Talk:Berkhamsted School

Motto's section written like an advert

Please alter the mottos section as calling the school's motto "a remarkably forward-thinking ideology for a British public school" is incredibly biast. At least cite some sources as to why it is so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.164.81.12 (talk) 19:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Written Like an advert

The school mottos section is written like an advert as is some of the rest of the article, please rewrite it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.164.81.12 (talk) 17:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Assess

< 200 school articles this good. Well done. See Schools project to get in the top 10 in the world. Victuallers 14:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Folks at 137 (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

---

The image is on the speedy delete list as it has no source or copyright info, thats whu it was removed from the article. Before reinstating it fix that. Or take another (free) picture. Justinc 01:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite of 10th March

I intend to flesh out this article further with details of the School's history and its current activities. I felt a rewrite was appropriate to clarify the nature of the School's constitution and to allow for expansion under certain categories. Perhaps notable Old Berkhamstedians should come above the list of Headmasters, as the latter is rather long and the former more interesting!

--James 15:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Imperative

Note to myself: imperative should be imperative--James 10:57, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Heads of School privileges

• The Head Boy is supposedly entitled to graze a goat on the Grass Quad, smoke a pipe during lessons and park his car on School grounds. Marriage of the Head Boy and Head Girl is said to result in a house being purchased for them by the School.

As a Berkhamsted student myself, I can't agree that this is a "schoolboy joke", but understand that it might be deemed unreliable. Writing it, I purposefully included "supposedly" to indicate this. Perhaps other could give their opinions.--James 11:30, 1 June 20Source]].06 (UTC)

I edited it out on the basis that while this may be a fact (or rumour) known to you personally, it's not externally sourced. MichaelMaggs 12:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The goat grazing rule was known to the pupils back in the late 80's. 195.153.160.240 10:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Michael, the rumours about the head boy's privileges are so widely known (by more or less every senior school pupil, and certainly every pupil in sixth form) that, true or not, they should be included in the article. The fact that it is not given any citations is that by its nature as a rumour, it is unlikely to be written anywhere linkable. Incidentally, on top of the priveleges listed above, I'd always heard that the head boy is the only pupil allowed to grow a beard... --RaphaelBriand (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

True or not, Wikipedia accepts only material that is recorded in some externally reliable source. It's important to understand that the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: see WP:SOURCE. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah ok --RaphaelBriand 23:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

No, not ok - completely disagree. Other atricles, thousands of them, are allowed to have sections dedicated to useful, truthful facts. It is one of the great and most interesting things about encyclopedias such as Wikipedia. its quality will degrade horribly if people get ultra OCD about citing references for every sentence. Do you want me to go and make a website saying this stuff its true, and then cite it as a reference to it just so i'm allowed to put up this info that we all know is true anyway? Or not, because that would be rather stupid. But it's pretty much what your saying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.255.181 (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Walking on the Quad

Article states that "Only prefects and Masters are permitted to walk on the Grass Quad". Not true. Only masters (change to "teachers"?) and THE HEAD BOY are allowed. The only head boy privilege (see above) actually enforced/genuine. --RaphaelBriand (talk) 22:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

WPHERTS ratings

There are proposed improvements on todo list: the shortage of citations is a particular weakness. Hence "start" rating on WPHERTS. Folks at 137 (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Emma Fielding

Her own article says that she was born in 1966, and this one says 1971. Which is true? --RaphaelBriand (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Stop It

Why do Wikipedia moderators keep changing this atricle saying information is wrong, when they don't even go to this school and don't know anything about it? The concept of century old traditions e.g. an old rule saying you can graze a goat on the quad if you are head boy (an actual rule lasting from medieval times) might seem odd to an ignorant american guy who knows only modern schools, but that doesent mean that such ignorance should be allowed to infiltrate this article. The removed material i'm refering to should be restored - and if there are any further complaints about its inlusion in existing paragraphs then I suggest a new 'trivia' section is made - thousands of wikipedia articles are allowed to have such sections and I fail to see why relevant, interesting and true information should be deleted from ours. It's a perfectly reasonable request. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.255.181 (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

More info still required

The current version seems to omit most of the 20th century history of the two schools. Obvious questions include:

• The "History of Berkhamsted School, 1541-1996" section stops in the eighteenth century. What happened next?
• The original girls' school existed for c. 109 years before the merger. How was it organised? What age did pupils start? Didn't it have a motto? What was special about it?
• For both schools, were they originally mainly day schools or boarding schools? Were they academically successful? Did they have any other notable characteristics?
• What was the reason for the merger? When the schools merged, what changed? Is the merged school more/less academically successful than the original schools? What are the current fees and GCSE/A level/University Entrance rankings?

- Pointillist (talk) 00:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Lots of unsourced text/Page written like advert

Need to add sources or remove it. Also re-write many parts that are advertisement like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ConfusedSquid (talk • contribs) 21:04, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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William Pitkin

The Berkhamsted School#Shorter tenures asserts that Hunt's successor, William Pitkin, was not quite the academic of former Berkhamsted days. Yet he was clearly a prominent member of local society, having served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Berkhamsted, and whose descendants included a member of the U.S. Supreme Court and Oliver Wolcott, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

No source is cited for the whole section, and the claim is at best dubious. There has never been a constituency called "Berkhamsted", and I can find no trace of anyone named "Pitkin" ever sitting in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom or it predecessors at Westminster: a search of the History Parliament website lists no MPs named Pitkin.

I haven't removed this for now, because I wonder how much else of this poorly-sourced article is fictional? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:08, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, BrownHairedGirl, the sourcing is very poor, and I was about to suggest a slash and burn, but then came across this entry on Wikitree - not an RS, but its source does appear to check out, with mention of the school at least. Not sure about being an MP - that sounds a bit sus. (I'm on a very slow tablet now so haven't dug deeper - but this does suggest that it's not total fiction, at least!) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Good work, @Laterthanyouthink. With that sort of page, it's hard to tell whether it's an unreferenced derivation of a reliable source, or some flaky user-generated hearsay which got replicated. But either way, it mentions him being headmaster, but does not mention him being an MP or an ancestor of those notable Americans.

So I am still leaning towards slash-and-burn. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I've just got onto the computer to look at the plain text version of the source, here, and if you search for this bit: "Rev. William Pitkin vras Master of the Grammar School of Berkhamstead in 1636, and later" (sic), it does mention Parliament and a few sources... BUT I then wandered deeper into genealogical territory (hitting "Thirteenth Generation" along the way, which I think is the headmaster's father). The line of descent does seem to check out on both Wikitree and Geni.com, down through a series of Williams (after the headmaster's son William went to America) to this William Pitkin, and I saw passing mention of a Wolcott. I did just hit this as I was about to give up: Old Berkhamstedian 2020 find Pitkin or look at page 24. It seems they named a house in the school after him. Looking at the Wikitree records, I think that somewhere along the way someone has confused father and son with the headmastership, not well sourced). I'm thinking the father, as mentioned in the "Thirteenth Generation" source, was "Bailiff, Justice of the Peace, and Member of Parliament in 1636", while his son was headmaster and minister. But I don't want to go down that genealogy rabbit hole - I had enough of that a few years ago, when I was doing my own! Feel free to slash away at anything that is not easily available as an RS - and I don't think it's necessary to mention the descendants anyway. :-) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:41, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Laterthanyouthink, William Pitkin is mentioned as being Master in about 1636 on p75 of the VCH for Hertfordshire. But there's nothing there about his descendants so that bit, at least, should go. The entire history could be improved hugely if someone has the the time to compare it to the VCH account. MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:01, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I have a book called A Short History of Berkhamsted, by Percy Birchnell. Of that period he comments "There was a procession of masters, none of whom stayed long or achieved anything of note". MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah, yes, MichaelMaggs - that looks like a good source. Most of the list of headmasters at the bottom of the article (at least up to 1902, when the VCH was published) could probably be sourced to that one. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:44, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 December 2023

The current head of Fry's house is Clare Tan. Andrew Harker has been 'retired' as the head of Fry's house. Same with Loxwood, the current head is now Danielle Wates. Martin Middleton has retired.

I am a current Berkhamsted Student so my sources will be reliable. There is also a change with a Girl School head of house, which I do not remember. Mosesman015 (talk) 19:16, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. "Yourself" is not a reliable source. Liu1126 (talk) 20:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Two

There seem to be two men with the same name, Alan Goldberg. 2A00:23C4:7C8F:A400:A821:E105:5BF6:EE63 (talk) 14:55, 2 March 2024 (UTC)