Talk:St Saviour's Grammar School

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Comments[edit]

Regarding the categorization of this article: This article initially began as an article solely on St.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:John_Spottiswoode Saviour's Grammar School which is indeed a "defunct" school, but gradually was expanded to overlap with the history of it's two related progeny, "St. Olave's and St. Saviour's Grammar School" and "St. Saviour's and St. Olave's Church of England School for Girls" both of which exist today. St. Olave's has it's own article but the girls school at present does not which accounts for the inclusion of the girls school history in the present article. Ideally, since the girls school is not defunct, it would have it's own article in a different category. I believe the best category for the current article, however, remains "Defunct schools in the United Kingdom", since the central focus is the original St. Saviour's Grammar School. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.211.160.1 (talk) 18:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Totally disagree: the Boys school and the girls school are not 'related progeny'. Why is there a category of 'defunct' schools anyway? It was a 'Grammar School' quite independent of St Olave's from 1903 to the abolition of the selective status by ILEA in the late 1960s. It was not the 'Girls school of the Boys School' as in other foundations. The School Governors are made up of local residents but more notably also of representatives of Oxford, Cambridge and London Universities, the St Thomas and the Guy's special trustees, the SSSO Foundation and the Dulwich foundation. The SOSS Foundation is the endowment body and distinct from the Schools, its main beneficiary are the Schools. There is complete continuity between the St Saviour's schools all that happened was that it ceased to be a 'Grammar' because of ILEA reorganisation ie the rules of admission and selection were changed. So this article should show how the Grammar School and the 'Aided' CofE school are the same institution. The distinction is organisational not legal. Furthermore future reorganisation as a 'selective' 'academy' would recreate the arrangement we know as 'Grammar'. So the status of Grammar is defunct but not the School. I suggest that the introductory para be rewritten to reflect this continuity be put back. 79.75.50.148 (talk) 10:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Tony S[reply]

The previous points are well-taken. The evolution of the schools makes the current article problematic to categorize. The fact is two distinct historical Grammar Schools merged foundations in 1896, creating first the boys school and later, in 1903, the girls school. The present article began its life as a short essay on the original St. Saviour's Grammar School prior to the merger -- a part of history that was not covered by the pre-existing Wikipedia article on St. Olave's and St. Saviour's Grammar School in Orpington. By that logic, it seems appropriate for there to be created an article on the girls school, rich in detail and paralleling the article on St. Olave's, hyperlinked to the current article. The previous comments suggested that the distinction between the original St. Saviour's and the current girls school is artificial and that they should be considered a single continuum. However, that tends to ignore the shared history with the current St. Olave's boys school. In one sense the two current schools (boys and girls) could be considered 'Siamese twins' joined at the historical foundation. As such, an alternative would be to have one very large master article on "St. Olave's and St. Saviour's Schools Foundation" which would include the history of the original two Grammar schools from the 1500's, right up to the merger and beyond into the history of the two existing schools today. In that form it could be considered an essay based upon and updating the book "Two Schools" by R. C. Carrington, published by the St. Olave's and St. Saviour's Grammar School Foundation. While this is certainly possible, it would make a very long article, and I can't help but wonder if the readership is better served with the separate articles that link to one another in a logical manner. Furthermore, I suspect that there would be supporters of each of the current girls and boys schools that may feel their institutions are best described in articles separate from one another (just speculating). It would also make the separate articles easier to categorize. To me, a critical point to consider is whether the current St. Olave's boys school is considered to have a significant historical link to St. Saviour's -- if the answer is no (which is suggested by the fact that their current website makes no mention of the longer joint name), then it's fine to relegate the name 'St. Saviour's', and a single article, to the continuum of history between the original school and the girls school -- if the answer is yes, however (that the current St. Olave's owes part of its heritage to St. Saviour's), then it is appropriate to have a separate article on the schools' shared history linked to separate articles on the 2 modern schools diverging paths. It would be helpful to know the current foundation's view on this; it should also be pointed out that the original St. Saviour's foundation stone for whatever reason was stored at St. Olave's boys school, not at St. Saviour's and St. Olave's girls school. Nfranke (talk) 17:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Nfranke - As a Governor of the Foundation I can assure you that the full titles of both schools are used all of the time internally. If my predecessors had decided to rename the Boys school St O's and the Girls school St S, (the Foundation of both being StOStS)would you then have approached the issue this way? A further complication is that we administer a distinct separate Charity distributed in Southwark for local educational needs which is named the SOSS Foundation Fund. We appoint representative Governors to both schools Governing Bodies. The Clerk of the Foundation is also the Clerk to the two schools governing bodies. The two schools are ultimately one institution which is why Carrington, who was head of the Boys school from 1937 until after the move to Orpington, treated his history that way. If you want to divide up as separate interlinked articles as you propose, then do so. However, I would point out that the principal charitable non-endowment income of both schools derives from the St Saviour connection (Edward Alleyn and the Dulwich Estate), that the foundation date of the Girls School is taken as that of St Saviour's and I pointed out above that there is clear legal continuity between them. There is a statue of Queen Elizabeth at New Kent Road and also one of St Olave, perhaps from the StO building of 1855. Just why the foundation stone never went to New Kent Road is not clear but one reason is that it was to demonstrate the boys school is in full SOSS. 79.75.50.148 (talk) 21:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC) Tony S[reply]

A charity foundation is not a school. It seems to me that the matter of the relationships between the schools is clear cut. St Saviour's was amalgamated with St Olave's in 1896 and continues to exist in amalgamated form in St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School. In that sense it is not a defunct school. The girls school, St. Saviour's and St. Olave's Grammar School for Girls, was a completely new school created in 1903. It was not a transformation of the original St Saviour's Grammar School.

Confusion has been created by the tendency to shorten the names of the boys' and girls' schools in informal references to them, but this does not change their official names. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that St. Olave's and St. Saviour's Grammar School has recently begun referring to itself on its own web pages as just St. Olave's Grammar School. Perhaps this will change with a new headmaster, or perhaps there is an intention to formally rename the school. Whatever happens, it does not alter the fact that the current boys' school, whatever name it chooses, was created through an amalgamation of two boys' schools, St Olave's and St Saviour's. --Pavlos Andronikos (talk) 14:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have tackled the confusion discussed above by moving all text relating to the girls' school (from 1903 to the present day) into the stub St Saviour's and St Olave's Church of England School and keeping this page as an article on the ancient boys' school only, with a hatnote leading to the girls' school. Moonraker (talk) 03:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]