter (talk) 07:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for this guidance, happy to learn from an expert editor Hjamesberglen (talk) 10:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Lede and definition

I have also welcomed the improvements by Hjamesberglen in recent weeks, but agree with ClemRutter that the lede and basic definition are rather being left behind, and failing to reflect the content of the body of the article. I'm particularly concerned that the casual visitor (someone, for example, who comes across the term "public school" while reading another article, clicks on the link in search of a quick gloss, but doesn't bother to read beyond the first couple of sentences), may go away with a seriously distorted understanding. I'd like to make three (fairly) modest proposals to start things off.

(i) We need a new lede definition. This has been discussed ad nauseam above, but we're still a long way off anything satisfactory. I'd like to propose the following:

"A public school in England and Wales is an elite independent secondary school. Such schools are "public", not in the sense of being funded from public taxes, but in that of being open to any entrant who meets the admission criteria and is able and willing to pay the fees. The term was traditionally most commonly applied to boarding schools for boys, but has often been broadened to encompass comparable day schools, and schools for girls or for both sexes."

Much of the rest of the lede could be retained, but would need some reworking to cut repetition and duplication.

(ii) The lede can mention the Clarendon Commission and the 1868 act, but the bullet-pointed list of 7 schools should be removed, as it gives them, and the act, undue prominence. The 1868 act was merely one grouping, at one historical moment in time, for one particular purpose, and shouldn't be presented as if it has a wider or definitive status. (The original parliamentary proposal for the Clarendon Commission was that it should investigate all endowed schools, but for practical reasons its remit was reduced to 9, before being cut down again to 7 for the act.) The 7 schools are, of course, listed again in the History section, and I'd have no objection to the list there being rendered in bullet-point form.

(iii) The Definition section should open with a clear disclaimer along the lines of "There is no single or absolute definition of a public school, and the use of the term has varied according to context.", before going on to give some of the definitions and listings that have been applied at different times in the past.

As I say, those are all just suggestions, and I'm happy to discuss further. I'm in two minds about my use of the word "elite" in the definition, but I think it would be useful to at least hint at the idea of social exclusivity at the outset. GrindtXX (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you GrindtXX for your comments. As a grammar school boy I've no particular skin in this game, but chancing upon this article a few weeks ago, it offended my sense of righteousness, so in I dove. Let's await Clem's comments too, but my view is that the lead is pretty much OK now. Calling out the 'secret seven' I think is OK as a lot of chat about the public schools always seems to come back to Clarendon and the 1868 Act. We need to not only think about those unfamiliar to the term but also those who nitpick around public, private, independent, whatever etc. Personally I think the article now has 'legs'. I suggest that before any significant rewrite we await a few more opinions. You are right about definition but here we are trying to negotiate between a (historical) legal definition and popular terminology which differs between the English language used in the UK and elsewhere. Did someone once say to me 'Proceed with caution'? Hjamesberglen (talk) 18:09, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the discussion GrindtXX and thanks for the three modest suggestions. You are right in your observations but I think this is the wrong time in the edit cycle to implement them. At the moment I am following the line- fix the body first, then the lead will write itself WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY on Wikipedia:Writing better articles. I have tried to strip down the lead, and then build it back up- there will be repetition from the body into the lead- but it may go in future. I started the current round of edits but Hjamesberglen is doing most of the leg work. I agree with him that at this moment in time we have got it about right. I dont want to revise the wording of the first sentence of the lead at the moment

So why Clarendon. It was the first time that the term Public school entered law. It was the first time that a group had got round the table to attempt a definition. Earlier definitions seem to be back clarifications and history rewrites, and the sources that use them not independant in my mind. The second important attempt at definition was the cabinet briefing memo in November 1965. As a school boy at a Direct Grant School I have a memory of a incoming Labour Government promising to disband all private schools (my father was incandescent), and they came up against the same problem as Wikipedia had. What was a public school? The briefing note is still the best document we have. It uses Clarendon as a starting point. I think that is a valid secondary source. I have read more texts- but they are tertiary, and the later ones circular in that they have references that list Wikipedia as a source! In the ==Definitions== section I want to add definitions for moments in time but take care to distinguish between definitions and suppositions. There is still room here to examine denominational private schools.

So why Clarendon. Simply it answers the question to a roaming non-English speaker. It works with an inquisitive eight year old . Then pragmatically it gives us an anchor, around which we can write the article. There are many aspects of the subject about which I am still unclear but it should be that way. I have changed my mind about your proposal 3 while penning this reply. We build it up together

I don't think you are right to suggest that the definition has changed much: it has waxed and waned a bit and as a successful brand it has been misused alot. A bit like Alan Bennetts '40 years on' analysis. Sorry I am getting too critical. What I an saying is: stick with what we have got, expand the body and modify the lead when necessary, remember our readers needs. ClemRutter (talk) 20:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I have no problem with proceeding slowly and with caution: my sense was that the body of the article was now beginning to shape up nicely, leaving inconsistencies and misleading suggestions in the lede, and that it was time to start addressing that problem. Your "roaming non-English speaker" or "inquisitive eight year old" will stumble into this article, immediately spot the seven bullet-pointed schools presented prominently at the top of the page, overlook such subtle qualifiers as "originally" and "historically", and assume that the list of seven is definitive. It isn't, and didn't claim to be even at the time: the long title of the 1868 act explicitly states that it applies to "certain Public Schools in England" – i.e. to a limited selection whose governance was deemed to be in need of reform. It's quite true that the Clarendon Nine and 1868 Seven achieved a certain iconic status, and helped crystallise the idea of the public school, because they are the only grouping with a solid legal foundation – but as generally used in modern discourse the label "public school" encompasses a much wider range of establishments. The OED acknowledges this: having named the Seven, it adds "but the name is generally used to include other schools of similar organization". At the moment, we say in the lede, "In 2010, over half of Cabinet Ministers had been educated at public schools": I can't check the source cited (behind a paywall, and rather unpromisingly an article on the Canadian political elite), but I'm willing to bet that the reference is to a broad category of fee-paying schools, and absolutely not confined to the Seven. In my opinion, at the very least, the mention of Clarendon and the 1868 act should be immediately followed and counterbalanced by an equivalent mention of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference – a grouping that is likrwise non-definitive, but that comes much closer to the modern common colloquial understanding of what counts as a public school. I quote from the wiki article on the HMC (with refs): "Membership of the HMC is often considered to be what defines a school as a public school in England and Wales." There are now 260-odd HMC schools in England and Wales, so this is rather more than a bit of waxing and waning. I'm not going to start edit-warring here, and I'm all for slow and steady progress (I've had this article on my watchlist for 7 or 8 years now without ever making more than minor edits), but I do feel that a short-term goal, and one that could be achieved with relative ease, should be to tone down or qualify the current excessive and misleading prominence of the 1868 Seven. GrindtXX (talk) 10:44, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Another good days editing

That wretched expandable table has gone! What an improvement. ClemRutter (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Common Entrance and the current Public School Experience

There is an interesting discussion on how you get one of your offspring into one of these institutions, and why? CE is different from the Kent test. Having got them into one, what is the current experience for the child? What is the curriculum they must follow, when can they drop Latin? Why are the teachers unqualified? What expected standards are not met? Union membership? Tax advantages? What about the emotional effect of boarding? has it changed from the days of Alan Bennett and Evelyn Waugh? These are all issues that are discussed in society- Where do we start. --ClemRutter (talk) 10:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Parking a reference- predicted grades

• Bland, Archie (24 June 2020). "Top private school asks teachers to exaggerate exam predictions". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 June 2020..

Useful article talking about IB v A levels and use of predicted grades on the UCCA form. Other links too. ClemRutter (talk) 22:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Title

The article could use a different title, the current one doesn't accurately describe the article. Perhaps "Public school (privately funded)" or "Public school (independently funded)" would work. Eóin (talk) 05:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be retitled as suggested. There is also a need for a "public school (UK)" article to hold the nomenclature discussion currently in the "Public schools" section of the Independent school (UK) article. Kanguole 08:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

No there should not see Talk:Independent school (UK)/Archive 1#Requested move -- PBS (talk) 11:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

This article still needs to be merged/moved etc. Independent school move has no bearing on this. You'd be hard pressed to find a single Briton in the UK who interprets the term 'public school' as anything but a state school. --80.189.194.234 (talk) 20:51, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Clearly you live in a UK in an alternative universe. Google "public school uk" and every single hit (as far down the list as I could be bothered to look) relates to independent schools. GrindtXX (talk) 22:48, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I think "Public School" referring to private schools is purely an English thing rather than an entire UK thing. I live in Scotland, and we just call private schools "private schools", and public (state) schools "public schools". HaniiPuppy (talk) 10:16, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I disagree - I have always thought of leading Scottish schools such as Glenalmond, Gordonstoun and Fettes as "public schools". Also, I think the term "public school" came to mean in the 20th century those independent schools that were members of the Head Master's Conference (HMC): for instance, this distinction was used by the Army in WW 1 to determine who could be granted a commission. In general terms, surely it just means one of the larger more established independent schools. 5.83.11.49 (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion there's merit in both the two previous arguments. Glenalmond, Gordonstoun and Fettes undoubtedly do consider themselves public schools in the English tradition, even though they're based in Scotland. But Scotland shares the USA's definition of a public school meaning a state school.TomboPC (talk) 11:32, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Glenalmond, Gordonstoun and Fettes are all legally deemed private/independent schools in Scotland. This is where they are based and their jurisdiction as regards regulation, tax and so forth. A comment could be added that some people outside Scotland call them public schools if needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.9.255.238 (talk) 08:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)