Talk:Auckland Grammar School

message: "Only students in lower streams are permitted to attempt NCEA"
This is incorrect. All students may, if they so decide, attempt NCEA, however it is not recommended, and students are told if they can pass in CIE they will be better off with those qualifications (This is quite probably true). Unless somebody disagrees I'm going to change it to something along the lines of what I explained here. --viersteintalk08:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NCEA 

message: I've had a (relatively brutal) go at cleaning this article.
Firstly, from reading the prior version, it was unclear that AGS was actually a state school, and while being old and having more traditions, funded on the same basis as any other less prestigious school. This impression was further bolstered by mentioning it along with Christs and Collegiate (both private, both originally affiliated with Universities) in addition to schools which do have similar history, such as Nelson & Wellington Colleges. Thus, the reference to UK public schooling didn't ring true.
The overtly political aspect also seemed unbalanced. I may have slightly unbalanced it in the reverse direction, but Auckland Grammar and (to an extent) similar schools in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Nelson) are some of the very few in state schools able to have some sort of selection element to their student population, enhancing their status. All of these old schools have (or have had) stunning heritage buildings, and in every case, have nastier recent additions. Any expanding school gets pre-fabs, it's not some political agenda. Limegreen 10:03, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV-ish 

message: Is there any tuition? It isn't clear whether its free or requires tuition.Kiwidude 03:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a state school, so no there is no "tuition", because state schools are, by defintion, funded by the state. However, the voluntary "donation"/"activity fee" is around $600, at least five times the national average. So it is expensive to go there, but there's not tuitionLimegreen 03:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  amended the above statement to $750. I've reverted.-gadfium 05:00, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Secondary school students in Hong Kong from Form 4 onwards require school fees to attend, and the fees as set by government far exceeds NZ$350 (Forms 4 and 5 are around NZ$1,100 while Forms 6 and 7 would be at around NZ$1,800).  In addition, textbooks must be purchased by each student on their own (unlike Grammar).  As a perspective, education at Grammar could be said to be "bargain" across international levels.--JNZ 02:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But then, any New Zealand state school would be a "bargain" by that logic. However, students from overseas have to pay international student fees, which would far exceed NZD1800, I suspect. The point is that Grammar's "donation" is absurdly high by New Zealand standards.--Limegreen 03:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tuition

message: I've been going along adding infoboxes to NZ schools, and trying to tidy their pages up a bit. Mostly this means getting rid of vague and unsupported peacock terms - you have no idea how many leading prestigous shools NZ has which are famous for the academic successes of their students. I had a field day here. That's a pity as the facts speak for themselves. I also tried to clarify some of the details surrounding the operation of the enrollment scheme (although the school administers it, they have little or no choice in it), without removing the schools objections to it. Enjoy. Neil Leslie 11:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  revisions 

message: I am a current Auckland Grammar School student, and have made the following revisions.
"It is a mixed day and boarding school for boys aged 13 (Year 9 or Form III) to 18 (Year 13 or Form VII)."
becomes
"It is a secondary school for boys, from Year 9 (still referred to as its previous name, Form 3) to Year 13 (Form 7). The school also has a limited number of boarders, who live in a building adjacent to the school."
"Grammar Boys [2], a sixty minute documentary about the school was shown on New Zealand television."
I seriously question both the relevance and location of this sentence, especially considering the quality or lack of it which that show exibited.
* Irrespective of what you think of that documentary, it is worth mentioning. Neil Leslie 05:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revisions of Bakugeki 

message: Noted a surge of vandalism.
The names being employed are those of a group of boys in 7A whose names I recognise.
I have emailed the IT administrator at Grammar, who will hopefully be able to deal with these vandals.
--BakugekiNZ 09:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Vandalism 

message: I've taken a look at the article and as it is at the moment it needs a major reorganisation. To that end I've gone through it and posted a proposed new version. My reasoning is outlined below.
Note: The following titles (Lead, Section 1, etc) refer to the new article.
Lead
*The Auckland College and Grammar School: Unless you can cite Grey's Royal Charter this will stay out. Having seen some other schools' RCs this is not unbelievable; but without a source this seems quite out-of-touch.
*Otherwise the lead (before the start of the section headers), which should be good as a stand-alone article, is all right.
Section 1 (Historical)
*The dating of Grey's deed to 1850 has been sourced and cited.
*One of the oldest: Probably true, but ideally this would need a cite, since comparisons to other schools by Wikipedia editors is original research.
*The motto: left alone, except for the word 'historic', which is unnecessary waffle.
Section 2 (Grounds)
*Metres squared to hectares.
*The decision was made to include only notable buildings. Prefabs and the Ministry of Education standard blocks are not by any standard worthy of inclusion.
*Information about facilities was cut. While I appreciate the fact that AGS has facilities not found at other state (let alone private) schools, minutiae about facilities probably does not belong in Wikipedia.
*Protection under Historic Places Act 1993: There is no 'A'-grade protection; there is only Cat. I and Cat. II.. Both the AGS and Historic Places Trust sources have been cited.
Section 3 (Zoning)
*This *is* a notable feature of the school, since issues about AGS zoning reach newspapers in other cities, and I've read a lot about AGS through the Dom.
*AGS preferring merit-based placements: I'm pretty sure this is true, but without a source it's been cut, since the original statment was conditional on the source webpage, which does not explicity state preference for merit-based placement (even if the general tone of that source indicates it).
: -- Be careful about retaining the assertion that geographical zones mitigate against access from lower-socioeconomic groups. It seems like it would  (and the school asserts this), but AFAIK one of the reasons that the current NZ zoning scheme was put in place was  that the previous non-geographic scheme had a general trend of making the rich white schools richer and whiter. You'd need to dig into the NZ education research literature for full details. It is certainly  the case that AGS argues that geographical zones mitigate against access from lower-socioeconomic groups. Neil Leslie 21:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've edited the proposal to reflect that its the school's opinion. Mr Bluefin 22:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: So... I still don't get why notable people should not be included in the list of notable old boys just because you have selected 5 of the 'most notable' - have you seen some of the list such as List_of_notable_Old_Carthusians?  I really think you're going over the top. 124.197.21.14 13:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: If there's no objections between now and this time tomorrow, I'll upload the proposed version---its been almost 2 weeks since any comment has taken place on this. Mr Bluefin 09:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Uploaded. Mr Bluefin 09:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new version 

message: Ben Atiga is a famous old boy? Because he played a rugby test? Really! Moriori 22:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Really?

message: In Hong Kong and elsewhere in East and Southeast Asia, it has long been a tradition that once you enter senior school, you are stuck with choosing a pre-selected course of subjects depending on which academic stream you choose.  If you are in the Science stream, in addition to cores like English and Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Computer Studies will be taken while those in the Arts stream must take History, Geography, Latin, and French or Economics in addition to the cores.  Almost all schools do not allow students to pick the options choices subject by subject, which is Auckland Grammar's system of choosing options and the once already in place when I was there (early to mid 1990s).  But I also noticed at that time there were descriptions of students classified under "Sciences and Mathematics" and "Languages and Commerce" for 6A and 7A which could have hinted some legacies of more rigid streaming systems in the earlier years.  Does anyone know if Grammar had ever streamed subject choices a student takes along the lines of Hong Kong or Asian practices? --JNZ 12:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Streaming According to Subjects Chosen st Senior Level?

message: The last references misses -template. Nsaa 23:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add the cite web-template to all references 

message: Can anyone knowledgable of the address of the school add ? It is possible to use Google Maps etc. Nsaa 23:04, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sdding {{{Coord}}}? 

message: In the Auckland_Grammar_School#Controversy_.26_Incidents section, none of the given references was valid. Add a valid references. 80.202.160.203 06:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've found new references for them.-gadfium 09:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you :-) I've upodated the Norwegian article (now completly translated). Nsaa 11:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Valid References 

message: How old are the pupils attending? Are they 9 to 13 years old? or is it 9 to 13 years attending school? Nsaa 11:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They have attended school for 9-13 years. They start at the age of 5 as year 1, so they are 13-17 years old.-gadfium 19:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How old? 

message: I'm a bit confused by the differences between the Herald story  and AGS reporting of the results . The Herald story says:
:Mt Roskill Grammar School
:Scored: Won 71 scholarships - putting the decile four, public school fourth in the country and just two behind the top Auckland school, Auckland Grammar.
I misread this initially as AGS getting two places higher than MRGS, ie second not fourth, but it seems more likely that it means that AGS got 73 scholarships, two more than MRGS. However, AGS says it got 95 scholarships.  says that the results quoted by AGS are provisional.
Can anyone explain why the figures are so different?-gadfium 05:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.-gadfium 20:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NCEA Scholarship

message: The section notable alumni misses sources validating the list of alumnis. This should be added. Especially for a article going from start rated to higher levels. Nsaa (talk) 10:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added them, not sure if a few could be classed as reliable sources (one or two, but i might be wrong). Metagraph  comment 00:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable alumni

message: I've moved the article up to B class, it looks well referenced and almost complete.
1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary.
Has 35 references, i'd recommend using the cite tags for most of them though. Not a requirement for B class however, so this passes.
2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.
Looks pretty complete, can't see alot more that can be added.
3. The article has a defined structure.
Lead looks fine, could use some expansion but its ok for B class.
4. The article is reasonably well written.
All makes sense, no obvious spelling errors and good flow.
5. The article contains supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams, where appropriate.
Plenty of decent quality pictures, infobox is working.
6. The article presents its content in an appropriately accessible way.
Is readable to someone who did not attend the school, makes sense.
After taking this all into consideration, this article more than meets B class criteria. If anyone does have any objections here though, voice your opinions - I could be wrong. Thanks all, MattWT (talk) 06:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  B class 

message: I have upgraded this article to top importance for the school's project. It is one of the top schools in New Zealand and one of the largest schools in the country. The alumni include Russell Crowe and a former president of the United Nations. The school's international importance is testified by the astonishing number of articles on the school in foreign language Wikis. The article has been selected for inclusion in the next Wikipedia DVD release. You should now be aiming to get GA status. Dahliarose (talk) 12:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't dispute your upgrade of the article importance, but the number of foreign language articles is not a good measure. In this case, someone (not me) decided to request translation of the article from people on very many different editions of Wikipedia, and most of those asked did so out of goodwill. This is quite different from many people on other editions deciding independently that this is a highly important article. There does not appear to be any correlation between the language-editions which have articles on the school, and the nationalities of students at the school.-118.93.8.38 (talk) 19:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an interesting observation. I did wonder about the unusually high number of foreign-language translations. In most cases it is a useful measure, though not of course the only one. The top importance rating is however still justified. We didn't previously have any top importance schools from NZ. Are there any other top NZ schools that have also been overlooked? You might be interested to know that the reason this school was picked up was because of the bot assessments for the next Wikipedia DVD release. The bot uses a number of criteria, but seems to give perhaps a particularly high weighting to inter-Wiki links, which is why the school has been selected for the next release. You can see the bot stats here. Dahliarose (talk) 22:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-assess

message: Auckland grammar school currently has a new principal. His name is Sam Putton. Please change the principal's name.--User woxihuanvictor (talk) 06:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you provide a reference for this? When I google that name and the name of the school, I don't find any relevant results. However, I did find this. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  new principal 

message: Just saying that you guys might need me next year since I am transferring to Auckland and my school for next year is going to be this school. I might be able to help for next year :) I'll see you in a couple months time. Typhoon2013 (talk) 10:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Look forward to it! This article is in relatively good shape compared with many other schools articles (!), but there's still plenty of scope for improvement. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just saying... 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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