Talk:Wesley College, Perth

John Bednall scandal removed

A user "Genaugikeit" removed the section on the former head master John Bednall child pornography scandal in 2010 claiming it was "irrelevant". However I think it was noteworthy enough to be included, it should not have been removed and should be re-instated. Failing any objections I will put the text in next time I check back as per the discussion below. 222.152.170.116 (talk) 11:30, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Improvements

The WC College website has alot of information in regard to sporting, old boys association etc on it, i think this resource could be tapped further. Refer to the Aquinas College, Perth page for a general idea. Smbarnzy 16:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

All: PLEASE SIGN YOUR POSTS! IT IS ANNOYING WHEN YOU DONT! Smbarnzy 16:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Commercial wording

Could unnamed users please cease editing the article so as to include sections straight from advertising and promotional literature? Wikipedia is not the place to for comments like "Wesley students are renowned for being happy, well-balanced, well-adjusted students who know who they are and where they are headed", even if you may really think that.

Moving/deleting content

Chanjoh, Please advise your motive for deleting the whole Wesley College content and moving it to 'WC Perth'.

Consider this.

I'm a bit confused by this. If the name of the school is Wesley College then should not the article be at Wesley College, Perth rather than at WC Perth. If it's to be WC anything then it should be at WC, Perth. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe it should be moved back to Wesley College, Perth, and it was indeed moved from that precise site earlier (see page history). I suspect the article being moved is related to the simultaneous blanking of the article's content which I have since revised. --Ian peters 16:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it back as WC Perth does not follow naming conventions. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

But Wesley students are happy

culling of POV and advertising

I have noticed that this article contains a lot of POV statements, suggest that editors read WP:NPOV. Also the lead should be a summary of the article and note a place to advertise. Since my copy edit will be fair but extensive I'll list here where and what I removed to enable editors to improve its placement in the article if there is reason for its reinstatement. Gnangarra 15:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

---

• Keep this information just put it in the main article not the lead

The School has a somewhat unusual three-tiered school structure, being

• The Junior School (referred to as Manning House), a co-educational junior school for boys and girls from Kindergarten to Year 4.
• The Middle School, for boys from Years 5 to 8.
• The Senior School, for boys from Years 9 to 12.

which as of 2006 were approximately $13,000 for a year 12 and $20,000 for overseas boarders.

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• Doubtful is to its use, there maybe some retaininble information but nothing here that needs to be in the lead.

In the led-up to the much hyped and publicised $13 million refurbishment of the Joseph Green Centre, Wesley has launched it's "Building for a Better Future" campaign that aims to raise $4 million to contribute towards the building of the state-of-the-art centre. With construction starting late 2006, and an estimated opening in the fourth quarter of 2007, this building project will be the largest of its kind in any private school in Western Australia.

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NPOV issues The hole section called Campus is riddled with POV statements thing like

• elite school with underlying traditional values and attributes
• from the elegant, original building the J.F. Ward Wing, to the less aesthetically pleasing preperatory school
• Wesley's ovals have been renowned for having the best playing surfaces
• schools highly successful tennis program
• these two arent even the same building

• Possibly Wesley's most significant building,
• possibly the most iconic and recognisable of Wesley's structures

• refurbishment will revitalise the school centre as the

I think thats a broad enough example of the POV within the campus section

Also in Campus, I know that LOTE is suppose to mean Language Other Than English but not every body has children in school in Western Australia, please dont use acronyms at the first occurance.

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Sporting Alumni, please be mindful that when identifying organisations you use the correct name of the organisation, most of those linked are via redirect pages.

Image copyright

Fair use clearly states Where no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information, as this article is about a school and is/has obviously been edited by staff, students past and present there is no reason for the use of copyrighted images within the article. Gnangarra 15:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Scandals

As both sections are/were from the POV of this person is guilty even though one was proven otherwise the second hasn't even had charges laid neither should be part of this articleGnangarra 00:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

please read WP:NOT and WP:NOR Gnangarra 02:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Also WP:V and WP:BLP - contributing to a webpage may not seem so harmful, but this stuff does affect people's lives - i.e. the people who it's about. Also agree that the POV element regarding the one proven otherwise was pretty bad. Orderinchaos78 ^(t|c) 03:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree. WP is an not a soapbox and not the forum for reporting so called "scandals". — Moondyne 02:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Contradicting what I said above, I think a short succinct sentence regarding Bednall's departure would be appropriate, but this needs to be very carefully worded, re: WP:LIVING. -- — Moondyne 04:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

what about something like this: Gnangarra 05:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

During 2002 headmaster Mr John Bednall resigned amid allegations which were later dismissed in court. Mr Bednall sued Wesley, claiming "it had irreparably damaged his national and international reputation as an educator of boys".

All it needs is a site for the statement Gnangarra

That looks fine. a link is here — Moondyne 05:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks great to me. Orderinchaos78 ^(t|c) 03:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Most of this entire article is straight copied from the schools and the P&F website. I've tried to merge two parallel threads of history into one and remove most of the blatant advertising & POV. I don't think that I've deleted anything that was really, really important. I also removed a number of photos which weren't encyclopaedic and only cluttered the article. I suggest that if the boys want a project they take some photos themselves and upload with suitable tags rather than fair-use ones taken from the P&F website. — Moondyne 04:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Blatant Advertising and Important changes.

I have been trying to make this page more Neautral but it is very hard without any facts or citations, here are my questions.

1. when was the "$13 million‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  refurbishment of the Joseph Green Centre" planned, Is there any documentaiton?
2. Has it already started?
3. How will the "Building for a Better Future" campaign raise $4 million, it does not make sense, is it an advertisement that is supposed to bring 4 million dollars worth of new students to the school? or is the school expecting people to donate 4 million dollars to the school?
4. Is this a 13 million dollar refurbishment of the Joseph Green Centre, or is it a brand new "state-of-the-art (blatant advertising)" buillding which does not at the present time exist?, make up your mind.
5. What "KIND" is it? "this building project will be the largest of its kind in any private school in Western Australia."

AC Boy 07:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well AC Boy, firstly, the Joseph Green Centre has been planned for many years, and now it has started construction. There is plenty of documentation on the School Website with promotional brochures. The Building for the Better Future is a capital appeal campaign to raise funds (4 million) to help with the construction of the facility from current alumni and families. The refurbishment will make it the number one performing arts facility for any school in the state. It is a refurbishment because it is not economical in its location within the campus to demolish and rebuild, and rather the 13 million dollar refurbishment will add extra floors, and expand the buildings floorspace significantly. The building is the Performing Arts Centre for Wesley, and it will be the biggest when its finished.

Wesley Sports Club

I think the article needs to mention Wesley Sports club and the facilities it offers not only to Wesley College and associated persons but the community in general. As a wikipedian living in South Perth, my closests contact to Wesley College is via their sports club in the use of their weights room and swimming pool facilities and i think that it is very notable within the general South Perth community. Smbarnzy 13:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The John Bednall Scandal

"In late 2002 Wesleys principal John Bednall was forced to resign after child pornography was found on his PC. The college has tried it's best to hide this embarassing scandal. However recently a perth judge found that Mr Bednall now a Hobo was actual inococent off all charges laid against him by the school board of directors." ... was removed from the article as "false and unref claims regarding J bendal removed". The reference is Net porn charge against Perth principal dropped whichs makes the 'edit' true despite a need for improvement. Shall we restore it? - Fred 15:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is my suggestion for the section:

In late 2002, Wesley Headmaster John Bendall was forced to resign admid allegations that child pornography was found on his school computer. However, a Perth judge found that Mr. Bendall was innocent of all charges laid against him by the school board.Net porn charge against Perth principal dropped Smbarnzy 02:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for removing this while we discuss here. The issue was discussed in November (see above section "Scandals") We need to be very careful here and only cite known facts (ref WP:BLP). We also need to ensure we don't give this issue undue weight. I suggest that the previous statement is more neutral:

During 2002 headmaster Mr John Bednall resigned amid allegations which were later dismissed in court. Mr Bednall sued Wesley, claiming "it had irreparably damaged his national and international reputation as an educator of boys. [1]

Interestingly, a sort of similar discussion recently concluded at Talk:Brisbane Grammar School which resulted in an editor being blocked who wanted to push his POV and give undue weight to the issue. —Moondyne 02:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Charges weren't dismissed. Prosecution abandoned the case. Hesperian 02:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the "During 2002...." one that seems quite fair. Smbarnzy 03:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well charges were laid. So how about:

During 2002 headmaster Mr John Bednall resigned amid allegations which resulted in charges being laid against him. The case was dropped by police on 2 April 2004 with no evidence submitted.[2] Mr Bednall sued Wesley, claiming his "... international and national reputation as an educator of boys has been irreparably damaged". P11

—Moondyne 03:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

He didn't resign, he was sacked; as he has stated himself before a court of law when sueing Wesley for wrongful termination. And why are we avoiding stating the nature of the allegations? How about:

During 2002 headmaster John Bednall was sacked by the school amid allegations that he had accessed child pornography on the internet. Criminal charges were laid against him but later withdrawn,[3] and Bednall subsequently sued Wesley for wrongful termination.[4]

Hesperian 04:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I largely like Hesp's idea, except id have the quote from Moondyne at the end, it sounds pretty good, have 2 refs, what does everyone else think? Smbarnzy 10:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

V5

The danger is that it starts to get a bit wordy and gives the section more prominence than it deserves. But, perhaps that cannot be helped and is an incentive to expand the rest of the article to keep it balanced. So:

During 2002 headmaster John Bednall was sacked by the school amid allegations that he had accessed child pornography on the internet. Criminal charges were laid against him but withdrawn by police in April 2004.[5] Bednall subsequently sued Wesley for wrongful termination claiming his "... international and national reputation as an educator of boys has been irreparably damaged".[6]

—Moondyne 14:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

That is "a bit wordy" and perhaps we are getting off-topic. Support 'v.4' - Fred 15:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thoughts, how about the equivalent of List of Australian political scandals for abuse of minors by people in a similar positions of 'authority'. A large amount of caution in terminology of title, IMO, to avoid POV issues. - Fred 16:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with v4. I'm being bold and inserting it into the article (at the bottom). —Moondyne 01:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

This is quite good (inserted text in page), although calling it controversy im not so sure about, possibly "child porn scandal" or "John Bendall scandal" or something along those lines, possibly something from the west of the time... Smbarnzy 13:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Requested reassessment

This article seems to have been unofficially rated by its editors back in February as a B/low for the purposes of both WikiProject Perth WikiProject Schools. I have now re-assessed it for WPSchools and am changing the rating to Start/Mid. The article has some good pictures but unfortunately there are a number of problems with the text. Most importantly the history section is in breach of copyright as it has nearly all been copied and pasted from the school's own website. There seems to be an unusual and excessive focus on the buildings of the school. The section on the building program is already out of date. The section on school facilities goes into excessive detail, and would benefit from being trimmed and written in a prose style. The section on uniform is not of any interest to anyone outside the school. The school war cry has no reference so it is not possible to establish if it is genuine, and it is also potentially in breach of copyright. Focus less on the trivia and instead write about subjects which are of interest to a wider readership. Most importantly you need references, especially for the history section and for the alumni. (The current ref 4 is just a photo of a forklift truck and the page for ref 5 won't download.) Ask at WP Schools if you need help. I am giving the article a mid importance rating based on the sporting alumni, assuming that they can be proven with appropriate references. Dahliarose 22:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Issues with article

I have attempted to address multiple issues with article including

• general grammar issues
• NPOV issues - "grew in reputation", "celebrated great successes", "panoramic views" etc
• unnecessary detail on house system - every school like Wesley has a house system and they nearly all operate the same way, compete for trophies, are based on founders, house tutors etc.
• undue emphasis on buildings - it reflects poorly on the school that its history seems characterised by a succession of building plans
• campus details, such as location of schools, street frontage etc are not notable
• school uniform - utterly non-notable detail and of no general interest Murtoa (talk) 04:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Sloppy editing

This sloppy cut and paste move, with "fix" given as an edit summary, is not good editing. This page was moved from "Wesley College, Perth" to "Wesley College (Western Australia)", with a valid reason given. If you disagree with the move, raise the issue on the talk page, do not make cut-and-paste moves. I♦A 04:40, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It's been fixed now, but you are correct that cut-and-paste moves are never the way to go. Jenks24 (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Wesley College, Perth/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article currently is B class as it covers all elements in detail sufficient to enable it progress, all it lacks are some structure images and referencing Gnangarra 12:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 06:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC). Substituted at 10:24, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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• Wesley College new logo 2022.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)