Talk:Newtown High School of the Performing Arts

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Notable Alumni

Joe, perhaps we should setup some sorta criteria for notable alumni. Otherwise it's going to get a bit long...

Can I suggest some thing like if the person is refernced in a reputable news source (eg, smh) then they are notable. I just don't know if it's worth noting:

Nicholas Brown (graduated 1997) appeared in the TV series The Cooks.

Appeared? Did he star or was a regular. A lot of people have appeared in a TV show, even kids who are still at the high school.

Abe Forsythe (1999) appeared in the TV series Always Greener.

Same comment as above

Tim Judge (1998) and went on to direct A Whole Lot Of Swing About Nothing at the Seymour Centre in 2000.

Show doesn't have any google hits. Was it a particularly notable show?

Martin Penicka (1998) is a casual member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Casual as in...?

Sarah Penicka (1998) has conducted both the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra and the Lane Cove Youth Orchestra. She is currently Musical Director of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir.

Hmmm...notable for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir

Imara Savage (1996) is an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development.

Hey, I know her. There are a lot of Australian Youth Ambassadors

Joe Stella (1998), editor of the school's now-defunct student newspaper Performance Mode, went on to edit Tharunka, the University of New South Wales student newspaper. He has also appeared in the 2004 Theatresports Cranston Cup and a show at the 2005 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Could be considered vanity per the Wikipedia Guidelines.

I think we should be moving towards making this page more expansive with regards to the activies of the schools, and notable achievements. Chanlord 06:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like a reasonable criteria. (Apart for Matthew Taylor, who is a journalist and can't expect to generate much coverage about himself.) I have removed the ones whose achievements have not been the subject of coverage in a major daily newspaper. Joestella 06:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just read the thing about vanity and autobiographies. I can see why you'd have cause for concern. Joestella 06:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Selective High School

While Newtown High is selective it isn't a "Selective High School" in the sense that students don't have to sit and get appropriate marks at the end of Year 6 exams.

From the Selective High Schools page

"This is a list of selective high schools in New South Wales, a state of Australia. In New South Wales, the term "selective high school" refers to a public school where enrolment is contigent on performance in an academically-oriented entrance examination, as opposed to a comprehensive high school, which is typically community-based."

May I suggest a new category: Schools with a focus on the Performing Arts in Australia and include other schools just as Jannali, Campbelltown and other such schools. This category could even be a subcategory of selective, although personally I wouldn't as each school has it's own method of accepting students Chanlord 01:37, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. "Selective high school" in New South Wales has a specific meaning: academically selective high school. Newtown doesn't belong in this category I don't think. enochlau (talk) 01:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia definition of a selective high school is obviously subject to change - it having been written last month by Enoch Lau. Viewed from the point of view of education policy, a list of state-run high schools that accept students on the basis of merit rather than (or in addition to) address is useful to the reader. The DET has divided its information by market segment - parents rarely want to send their child to a school merely on the basis that it selects for something.

The DET categorises its schools as follows: General, Selective High Schools, Technology High Schools, Sports High Schools, Senior High Schools and Colleges, Collegiates, Language Schools and Creative and Performing Arts. While "selective" is the current (and no doubt transient) internal category, it isn't illuminating to the reader and so is a poor basis for creating categories on Wikipedia.

That Campbelltown, Westfields and Newtown are non-academically-selective selective schools provides information about the NSW approach to state education. Indeed, some controversy surrounds the presence of both selective and non-academically-selective selective high schools in the system. In any case, throughout my time at NHSPA, from the auditions through to study, the school always presented itself as "selective". Joestella 02:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Newtown High School of the Performing Arts is NOT a selective high school, where, in New South Wales, entry into a "selective high school" is based on an academic examination sat by Year 6 students towards the end of the year.

Now I'm sure there are many schools across the state that have some sort "entry criteria", academically or otherwise. For instance, Westfields Sports High School in Fairfield, requires students to have excelled in a sport, Northmead High School, Newtown High School and others requires students to have excelled in dramatic arts, I even had to sit an examination for entry in Barker College in Year 3, and I'm sure other Non-Governments schools do the same, but these schools are not selective schools. Only those deemed by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training are considered so. Regards -- Ianblair23 (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I also went to NHSPA and yes, while it does chose most students based on their auditions for Music, Drama and Dance, it isn't a Selective High School not just in the terms of DET classification but also just in terms of the general public and acceptance of what selective high school means. It doesn't make NHSPA any less important or significant, it's just merely not acamdemically selective. I would highly suggested a new category if you so wish: Schools in New South Wales with a focus on the Performing Artsor something similar-Chanlord 02:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeh, perhaps it's time to subcat Category:Schools in New South Wales. enochlau (talk) 02:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than argue any further about the problems of internally-significant categories, I have just created a subcategory based on the DET creative and performing arts high schools internally-significant category. Joestella 03:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that in the normal English-language sense, NHSPA is a selective high school, but the NSW Department of Education uses the term in a more restricted way. The department usage has become to a certain extent the normal usage within NSW, but not completely, and definitely not for people from elsewhere. I think the list of selective high schools should be the list of Department defined selective schools, but I think this is a yet another example of why we shouldn't just label them as "selective high schools". I don't know why I didn't thinkof the selective on non-academic merit issue during the earlier discussion, since I know remember having a very similar discussion about the meaning of "selective high school" with respect to NHSPA about 10 years ago while I was still in Sydney. I'm more and more liking something along the lines of "NSW Selective High Schools". JPD (talk) 10:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]