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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by User:The Rambling Man 17:55, 29 June 2008 [1].

List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand edit

This is a comprehensive list of all current primary, intermediate and secondary schools recognised by the New Zealand Ministry of Education in the Marlborough Region of New Zealand. The list follows the same layout and standards as List of schools in Northland, New Zealand, which was recently promoted to featured list. One difference between that list and this one is that Northland is divided into three districts, but Marlborough is a unitary authority, both a region and a district, and so there is only a single table in this list.

Very few of the schools on the list have their own article; the links are redirects to the local town, suburb or community, which includes a paragraph on the school.-gadfium 23:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Gary King (talk) 01:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps add a section for the table, such as "Schools".
  • For the year ranges in the table, they are using em dashes when they should be en dashes per WP:DASH.

Gary King (talk) 00:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done.-gadfium 01:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)
  • Five paras a little long for lead - see WP:LEAD - probably three max for an article of this length.
  • What's "an area school"?
  • "...first year of formal education. Students enter the formal education system..." 2 x formal education in quick succession - merge these sentences and drop one o them.
  • "...on the Ministry of Education Te Kete Ipurangi profile ..." - don't really understand - is Te Kete Ipurangi the Maori for MOE?
  • "... commonly requested for school activities." - such as? Give some examples.
  • "A private school charges fees to its students, but there are no private schools in the Marlborough Region." - so why mention it at all?
  • Link Decile.
  • Years doesn't sort correctly - 1&ndash15 appears before 1–6.

The Rambling Man (talk) 16:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The lead is as long as it is because I think it should be similar to the lead for similar featured lists, in this case List of schools in Northland, New Zealand. Reviewers for that article wanted explanations of the table, but didn't want them as footnotes. There are fewer schools in Marlborough than in Northland, and fewer types of schools, so I have been able to leave out a little bit of the explanation, but it would be difficult to remove much more. I have removed the explanation of private schools as unnecessary, and I have combined two paragraphs, leaving only four paragraphs. On my screen, the lead now is only slightly longer than is required to cover the map.
I have replaced "area school" with an explanation, adjusted the "formal education" bit by merging the sentences, and linked "decile". I've fixed the years sorting by the perhaps rather crude method of adding {{sort|1–F|1–15}} templates to two entries. If there's a more elegant method of doing this, please let me know.
I believe Te Kete Ipurangi translates as "Online learning centre" or literally as "the basket of internet", but my intention was simply to name the website which serves as a reference for most of the material in the table, not to explain the structure of the Ministry of Education's websites, so I have simplified that clause to just "...on the Ministry of Education profile...", and the name of the website is given elsewhere in the lead where I think it's clearer.
I think explaining "school activities" is outside of the scope of this list, although I do link to School Fees in New Zealand which contains much more detail on the subject. I could drop "for school activities" if you think that would be an improvement.
Resolved comments from Matthew
Comments from Matthewedwards (talk · contribs)
  • Wikilink South Island and New Zealand in the opening sentence
  • Wikilink primary and secondary schools in the following sentence
  • "The year range is sometimes given on the Ministry of Education profile summary for each school; it can also be seen on the Education Review Office reports, which are linked to from that profile." I don't think this is necessary. Other articles don't go around saying "Reference 5 can verify the fact that dogs chase cats, and cats chase mice."
  • I'd like to see what these activities are, too. Is it stuff like P.E. equipment, field-trips? Just a couple of examples would do.
  • The Navbox should be placed after References

Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 02:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done, but I've removed "for school activities" because I don't think it can be explained adequately in a few words, and the lead has already been criticised for being too long. I've added a ref for school donations as well as the internal link to the article on the subject. Schools give lots of different justifications for the donation requests. Some specify class trips, school camps, getting guest speakers. In some cases the donation includes materials which the school is entitled to charge for, such as woodworking project material that the student takes home afterwards. In others, it includes materials such as photocopying of class materials which the school can certainly not charge for or deny to students who don't pay the suggested donation. I don't know if any of these particular examples come from schools in the Marlborough region. At any rate, this is a controversial matter which is not unique to the Marlborough region and is not appropriate to be dealt with in this list. See School Fees in New Zealand for some of the controversial material.-gadfium 03:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 15:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Bebestbe (talk · contribs)

List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand seem to have two topics running, "Schools in Marlborough, New Zealand" and "List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand." They are not the same topic. To help focus the article on List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand, I added the lead sentence: List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand is a compilation of primary, intermediate and secondary education institutions in the Marlborough region of South Island that are recognised by the Ministry of Education (MOE). The list has eight columns: (1) Name, (2) Years, (3) Area, (4) Authority, (5) Decile, (6) Roll, (7) Website, (8) MOE. The written portion of the article should discuss these. The written portion of the article should not disucss things that are secondary to the list. As for discussing the eight columns: Is there any notable significance to how the school names are selected? What do the different Years range mean? Why do some Areas have more schools than others? What do the different Authorities mean? Comment The list is limited to MOE recognized schools yet the name of the list is "List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand." A school is a school in Marlborough even if it is not recognized by [[Ministry of Education (New Zealand)|MOE]. You either need to change the name of the article or add another table that includes primary, intermediate, and secondary education institutions in Marlborough not recognized by MOE. Hope this helps focus the article. Bebestbe (talk) 15:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought we were trying to get away from every list starting with "title is a list of ...". Every list should have a lead section, for a list of schools, mentioning the types of schools in the area would appear to be appropriate rather than being a distraction from the list itself.
I'm not sure of the value of explaining that the region is a unitary authority. The only relevance is that unlike in most other regions of the country, there are not several districts to divide schools into. I explained this above for the benefit of reviewers who might be comparing this list to the Northland one, but how is this relevant to the list itself? It might be worth explaining at List of schools in New Zealand.
The lead does explain most of the terms in the table; if you find other terms used are not self-explanatory, please point them out.
I am not aware of any schools not recognised by the Ministry of Education in the Marlborough Region. Such schools would not be permitted to provide general education in New Zealand eg they might be bible schools, but they would not be primary schools. The difference between state and private schools was explained originally, but I removed the explanation relating to private schools on request here because there are none in Marlborough. I believe the current list title is an adequate reflection of the contents of the list.
I am not aware of any significance to how school names are selected. Most are based on the name of the locality. In List of schools in Northland, New Zealand I have provided translations from Maori where necessary. There are no schools with Maori names in Marlborough. Any explanation about school names should properly be in the article on the school or the locality.-gadfium 20:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gadfium, forgive me if you are aware of the ongoing discussion generated by Bebestbe but here's a link to familiarise yourself with the community consensus thus far. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that after I had replied here. Thanks for pointing it out, though.-gadfium 21:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since Bebestbe's edits appear not to be in accord with majority opinion, and in my opinion are detrimental to the list, I have restored the previous version.-gadfium 21:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps begin the article with "There are ## schools in Marlborough, New Zealand". It's keep the bold-text intro people happy, and those who hate to see "This is a list of..."
Done. Seems like a good compromise.-gadfium 21:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Nice list! Please explain "dedicated intermediate school" in the lead.--Dem393 (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the "dedicated" is confusing, so I've removed it. "Intermediate school" is linked to an explanation; it's the same thing as a "middle school" but that term is pretty much unknown in New Zealand. Such schools only occur in New Zealand in cities; elsewhere primary schools or high schools include the year 7 and 8 students which intermediate schools cover.-gadfium 06:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, Support--Dem393 (talk) 14:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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