Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article advice

Shortcut

The WikiProject Schools article advice describes how the content of school articles should be organized for style, content, and consistency, with the aim of providing general guidance to editors. It is recommended that the guidelines be read fully before starting a new article, in particular, the notability section. Institutions offering ISCED 2011 level 1 will normally not have a separate article, but be placed in a schools section in their controlling authority.

Notability

Notable is defined in the Collins Online Dictionary as: worthy of being noted or remembered; remarkable; distinguished.

Wikipedia uses the first meaning to decide whether the topic is worthy of inclusion. The school does not have to be remarkable or distinguished, just worthy of being noted. Wikipedia decides whether a school is notable enough for a stand-alone article by assessing whether it "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

Individual articles must usually meet either the Wikipedia general notability guideline or the organizations and companies subject-specific notability guideline – note that the notability requirement is to pass one of the two guidelines; there is no obligation to pass both. None of the many discussions over the years have reached a consensus, and the current practice is generally observed, as evidenced by thousands of examples.

Types of schools

The ISCE has defined lower secondary education ISCED 2011 level 2 and upper secondary education ISCED 2011 Level 3, which in many education authorities are delivered in the same school.

In Germany, secondary education is complex and varies from state to state. It includes Hauptschule and Realschule which generally educate to Grade 10; Gymnasium which educates to Grade 12 and 13; and Gesamtschule which combines the focus of all three but may not necessarily include the final years that lead to university entrance standards.

In China, an institution called a "middle school" in English may in fact be, in Chinese, a "secondary school" or 中学 (which really means any secondary school). The actual Chinese word equivalent to an American definition of a "middle school" (lower secondary) is 初中 chuzhong, while upper secondary/senior high is 高中 ("gaozhong"). A "zhongxue" often has both levels. Check with Wikipedia:WikiProject China if you are unsure whether a Chinese "middle school" has an upper secondary/senior high school component.

General tips

Shortcuts
  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. Style. Keep the prose 'tight'. This is an encyclopedia—avoid the use of familiar language, contractions (it's, he's, don't, etc.), and magazine or blog style. Do not use the first person plural 'we'.
  3. 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.
  4. Avoid stubs No one will expand them for you. Only add schools that you are willing to do significant research on, and complete most of the generally required page sections. Very poorly made articles might simply get deleted and your effort will be lost.
  5. Avoid short sections. Consider combining sentences into 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.
  6. Avoid ambiguity. Include the country of your school in the lead section. Wikipedia is read worldwide, and not everyone speaks the same English, if you are writing in Indian English, add the English equivalents of lakh and crore'; some words have very different meanings in different countries. Dates should always be written out 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.
  7. Use wiki-links wisely: check that the content applies in the education system you are describing and that they do not target WP:DAB pages or redirects. For example, the letter K in the British school system is an abbreviation for Key Stage, but in the US is an abbreviation for kindergarten. 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 for students up to age 13, whereas in America a prep school 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 US is usually a university.
  8. "college" has a multiplicity of meanings: In the United Kingdom, Sixth form colleges and further education colleges provide education for students aged between 16 and 19 years. In the tertiary sector, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge are made up of constituent colleges. College is also sometimes used to refer to university education.
  9. Avoid overlinking. Make sure wikilinks are helpful to the understanding of the article. Do not link common English words. 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.
  10. Write a strong lead. Be sure to write a lead that concisely summarizes the school in one or two paragraphs that make sense to someone who may know nothing about the school in question, and remember to include the country where the school is located.
  11. 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).
  12. 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 upload it following the instructions for licensing. For crests, emblems, or logos, see the special instructions in the infobox section.
  13. 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.
  14. Go back to your new article in a day or two to see if it has been tagged for you to do something urgent about it. Someone might even have listed it for deletion.
  15. 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.
  16. Avoid bulk additions. The mass creation of short school articles is strongly discouraged and can even cause authors to be blocked for disruptive editing.
  17. Explain why the school is unique. The key to writing a good school article is to explain 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?
  18. Get help! Post a question at WP:WPSCH/H or 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.
  19. 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

Shortcuts

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. Whether government or privately operated, school articles must never appear to be promotional.

Avoid mission statements and goals, as 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:

Avoid stating names or numbers of students who obtained places at X, Y, and Z universities.

Structure

Shortcuts

Title

The title of the Wikipedia article will normally be the same as the current name of the school. For precise details, please see Naming conventions (schools).

Changing the title

The UK, and England in particular, frequently renames or rebrands its schools. Changing an article title is called 'moving'. A solution is to move the entire content and leave redirects so that nothing gets lost. Examples are Malvern Hills College, Crown Woods College and WCG (college). The talk page should also moved. Talk:Malvern Hills College, etc. This can be done by the move tool found on the tab on the page header bar. Do not perform copy-and-paste moves.

Defunct schools

If a school has closed down, it is not a reason to delete an article about it. See WP:DEFUNCT, for example. A topic that is notable does not become non-notable simply because it is defunct. Wikipedia discusses historical topics as well as current ones. In some cases, it may be appropriate for a former school to be discussed as a subtopic in another article, such as an article about an institution that has the prior school as part of its historical background. In such a case, there should be a redirect from the name of the prior institution that leads to the relevant section of the article about the newer institution.

There is also no automatic presumption that a newer or current institution should be given primary status over a historical one. If a former institution is more notable and well-known than a current one inherited from it, the article should be named for the more notable historical topic or Common name.

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, avoiding 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 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. Do not copy and use infoboxes from other school pages; they may well be the wrong ones, or older deprecated versions. Infoboxes contain programme code that you cannot see; it is essential that you read the relative infobox documentation and the examples. Below are the shortcuts to the most common templates used for primary and secondary schools:

Article subjectInfobox to use
Schools{{Infobox school}}
School District (mainly Canada and United States} *{{Infobox school district}}
Multi-academy trust (mainly England} *{{Infobox non-profit}}
* Indicates exceptions exist. 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, US), state/province (Australia, Canada, India, US, 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.

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes to know the consistency, consideration, purpose, and usage of what information should be included in infoboxes. More specifically, see {{infobox school}} for complete list of parameters:

Avoid
  • Trivia that is of importance only to people involved in the school. (essay) (see also WP:SCHOOLCRUFT)
  • Contact details such as phone, fax, email (see the WP:NOTDIR policy, but do provide the website address)
  • Deputy heads/principals (policy) (see also WP:RFCSCHOOLADMIN)
  • Deputy chairpersons
  • Temporary positions
  • Pre and post nominals (CEO, Dr, BA, BSc, MA, PhD, etc.) (guideline) (see also MOS:CREDENTIAL)
  • 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'.) (guideline) (see also MOS:SURNAME)
  • Flag icons
Do include
  • A referenced source for the number of students, or at least the year in brackets, i.e. (2007), including for faculty and other information that is annually (e.g. budget, student-to-teacher ratio, teaching staff, or graduates). Round up or down to the nearest 10, and use the abbreviation approx if only very appropriate (optional).
  • The school motto. If it is not in English, use the appropriate language template; for example, for Latin use {{langx|la|motto goes here}} and then provide a translation.

  • The school's crest, logo, seal, emblem and/or coat of arms (generally not larger than about 150 pixels). You can either copy this from a school's website or scan it from a school document. Where possible, choose a .png file with a transparent background. Be aware the logo is copyrighted material, and the image must have a fair use statement.
The Upload File Wizard leads you through all the necessary questions and prevents you from omitting essential information. You select This is a copyrighted, non-free work, but I believe it is Fair Use option, say This is a logo of an organization You must provide a source, and the target page. Tell them that it is minimal, as it is Used in infobox on one page.
Previously all this was copied and pasted as a fair use rationale in the fair use/description field, on the file, in the format given below!
: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.
  • A map. A map is added automatically to the infobox when co-ordinates are present. Often you may wish to override this one and add further information such as a second site or different zoom level. This is done by using a {{Maplink}} and the parameter | mapframe-custom =
| mapframe-custom   = {{Maplink |frame=yes |plain=yes |frame-align=center |frame-width=270 |zoom=13
  |type=point |coord={{Coord|51.3775|0.5174}} |marker=school |title=Main Campus |description=
  |type2=point |coord2={{Coord|51.372559|0.521114}} |marker2=school |title2=Lower School |description2=
  }}

Lead

In the first sentence, give the full official name, common names, and former names of the school in bold text, and its type and location.

e.g. The Judd School (often known simply as Judd) is a voluntary aided grammar school in Tonbridge, Kent, England.
or Stuyvesant High School (pronounced /ˈstaɪvɪsənt/) commonly referred to as Stuy (pronounced /staɪ/) is a public magnet, specialized high school in New York City, United States.

Use italic text for names of the school in other languages besides English; 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 or education organization, 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. Facts always need a reference, but if they are correctly referenced in the sections below, you don't duplicate the reference here.

Other sections

== History ==

== Governance ==

== School structure ==

== Admissions ==

== Curriculum ==

== Extracurricular activities ==

== Campus ==

== Awards and recognition ==

== Notable alumni ==

== Notable staff ==

== Former headteachers ==

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

== External links ==

* {{Official website|www.example.com}}
  • History – Describe the history of the school, including noteworthy milestones in its development. If the school is named after a notable person, include a wikilink to the article on that person. If the school is named after a non-notable person, include a 1 to 2 sentence biography. If applicable, describe the namesake's connection with the school.
  • Governance – Describe the legal status of the school, its foundation deed if private, and – if state-funded – the controlling authority and the composition of the governing body.
  • School structure – Describe how the school organizes and manages the pupils pastorally, academically and for competitive events. Talk about class size, academic streaming or setting, home-school contact policy and special needs provision. Also, if notable, the staffing structure can be discussed here. (faculties, departments, year group teams)
  • Admissions – (if notable) Describe admissions procedures at 11 and 16, showing the criteria and priorities in cases of over-subscription. This is the place to discuss fees and bursaries.
  • Curriculum – Provide a brief description of the school's curriculum. Does it follow a national or state 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 that teaches Mandarin, Latin, or Greek? Does it have a culinary academy? Do not insert long lists of subjects taught, school performance tables, marching band shows, or its drama group productions—Wikipedia is not a publicity exercise or a second brochure.
  • 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 the school that have received coverage in secondary sources, like students' union/student council activities, a student newspaper, regular activities, etc. The heading may be changed accordingly in regard to the importance of sports, 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, such as Daniel Radcliffe, who was famous while still in school. Major extracurricular championships should be appropriately listed in a "Sports", "Athletics", or "Activities" section. These can include any achievements that are particularly relevant to the school's reputation, provided that only the highest achievements are listed such that the article does not give undue weight to minor achievements. Individual awards should generally not be listed.
  • Campus/school site and properties – 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 details of each building, its classrooms, or equipment.
  • Awards and recognition – A list of notable awards and recognition received by the school, staff, or students. Such a list should only include awards that 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 few academic awards, consider putting them as prose under the Curriculum section.
  • Notable alumni – If possible, provide information about notable alumni of the school. If the school has many notable alumni, provide an overview that summarizes the former students' history and reputation while mentioning a few names. If the school has fewer notable alumni, you can make a list of the most notable, with a brief, sourced description for each. Consider approximately seven as the first opportunity to consider creating a stand-alone list of alumni (example). See #Alumni for further guidance.
  • Notable teachers/faculty/staff – 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, though it can be an acceptable source for information sections involving no value judgments, such as school structure. References from third-party sources are preferable and 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). For understanding of adding external links to the school article(s), see guidelines of adding external links.

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 be written from a neutral point of view and 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 depository of news links, a host of primary source material, or a place for promotional material or advertising.

Any mention of living people must conform with the biography of living persons policy, including the presumption in favour of privacy. While naming the head teacher or principal is permitted, lists or detailed information about current or former pupils, parents of current or former pupils, administrative staff, school secretaries, current or former teachers, etc. is usually inappropriate. Special care should be taken in regard to the mention of individual pupils or providing information that would allow individual pupils to be identified (particularly where they are underage); such disclosures should only occur in exceptional circumstances. School articles must be balanced, as well as not give undue prominence to events outside the control of the school that have involved staff or students.

School articles should also specifically not include:

Formatting

Capitalisation

School subjects would generally be lowercase except where they contain proper nouns such as languages. If referring to a specific named course like Geography 205 Spatial Distribution of Populations, that would be capitalized. For a high school class where there's one course in the social sciences department named Geography, it could be capitalized, but there's seldom a need to. Generally – capitalize proper nouns. People in education tend to overcapitalize subject areas, but Wikipedia doesn't.

Applicable categories

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

See also:

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 that 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 Archived 2007-09-15 at the Wayback Machine, while some American schools are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Statistics

Australia

  • My School is a website administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) which provides access to information about Australian schools.
  • 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 the UK government in 2010, some UK agencies have changed their focus and/or their websites. See also: Independent School Inspections)

  • England:
    • The Department for Education (DfE) on the GOV.UK website has comprehensive information about schools.
      • "Get information about schools" page allows you to search for a school and provides detailed information such as location, enrolment figures, a link to the school’s Ofsted reports page, the school's Unique Reference Number (URN), the name of the controlling multi-academy trust, and other schools that have existed on the site.
        • It also allows you to search for an establishment group, including single/multi-academy trusts and sponsors, and local authority maintained school federations and trusts. It provides some information such as the Unique Identifier (UID) and Companies House number.
    • Schools are inspected by Ofsted (a separate government department independent of the DfE) and independent schools are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) — reports can be accessed via their websites. Ofsted reports are published under the OGL license- which is equivalent to a CC-BY-SA 4.0.The śtatement " This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright" is useful.
    • Schools are required to include statutory information on their website, "What academies, free schools and colleges should publish online". GOV.UK. Retrieved 22 October 2020. or "What maintained schools must publish online". gov.uk. Retrieved 22 October 2020. refer.
    • Local authorities have comprehensive websites which provide details of school admissions policies and other information. The "Find your local council" page on the GOV.UK website allows you to find your local council by entering a postcode.
    • Many schools are academies and the websites of these schools, as well as the "Get information about schools" page, have a link to the controlling Academy trust/multi-academy trust. They publish annual reports and financial statements that may be of use.
    • There are school appointments advertised via TES; where concise descriptions of schools are provided, along with maps and official links, brochures etc.
  • Northern Ireland:

United States

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.)

Awards 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). Schools in the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program may display their status using the National Blue Ribbon Schools logo and the year in which they received the award.

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

Shortcut

All alumni information must be referenced. See Wikipedia:Footnoting for technical help. Individual alumni need a citation to (a) verify that they did indeed attend the school and (b) verify the information being included in the article.

Who should be included?

All alumni meeting the criteria for inclusion 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 list 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 very brief description of their 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. After a description, state when they graduated or what years they attended.

Alumni sections do not include photos of alumni. Stand-alone alumni list-articles may have photos, and this is encouraged.

Alumni may be categorized alphabetically, or 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)".

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.

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 need 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#Old Harrovians 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,y you should confirm something from both sides (e.g. the school acknowledges the individual, and the individual acknowledges the school).

Australia

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.
  • Basketball Reference has a list of NBA players' high schools, searchable by state.
  • National High School Baseball Coaches Association Archived 2008-08-28 at the Wayback Machine 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 Archived 2008-05-12 at the Wayback Machine lists coaches inducted after meeting criteria, including 20 years of varsity coaching experience, and being elected.

Local sources:

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.

Notes

Naming note

  1. ↑
    Names for secondary schools by country
    • Argentina: secundaria or polimodal, escuela secundaria
    • Australia: high school, secondary college
    • Austria: Gymnasium (Ober- & Unterstufe), Hauptschule, Höhere Bundeslehranstalt (HBLA), Höhere Technische Lehranstalt (HTL)
    • Azerbaijan: orta məktəb
    • Bangladesh: Maddhomik Biddalay or secondary school (grades 6–10)
    • Bahamas: junior high (grades 7–9), senior high (grades 10–12)
    • Belgium: secundair onderwijs/école secondaire, humaniora/humanités
    • Bolivia: educación primaria superior (grades 6–8) and educación secundaria, (grades 9–12)
    • Bosnia and Herzegovina: srednja škola (literally middle school), gimnazija (gymnasium)
    • Brazil: ensino médio (officially), segundo grau (formerly)
    • Brunei: mostly sekolah menengah (English translation: secondary school), a few maktab (English translation: college)
    • Bulgaria: cредно образование (grades 8–12)
    • Canada: high school, junior high or middle school, secondary school, école secondaire, collegiate institute, polyvalente
    • Chile: enseñanza media
    • China: zhong xue (中学; literally, middle school), consisting of chu zhong (初中; 初级中学 [zh]; literally low-level middle school) from grades 7–9 and gao zhong (高中; 高级中学 [zh]; literally high-level middle school) from grades 10–12
    • Colombia: bachillerato, segunda enseñanza (literally second learning)
    • Croatia: srednja škola (literally middle school), gimnazija (gymnasium)
    • Cyprus: Γυμνάσιο (gymnasium), Ενιαίο Λύκειο (lyceum)
    • Czech Republic: střední škola (literally middle school), gymnázium (gymnasium), střední odborné učiliště
    • Denmark: gymnasium
    • Dominican Republic: nivel medio, bachillerato
    • Egypt: Thanawya Amma (ثانوية عامة), (public secondary certificate)
    • Estonia: upper secondary school, gymnasium, lyceum
    • Fiji: high school, college
    • Finland: lukio (Finnish) gymnasium (Swedish)
    • France: collège (junior), lycée (senior)
    • Germany: Gymnasium, Gesamtschule, Realschule, Hauptschule, Fachoberschule
    • Greece: Γυμνάσιο (three years) (gymnasium), Γενικό Λύκειο (three years) (–1996, 2006–present), Ενιαίο Λύκειο (three years), (1997–2006) (lyceum)
    • Hong Kong: secondary school (中學 zung1 hok6)
    • Hungary: gimnázium (grammar school), középiskola (comprehensive school, literally middle school), szakközépiskola (vocational secondary school, literally professional middle school)
    • Iceland: framhaldsskóli (menntaskóli, iðnskóli, fjölbrautaskóli) from grades 11–13. After elementary school (grades 1–10), students have the option of entering a framhaldsskóli (literally continuation school), which will take at least three years.
    • India: secondary school or high school (grades 8–10), higher secondary school or senior secondary school or intermediate college or pre-university college (grades 11–12). It is known by various names in various Indian languages as follows:
      • Hindi (हिन्दी): माध्यमिक विद्यालय (Madhyamik Vidyalaya)
      • Bengali (বাংলা): মাধ্যমিক বিদ্যালয় (Madhyamik Vidyalaya)
      • Tamil (தமிழ்): மேல்நிலைப்பள்ளி (Melnilai Palli)
      • Telugu (తెలుగు): ద్వితీయోత్సాహ పాఠశాల (Dvitiya Vidyalaya) or ఉన్నత పాఠశాల (Unnata Patashala)
      • Marathi (मराठी): माध्यमिक शाळा (Madhyamik Shala)
      • Gujarati (ગુજરાતી): માધ્યમિક શાળા (Madhyamik Shala)
      • Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ): ಪ್ರೌಢ ಶಾಲೆ (Prouḍha Shale)
      • Malayalam (മലയാളം): ഉപരി വിദ്യാലയം (Upari Vidyalayam) or ഹൈസ്കൂൾ (high school)
      • Punjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ): ਮਾਧਿਮਕ ਵਿਦਿਆਲਿਆ (Madhyamik Vidyalaya)
      • Urdu (اردو): ثانوی اسکول (Sanooy school)
      • Odia (ଓଡ଼ିଆ): ମାଧ୍ୟମିକ ବିଦ୍ୟାଳୟ (Madhyamika Bidyalaya)
    • Indonesia: sekolah menengah atas (SMA) (literally upper middle school), sekolah menengah pertama (SMP) (literally first middle school), sekolah menengah kejuruan (SMK) (vocational school, literally middle vocational school)
    • Ireland: Meánscoil or secondary school
    • Iraq: Madrasa I'dadia (مدرسة اعدادية), (preparatory school)
    • Iran: Madrese Rahnamaie (مدرسه راهنمایی), (public secondary certificate)
    • Israel: Bet Sefer Tichon (בית ספר תיכון) (literally middle school, but for grades 9-12)
    • Italy: scuola secondaria di primo grado (three years) + scuola secondaria di secondo grado (five years): liceo, istituto tecnico, and istituto professionale
    • Jamaica: high school (public school 7–13), college (grand-aided schools 7–13)
    • Japan: chūgakkō (中学校; literally middle school), kōtōgakkō (高等学校; literally high school), chūtōkyōikugakkō (中等教育学校; secondary school) – In the pre-Meiji educational system, the equivalent was called "chūsei"
    • Kazakhstan: орта білім беру мектебі (general secondary school), гимназия (gymnasium), лицей (lyceum), мамандандырылған мектеп (specialized school); basic secondary (grades 5–9) and upper secondary (grades 10–11)
    • Latvia: vidusskola (literally middle school)
    • Liechtenstein: gymnasium
    • Lithuania: vidurinė mokykla (literally middle school), gimnazija (gymnasium), licėjus (lyceum)
    • Macau: escola secundária (中學 zung1 hok6): schools with secondary sections have ensino secundário (中學教育 zung1 hok6 gaau3 juk6)
    • Malaysia: secondary school or sekolah menengah, sometimes high school is used
    • Malta: skola sekondarja or secondary school
    • Mexico: educación secundaria y preparatoria
    • Mongolia: бүрэн дунд сургууль
    • Morocco: In Arabic: junior: Madrasa I'dadia Ta'hilia (مدرسة إعدادية تأهيلية / preparative qualificative school); senior: Madrasa I'dadia Thanawia (مدرسة إعدادية ثانوية / preparative secondary school) – in French: lycée
    • Netherlands: middelbare school or voortgezet onderwijs
    • New Zealand: high school, college, or secondary school
    • Nigeria: secondary school, junior or senior secondary school
    • Norway: videregående skole
    • Pakistan: secondary school, higher secondary school
    • Paraguay: educación media
    • Peru: educación secundaria or escuela secundaria
    • Philippines: mataas na paaralan, can be divided into junior high school (grades 7–10) and senior high school (grades 11–12)
    • Poland:
      • generally: szkoła średnia or szkoła ponadpodstawowa (szkoła ponadgimnazjalna during the existence of gimnazjum middle schools)
      • specifically: liceum ogólnokształcące (comprehensive secondary school, grades 9–12), technikum (technical secondary school, grades 9-13)
    • Portugal: 2º ciclo do ensino básico (grades 5–6), 3º ciclo do ensino básico (grades 7–9), and ensino secundário or liceu (grades 10–12)
    • Romania: gimnaziu (grades 5–8), liceu (grades 9–12)
    • Russia: средняя школа (literally middle school); junior middle school (compulsory, grades 5–9), senior middle school (voluntary, grades 10–11)
    • Serbia: gymnasium (four years), professional schools (four years), vocational schools (three or four years)
    • Slovakia : gymnázium (i.e. gymnasium, also translated as grammar school or high school)
    • Slovenia: gimnazija (gymnasium), srednja šola (literally middle school)
    • South Africa: high school or hoërskool
    • South Korea: 중고등학교 (中高等學校・chung'godŭnghakkyo), 중등교육 (chungdŭng'gyoyuk; literally middle education), comprising 중학교 (chunghakkyo; the lower secondary school, grades 7–9, referred to as "middle school grades 1–3") and 고등학교 (kodŭnghakkyo; the upper secondary school, grades 10–12, referred to as "high school grades 1–3")
    • Spain: educación secundaria, composed of two cycles: E.S.O. (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, compulsory secondary education, four years, 7th to 10th grade) and bachillerato (non-compulsory secondary education, to years, 11th and 12th grade); formerly (for those born until 31 December 1983), primary education comprised up to the 8th grade and the secondary education was composed of two non-compulsory cycles: B.U.P. (Bachillerato Unificado Polivalente, three years, 9th to 11th grade) and C.O.U. (Curso de Orientación Universitaria, one year, 12th grade)
    • Sri Lanka: junior secondary school, senior secondary school
    • Sweden: gymnasium
    • Switzerland: gymnasium, secondary school, collège or lycée
    • Taiwan: junior high school (國民中學), senior high school (高級中學), vocational high school (高級職業中學), military school (軍校), and complete high school (完全中學)
    • Thailand: matthayommasueksa (มัธยมศึกษา; literally secondary education)
    • Trinidad and Tobago: secondary school, forms 1–5 (five years) or forms 1–6 (seven years)
    • Turkey: lise
    • Ukraine: gymnasium (compulsory, grades 5–9), lyceum (voluntary, grades 10–12)
    • United Kingdom
    • United States: high school (usually grades 9–12 but sometimes 10–12, also called senior high school), is always considered secondary education; junior high school or intermediate school or middle school (grades 6–8, 7–8, 6–9, 7–9, or other variations) are sometimes considered secondary education.
    • Uruguay: liceo or secundaria (three years of compulsory education: ciclo básico; and three years of specialization: bachillerato diversificado, into: humanities (law or economics), biology (medicine or agronomy), science (engineering or rrchitecture), and art
    • Venezuela: bachillerato
    • Vietnam: trung học cơ sở (abbreviated THCS, literally basic middle school, equivalent to junior high school in the U.S.); trung học phổ thông (abbreviated THPT, literally general middle school, equivalent to senior high school in the U.S.)

References

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