Template talk:Infobox school

Infobox cleanup

At the moment we are merging {{Infobox UK school}} into {{Infobox school}} (see #talk above). In this process, we meet some other possible improvements (like: deprecate a parameter). Because such a change is not part of the merge process, and because making unrelated changes needlessly complicates the process, these are postponed. They can be discussed and executed later. -DePiep (talk) 10:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

This is good, I was planning to start a discussion on consolidating the proliferation of aliases/synonyms that are currently present which are definitely not needed and will help maintain consistency, will be listing them here. Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Could someone please add the merger information in a conventional hatnote above on this talkpage for background information? PPEMES (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The Merge and Other subsections of Infobox cleanup have been moved to a new Infobox cleanup continued section in order to simplify this section, for further discussion to take place and to allow for the remaining subsections to be expedited first. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:15, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

These two subsections have been moved back here as the Merge subsection is complete and the Other subsection will require further discussion and consensus on what should and shouldn't be done, as it is just for other ideas and issues which can be restarted after the Infobox cleanup is finished. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Rename and delete

Parameters to be renamed and deleted from template code.

I mentioned about consolidating the proliferation of aliases/synonyms that are currently present which are unnecessary, will help maintain consistency and reduce the clutter in the code. Here is the list and there are also some propositions/info on a proposed deletion for one (or more) of the parameters entirely: "delete" means to remove from template code - the difference being the "entirely" one(s) should discussion agree meaning deletion from articles too. The parameters at the end are the main parameters that are currently present and used. This task would be better handled by a bot and Primefac would be my ideal candidate who has an excellent bot for this task and per the previous bot runs we did for Infobox school (some of these were done, but the difference with this one is that it will require going through the entire 30-35,000+ transclusions, should Primefac be up to it) or whoever would be up for doing this with a bot Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

• Rename |streetaddress= and |street= to |address= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |schoolboard= to |school_board= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |educational authority= to |educational_authority= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |religion= to |religious_affiliation= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |schoolnumber= and |number= to |school_number= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |school code= to |school_code= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |campus director= to |campus_director= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |head of school= to |head_of_school= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |number_of_staff= and |number of staff= to |staff= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |num_employ= to |employees= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |age range= to |age_range= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |avg_class_size= and |class= to |average_class_size= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup, with the resulting parameter being |avg_class_size=. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |classes offered= to |classes_offered= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |schedtyp= to |schedule_type= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |campus size= to |campus_size= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |campus type= to |campus_type= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |fightsong= to |fight_song= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |athletics conference, athletic_conference, athletic conference, conference= to |athletics_conference= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup, with the resulting parameter being |athletic_conference=. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |team name= and |teamname= to |team_name= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |testname= to |test_name= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |testaverage= to |test_average= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |bar pass rate= to |bar_pass_rate= and delete

 Not done This was not done, instead these parameters were deleted completely in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |school_roll= to |roll= and delete

 Not done This was not done, instead these parameters were deleted completely in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. See Merge subsection for more information. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |annual tuition= to |annual_tuition= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |ranking= to |USNWR_ranking= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Free text labels:

  |free_1, free_label_1= (For set 1–5): deprecate & softly remove one spelling set. -DePiep (talk) 23:02, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  So keep spelling parameters |free_text1= etc (?, weird long name), that is. Large usage number in both spellings (says TDmer). -DePiep (talk) 23:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  I prefer the Infobox school ones which are |free_label1= and |free_text1=, looks a bit more clearer with text and |free_1= looks weird to me haha. What you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 23:37, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  That is: "What param name do we prefer?" right. I defer for now. Glad to know we agree this is after-merge. -DePiep (talk) 23:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  • Rename |free= to |free_text= and delete
  • Rename |free_1= to |free_text1= and delete
  • Rename |free_2= to |free_text2= and delete
  • Rename |free_3= to |free_text3= and delete
  • Rename |free_4= to |free_text4= and delete
  • Rename |free_5= to |free_text5= and delete
  • Rename |free_label_1= to |free_label1= and delete
  • Rename |free_label_2= to |free_label2= and delete
  • Rename |free_label_3= to |free_label3= and delete
  • Rename |free_label_4= to |free_label4= and delete
  • Rename |free_label_5= to |free_label5= and delete

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Deprecate |LEA= and convert to |local_authority=. There is discussion above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

|LEA= should be deleted completely after renaming it to |local_authority=. After checking the monthly error report, there are 81 uses. Note to those unaware: |LEA= was already available in the Infobox school template before the Infobox UK school merger took place. This parameter in the UK one was already renamed during the bot run that took place after the merger discussion was complete. The remainder are UK articles that were not using Infobox UK school at the time or were manually converted to Infobox school but the parameter was not updated. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Rename |nickname= to |athletic_nickname= and delete - this is used for the athletic nickname of the school, with the parameter being displayed as "Nickname" rather than "Athletic nickname" linking to the athletic nickname article. Both should be changed to avoid ambiguity and to match the corresponding article (I came across articles where this was being used for the nickname of the school in general, however the |other_name, other_names= parameters is for that purpose). Steven (Editor) (talk) 21:13, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

If there's anything I've missed, feel free to add (please maintain styling) and I'll check again too. Thank you Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Previous "Time to consolidate and simplify" section discussion: N/A. Resolved, whole section revamped

Some of this is a duplicate of the "after-merge" section above. Let's discuss after the Infobox UK school merger is done. We only have a couple of parameters left to figure out.

IMHO, the sections for discussing the Infobox UK school merger were much too chaotic to really understand what was going on. This section is another example, in that it duplicates some of the discussion in the after-merge section. Even though it might seem like overkill, I would prefer to have a single subsection for each parameter change/merge proposal. That way, each section could be marked with a status (e.g. "done" or "consensus to merge") so that it would be easier to track where discussion was still needed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:09, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I listed this as a subsection under after-merge but yeah we'll sort all this out after-merge, I just wanted to get these parameters listed. Regarding the sections for discussing the Infobox UK school merger, I see, although I can understand everything that's going on - the main area we need to focus on is the Current, Rename, Delete and Discuss subsections under Overview which is the list of all the parameters in the UK one with discussions about that parameter underneath it. The icons next to it aid in what's being done with that parameter, such as green tick meaning its already present, cross meaning to delete etc. (what each icon means is there below overview). This part isn't chaotic right? Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:55, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Would it be helpful to restructure this talk page to bring things together- some serious cut and pasting. I, too, am finding it difficult to navigate. I just get the feeling that this is not a merger, but an attempt to eliminate fields that were placed in the UK Infobox for very good reasons. Another way would be to tabulate the old UK Infobox fields- with a brief discussion on the decisions made on each one- when consensus was reached and further thoughts. ClemRutter (talk) 08:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

This section is for changes to be made after the Infobox UK school merger is complete. It is a placeholder for now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

The whole section has now been revamped with new subsections. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Delete completely

Parameters to be deleted completely – template code and transclusions.

• |r_head= should be merged with |rel_head=. They both mean "current religious leader / head person". – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree, but I think we should go with |r_head= because it's used in both infoboxes (also the only one in the UK infobox), used slightly more in Infobox school per the monthly error report and I think this looks better and simpler than |rel_head=. What you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:43, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

|Rel_head, rel_head_name= N - this should be deleted completely. After checking the monthly error report, there is only 11 and 12 uses respectively (compared to 408 and 477 for r_head and r_head_label). I was going to change these uses to r_head and r_head_label but they were all being used incorrectly (mainly principal and president, one dean and an assistant headteacher which we don't include) so I've changed them to the equivalent parameters available. This can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:12, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

• Deprecate |box_style=? There is some discussion above. N – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:35, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
• |box_width= N

|box_style= N should be deleted completely, I don't think we need CSS styling for the infobox but after checking the monthly error report, the parameter is not being used at all. |box_width= currently has 22 uses but I don't think there is any need to manually adjust the width of the infobox, the default width is perfect and also because of low-use. But if you have a look at some of the articles that are using this parameter, it looks terrible. What you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |ACT, ACT_year, SAT, SAT_year= N - these parameters were recently deleted, see discussion below. It was removed from template code but requires removal from articles including blank instances. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |administrator= N - is this parameter needed or a different meaning that it should be kept? The principal/headteacher would suffice and also per the school article guidelines and this discussion. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |acting_headteacher= N - is this parameter needed? After checking the monthly error report, only 4 uses; a defunct school, an elementary school where this infobox is used in a locality article and likely to be outdated with no citations, and the other two where there are no acting headteachers present so outdated. Acting headteachers are temporary positions so not really worth having a dedicated parameter and it is against the school article guidelines. If this needs to be displayed until a successor is announced, then the _label parameters can be used instead such as head_label. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |alumni_name= N - is this parameter needed? It was missing in the documentation, not sure why but I added it back in November 2018 after seeing it in the code. After checking the monthly error report, only 14 uses. I think this parameter should be deleted completely in favour of the current alumni parameter that is available. At present, the description for the alumni parameter in the documentation says "Notable alumni of the school (wikilink all names)." - I don't think it is a good idea to list alumni in the infobox, especially when there are schools that have a lot. These are added to a "Notable alumni" section and I think it would be better for this parameter to be used for the name of the school's alumni and linked to this section. If it doesn't have a name, then it should not be used (as is the case with many schools). Also, some schools are already using this parameter for that purpose and it works well. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I have moved the uses above to alumni, this can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 23:15, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• |officer_in_charge= N - is this parameter needed? After checking the monthly error report, only 10 uses after redirecting one to locality. If this position needs to be displayed, the various _label parameters can be used to display this. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I have moved the uses above to head and head_label, this can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:35, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• |key_people= N = I don't think this parameter is needed as we already have many dedicated parameters to describe officials of the school as well as the many _label parameters. There's a 113 uses after checking the monthly error report but many are using this parameter when there is already a dedicated parameter available such as Brighton Grammar School which has founder (mentioned twice as founder parameter is also used) and chairman. I'm happy to go through all these and change them to the relevant parameter(s) and then this can be safely deleted? Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |grade_preK, gradeK, grade1, grade2, grade3, grade4, grade5, grade6, grade7, grade8, grade9, grade10, grade11, grade12, grade13, other, other_grade_label, other_grade_label_1, other_grade_enrollment_1, other_grade_label_2, other_grade_enrollment_2= N - these appear as bullet points and are used to display enrollment by grade? But is this necessary, would the total enrollment not suffice? It seems that these parameters are used mainly for US schools and I've come across many that are not using these, mainly just the enrollment and enrollment_as_of, cited to NCES which reports the total as well as by grade. Also noticed that it is used by school districts which should be using {{Infobox school district}} and that infobox doesn't have these parameters, enrollment is reported on a total basis. I don't see any use in keeping these and makes the infobox look a bit more messy. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |international_students= N - is this parameter needed? Not sure what the purpose of this is for, documentation is just the name of this parameter. But is this for enrolment or to say the school has international students? I don't know, but this parameter seems unnecessary. After checking the monthly error report, only 37 uses and after checking how this is being used, you have "[number] nationalities represented", "None", "Approximately 120", "K-12", "Deepak Zeus 2025", "Yes" ... - don't think there's any worth in keeping this. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |classrooms= N - do we need to mention how many classrooms the school has? This can be easily covered in the body of the article, a facilities section. But is this necessary for the infobox? Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |athletics, sports= N - are these parameters needed? Per the documentation "What type of athletics are held at the school" / "Main sport(s) at the school" "; or Yes or No." Schools tend to provide many athletics / sports and would this not be better covered in the body of the article rather than infobox? If the school has athletics/sports or not, is this necessary? Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

The need for the athletics parameter which can also be applied to the sports parameter was raised by another editor in 2014, who deemed it as "somewhat unnecessary". Steven (Editor) (talk) 21:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• |products= N - is this parameter needed? It is displayed as "Key products". Do we need to mention per the documentation "any products the school produces"? Let's not forget the free labels that could be used instead to provide this information and after checking the monthly error report, only 7 uses. After checking these uses, it doesn't look like it's being used correctly. I don't think it is worth keeping this and because of low use. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |information= N - surely this parameter is not needed? The infobox has a lot of parameters and free labels, exactly what other information could be provided with this parameter? The documentation says "Information (do not enter phone numbers or email addresses)." - after checking the monthly error report, 801 uses but after clicking on random ones from the list, it seems that it is mainly being used to display a phone number. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• |mascot_image= N - I don't see any value in keeping this parameter. If a mascot image is needed and if it is suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia, then it can be simply incorporated into the body of the article. Also per this discussion. Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

• |years taught, years_taught= N
  • |nursery years taught, nursery_years_taught= N
  • |primary years taught, primary_years_taught= N
  • |secondary years taught, secondary_years_taught= N

Are these three parameters necessary to keep? When filled in, they appear as a bulleted list under "Years taught" or individually if |years_taught= is not used. Will |years_taught= not suffice? Are we being too detailed here? Low usage too per the monthly error report: 3, 2 and 22 respectively. I think these should be deleted and if you agree, I think the best way of handling this would be to go through the articles using these and manually move the information (if filled in right) to |years_taught=, which I'm happy to do. It can then be deleted from the code and blank instances removed via bot

These parameters no longer require renaming. Per what I've said above, I have gone through the articles using these and instead of manually moving the information (if filled in right) to years_taught, I've moved them to grades and grades_label (label used where necessary, and an example of misuse was a U.S. school that was using years_taught when it should be using grades) in line with other schools, as they are redundant to these parameters. These can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:11, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• |main feeder schools, feeders, feeder_schools, main feeder school for, feeder_to= N

Schools have feeder schools and feed to other schools — some will have many. These are better kept in the body of article, it is too much clutter to mention them all in the infobox. Having checked the parameter usage report, they are either linked to schools or plain text only. Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:28, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• |us_nces_district_id= N - this parameter is not needed as we already have us_nces_school_id which provides a link to the school's page on NCES. This page also provides a link to the school's district page on NCES. Noting us_nces_district_id is available on Infobox school district. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:14, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• |years= N - ? this parameter is the same issue as the years taught above, and not needed as we already have grades which can be overridden using grades_label. The grades_label is already being used for years and after checking the parameter usage report, there are 337 uses. I will go through these and rename them (if filled in correctly). Steven (Editor) (talk) 06:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• |decile= N - this parameter is not needed as it was used for the socioeconomic decile of a school in New Zealand, however this key measure of socioeconomic status was replaced by a new system called Equity Index in January 2023. I recommend for a separate discussion to take place at a later time on whether a new Equity Index parameter should be added to the infobox, or if this information would be better covered in the body of the article. Steven (Editor) (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• |hours_in_day= N - is this necessary to provide the hours of the school day? Also per WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI: "Trivia which is only of interest to pupils in the school (such as school timetables, bell schedules, class-by-class rules, daily lunch menus, location of the toilets, or a room-by-room description of the school facilities)". Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:51, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• |city/town= N - this parameter is not needed and is an alias of the interchangeable |city, town= parameters. After checking the monthly parameter usage report, only 9 uses compared to 29,236 for the latter; I have gone through the articles using this and changed it where appropriate. This can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:13, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

• |schooltype, fundingtype= N - these parameters are redundant to the |type= parameter and per this proposal. After checking the monthly parameter usage report, |type= has a high use of 27,057 compared to 7,515 for |schooltype= and 1,872 for |fundingtype=. Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Delete completely comments

• Agree with the delete completely ones: I support deletion of ACT/SAT as the fields change every year and are, for most people, too much to maintain. Acting principal/headteacher IMO is unnecessary - just put the acting principal/headteacher in the article. I also agree with deleting the alumni name field as that's best handled in the article text. The others I see don't need to be in the infobox. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

• I disagree with deleting the "years" field. "Grades" means academic achievement ie A-E in New Zealand (I think it's A-F in the US), so the infobox becomes rather counter-intuitive if we need to use "grades" to mean years.-gadfium 07:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi gadfium, I see what you mean, but grades is not for academic achievement but for the years the school offers. The US does not use this parameter for A–F, instead grades is used for K–12 or 9–12 for example (please see these pages). So that’s why years is redundant as you can use grades_label. Hope this clears things up, Steven (Editor) (talk) 09:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I understand that's what it's for, but it's a confusing term for those of us who have a different meaning of "grades". Why not allow a synonym? Also, by allowing "years" there should be no need to specify "grades_label=Years". I think WP:ENGVAR applies here. We allow "principal", "headmaster", "headmistress", "rector" etc, although each of these could be replaced by "head" and "head_label".-gadfium 17:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

gadfium, I'm British and we use years here, I don't find this confusing, but then again it's different for everyone. Grades is used on 21,000+ with grades_label being used on 2,000+ which includes 664 for years. Whereas, the individual years parameter is being used on 337. Do you still think we should keep years? We do need to simplify and consolidate parameters, there are far too many head position parameters in the infobox — principal and head has to be kept, this is used on a whopping 20,000+ and 6,000+ respectively. It's the others we need to consolidate on, for example there are 4 additional principal parameters each with labels. I don't understand why we have this many, only the top position should be mentioned in the infobox such as principal/headteacher/president/director. Chairman and chairperson which both have labels is redundant to the chair and chair_label. Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:55, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Merge

Parameters to be merged with another parameter.

• |medium= mediums= medium_of_language= medium of language==: four synonyms, and no warning for double-use. -DePiep (talk) 10:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

There is also |language=, which is documented as having the same function as |medium=. These two parameters should probably be merged into one. Also, "medium of language" does not make sense to me; is it standard in British English? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:26, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

|medium, mediums, medium of language= should be renamed to |medium_of_language= and deleted. A small discussion was bought up on the naming of this parameter with it being called "Medium of language"; see here. Note that Wikipedia has a dedicated article titled "Medium of instruction". Perhaps we opt for changing the display title to simply "Medium" or "Medium of instruction" (possibly linked to its dedicated article) and change all the respective parameters to |medium= or a new parameter, |medium_of_instruction=? The |language= parameter should be merged with it and deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC) –Updated, Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

These parameters have been merged and resulted in duplicate parameters — I have sorted them all, and the overall aim is to remove the aliases and have only one. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup, with the resulting parameter being |language=. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• |colo(u)rs= should be merged with |school_colo(u)rs=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Currently used in {{Infobox school}}: |colors, colors, colours= and |school_colors, schoolcolors, school_colors, school_colours, schoolcolours= (check me)

Also, we could consider making plural 'colors' default, and add option |color= etc for singular (exceptional, right?). labeltext should be plural by default. Deprecate all "school"-prefixes: this is infobox school alteasy, duh.

Preferred result: prefered params are |color, colour= (sing) and |colors, colours= (plu, default) -DePiep (talk) 23:31, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I think all variations/unnecessary aliases for the colors/colours should be removed leaving only current interchangeable |colors/colours= which has high use and no need for singular ones because these are already displayed in the infobox as "Color(s)" / "Colour(s)", which should suffice right? Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:18, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

These parameters have been merged and resulted in duplicate parameters — I have sorted them all, and the overall aim is to remove the aliases and have only one (interchangeable colors/colours). Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• |enrollment= should be merged with |school_roll= and |students=. They all mean "number of students enrolled in the school". The term "school roll" appears to be used most often in New Zealand – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

|roll= should be merged with the |enrolment, enrollment, students, pupils= variation parameters (as suggested above by Jonesey95 but using |roll= (already an alias/synonym and displayed as "School roll" in the infobox) instead of |school_roll= as this will fit in liaison with the naming convention of the enrolment variation parameters. An equivalent |roll_as_of= should also be added (the majority of the schools using this parameter have the year, but with the use of brackets added manually which does not follow with current formatting of the other enrolment parameters) Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

These parameters have been merged and resulted in duplicate parameters — I have sorted them all. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

* All variation parameters have been renamed and deleted completely in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup, resulting in |enrolment, enrollment, enrolment_as_of, enrollment_as_of=. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Merge parameters |homepage=, |url=, and |website= into a single parameter with two aliases. I think this is ready to happen, based on the zero pages in Category:Pages using infobox school with multiple external links. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:29, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Would it be better if |homepage= and |url= is renamed to |website= and then deleted? There could be a problem for this however as some articles have either two or three of these, but homepage and url should be deprecated in favour of website. There is an issue, if two or three of these are used, the template does not produce a warning with "Using more than one of the following parameters and only one is displayed. So merging the parameters would solve this. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

These parameters have already been merged, and the overall aim is to remove the aliases and have only one (website). Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done This was done in the January 2026 Parameter cleanup. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

• Primefac, about your recent changes "combine established, founded, and opened", did you assume that these were redundant. I have been finding cases where multiples are intentionally used. For example, there are charter schools that received a charter (hense established) in one year but were not ready to open to students until a future date. If you meant for only the most important date (and I'm not sure which one that would be) to be displayed, was there any discussion. I found another one where the school was "established" in the 18th century but the "opened" field was being used for the 20th century building.

Also, established displays with the Established label, but opened and founded date are floating with no label. Is this a mistake? MB 01:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

The change was requested by Steven (Editor), and based on previous requests I assumed this was uncontroversial. Should I revert? In the meantime I've fixed the #if statement for founded and opened, had too many pipes. Primefac (talk) 01:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Primefac, This is minor, let's wait for S(E) to respond. MB 02:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

They mean the same thing and for some reason were not aliases of each other. Where in the documentation does it say that's how these parameters work? I've come across many where the same date was being used. Here's a discussion back in 2017. Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:24, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Can I hook on the problem of refactoring which occurs when a UK school changes from one Multi-academy trust to another, or indeed from an LEA to a MAT. In the Harris Federation there are 28 All-through and Secondary Schools- but only maybe five are new schools, the rest have refactored voluntarily, or forced to whwn being failed by Ofsted. Refactoring usually means mass staff resignations, and all the certainties about the school being ripped up. Mostly editors enter the date that Ofsted says the school was founded (the date of refactoring) and all previous history is lost. Against the trend, Stationers' Crown Woods Academy took on its new name (refactored ) in 2014 which is not in the infobox, while the date of establishment is retained. |Refactored= is not a common word so the caption may also need to be overwritten |Refactored_label=- on that I have no strong views.ClemRutter (talk) 09:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Merge comments

• Support all template merges — Preceding unsigned comment added by WhisperToMe (talk • contribs) 20:14, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Other

Other ideas and issues.

• Add |pupil_name=: "Etonian" for Eton College. -DePiep (talk) 10:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I think the proper term might be |demonym=, as is used in {{Infobox settlement}}. See demonym. (I could be wrong, though; demonym may only apply to residents or natives of a given place, not alumni of a school. More research may be needed.) – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:24, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

My suggestion is to add this option. Yes indeed exact parameter name is open. -DePiep (talk) 20:46, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Not formally opposing but I do object when we use an child care facility for the obscenely privileged as an example. We have two example schools- we should stick firstly to those. Then we could look at St John Fisher Catholic Voluntary Academy (taken at random) as a more representative institution. (Within the Catholic sector- yes we do have one a more needy field is diocese! ) Why is a nickname seen as infobox material? Have a look as NUAST- the infobox there is awful. That is a school- what are you going to call the alumni (apart from Survivors (POV) )?ClemRutter (talk) 18:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

If you're referring to the name of the school's alumni, there is an alumni parameter which would suffice and some schools are already using it for this purpose, including Eton College. There is also alumni_name but I've suggested for this to be deleted completely (see delete completely section above). Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

• Deal with |dfeno= if it is still around after the merge. See discussion above that resulted in no consensus to delete or keep it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:35, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Add |LAESTAB= as an alias of |dfeno=? See discussion above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Find a way to support "MAT" "Executive headteacher", perhaps in existing fields. See discussion above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Not needed as there is |trust= and |executive_headteacher=. A possible UID parameter to identify the trust was mentioned but to be discussed. Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• Consider using {{Engvar}}: allow one parameter to set engvar (en-GB, en-UK), and behave infobox spelling WP:ENGVAR consistently. -DePiep (talk) 23:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Figure out what |specialist= is for and possibly give it a less engvar-specific label and description. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:34, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Reading Carlton le Willows Academy, which is about to go GAC, you will see that Specialism refers to Specialist schools programme. There are residual effects of this programme, but whether we need a field is dubious. Carlton le Willows Academy is a useful article that traces recent history, and is well linked. The Judd School (FA) is non typical, being in Kent, remaining a VA school and selective, and having avoided initiatives designed to form academies, specialist schools and trusts. SSAT (The Schools Network) is useful too --ClemRutter (talk) 00:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

• Limit deprecated parameter check to article space. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:24, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
• When coordinates use |display=title, the word "Coordinates" displays in the template with no coordinates after it. See Conestoga High School for a current example. We fixed this problem on multiple templates during the Wikipedia:Coordinates in infoboxes project; I don't remember how, but the answer is probably on the project's talk page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:10, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support |publications= in addition to |publication=, to parallel |founders= and similar parameters? – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:33, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: One thing I would like have addressed are schools with multiple campuses (currently I use the "address field" and
  for each address), or schools with one campus that has two or more addresses (Instituto Privado Argentino-Japonés) has a single building with two entrances, each with its own address. Also specifying the address of the administration building (if it's a multi-campus school) might be something that helps too. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:26, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
• Could "alumni" variable perhaps ink to Old boy network? PPEMES (talk) 18:00, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi PPEMES, are you suggesting for alumni to be interchangeable with Old boy network or for it to link to that article? The addition of an alumni_label would be the best option to do this, which will allow for any other custom names and linking. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:03, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

• Could a grades label option be added for the enrollment grades? Also, I think the label "Student to teacher ratio" should be renamed Student–teacher ratio in accordance with the page.17jiangz1 (talk) 20:53, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Conflicting parameters...

Given the massive number of pages in Category:Pages using infobox school with conflicting parameters (5) I think we may need to address one more param combination. Currently |schooltype= and |fundingtype= conflict... These seem like two different things to me. Any objection to separating them into 2 separate lines so they don't conflict? Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:54, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Strike that... Upon review this is just a typo! These parameters are NOT infact conflicting... I have fixed the call. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 04:00, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: I saw your edit here and—for my edification—want to make sure I understand the reasons it. I checked the template documentation, but don't feel that justifies your change. In fact, |type= is still in the full parameter lists. The Parameters section goes into a little more detail, but still makes |type= and |schooltype= sound nearly the same:

Parameter	Description
schooltype	Type of school. If entered with funding type or type, will display as funding type, schooltype or type schooltype.
fundingtype	Funding type of the school. If an article on "fundingtype school" exists, will automatically be linked to it.
type	Type of school; overridden by fundingtype.

What am I missing? And what the hell does will display as type schooltype mean? Is |type= deprecated in favor of |schooltype= and |fundingtype=? At a minimum, I feel the documentation should be updated. I don't think a series of semi-automated or scripted edits should go against what the documentation shows is a nominal transclusion. — voidxor 19:07, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to remove schooltype and fundingtype parameters

I am proposing for |schooltype, fundingtype= parameters to be deleted completely as it is redundant to the |type= parameter. I was going to add these parameters to the Delete completely subsection of Infobox cleanup and have the discussion there, but as there is some discussion about these parameters here, I may as well discuss it here and then add these parameters to the subsection, which will also help for the purposes of consensus and larger discussion. After checking the parameter usage report, |type= has a high use of 27,125 compared to 1,877 for |fundingtype= and 7,535 for |schooltype=,

These parameters work in conjunction with each other and as the documentation is not fully clear on how these two parameters work, I had to do my own testing using the "Show preview" button in a random school article to see how this works. The |schooltype= is used for the type of school and |fundingtype= is used for how the school is funded, and if |schooltype= is filled in only, it would appear as "School type" and if |fundingtype= is filled in only, it would appear as "Funding type". However, if both are filled in, it would appear as "School type",

The documentation says "If an article on "fundingtype school" exists, will automatically be linked to it"; upon testing, this automatic linking will only happen if both are filled in but here is where things get interesting:

• |schooltype=High school, |fundingtype=State → State High school (State written without "school" is automatically linked to State school, does not add a separation by comma)
• |schooltype=High school, |fundingtype=State school → State school, High school (State written with "school" does not automatically link to State school, adds a separation by comma)

This seems to be somewhat of an unnecessary complexity at least for the average user, and given the funding and type are already provided together in the |type= parameter for the majority of the schools (high use) where links and separation by commas are added manually (like we do for all the other parameters), I don't see any worth in keeping |schooltype, fundingtype= and should therefore be removed. This will help towards consolidating parameters in the infobox, make things easier and allow for customisation. Steven (Editor) (talk) 10:27, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support: If it is an infobox school, the assumption is there that "type" would be the type of the school. WhisperToMe (talk) 11:30, 31 March 2026 (UTC)
• Support: As I commented above, I couldn't make heads or tails of the convoluted behavior of these three parameters. The documentation is no help, defining two of the three as "type of school". I appreciate Steven (Editor)'s testing. If he has the time and motivation of consolidate parameters, then I'm all for it. Conversely, if somebody can explain how |schooltype= and |fundingtype= are supposed to be for different things, then speak now and perhaps we can retain two of the three parameters instead of one of the three. The documentation needs concrete examples though, like where "Public" or "Private" should go. — voidxor 15:42, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

  And per my previous comment above, nobody should be making mass edits to switch which parameter is used until a) this discussion closes and b) they can justify why one parameter needs to be swapped for another when the template documentation defines them the same way. I asked for an explanation and did not receive a reply. — voidxor 15:47, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support: In addition, as some others have mentioned, the documentation needs more clarity for what "type" is actually specifying as some pages have public/private, Catholic school, college prep school, secondary school, high school, coeducational, and more there. I've typically just put "public" or "private" there, but there's nothing that specifically limits other "types". --JonRidinger (talk) 17:30, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

  Exactly, "school type" could mean different things. Public/private is one variable, but then there's also "elementary", "middle", "junior high", "high", etc. — voidxor 17:54, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: @Steven (Editor): Your proposal has been open for well over a week, with a seemingly unanimous result. I went to WP:CR to request a closure, but the instructions say In discussions where consensus is entirely clear to everyone involved, there is no need for a formal close: just go ahead and implement the decision! — voidxor 14:02, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

  Hi WhisperToMe, voidxor and JonRidinger Apologies for my late reply (life got in the way also), but I'm glad to see the outcome of this proposal that is indeed a seemingly unanimous result. On 19 April 2026, I removed |schooltype= and |fundingtype= parameters from the documentation pending removal from code to prevent further use, and I marked them as deprecated in the TemplateData. Today I have gone ahead and added these parameters to the Delete completely subsection of Infobox cleanup where it will eventually be removed alongside the other parameters listed there for removal (do provide some comments there if you can),

  In the meantime, if you come across any articles using these parameters please do change them to |type= which will certainly help with the cleanup, and a discussion will take place after the parameters are removed from the code on how to define the |type= parameter (unless someone wants to start that discussion earlier), given the valid concerns raised,

  I do know however instances such as "Christian school" or "co-educational" should not be in the |type= parameter due to the dedicated parameters (|religious_affiliation, gender=) available for that data, otherwise we would end up with unnecessary duplication in the infobox (the same can be said for other potential instances where a dedicated parameter exists). Thank you all for providing your comments :) Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

  Glad to hear it! I've changed to |type= at Piper High School (Kansas), which is the transclusion that brought me here. — voidxor 20:00, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

  Also, your advice concerning "Christian" and "co-educational" is helpful. I've added it to the parameter details in the template documentation. — voidxor 20:16, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks voidxor and you forgot to remove |fundingtype= from that article which I fixed :) Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:18, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Wrong location being displayed?

Please see this discussion. The template appears to be displaying the wrong location, even if it has the right location. Explain? Correct? --Hammersoft (talk) 11:46, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikidata had a link to an OpenStreetMap relation of the location in Michigan. I've since removed it. Seems like some caches just need to purge. phuzion (talk) 18:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Associate Principals

Should associate principals be included in the infobox (using the additional principal parameters) if one exists? In some schools, they are under the (head) principal but above the assistant principals. OfTheUsername (talk) 22:15, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

My understanding is only the principal should be listed. The more staff listed, the easier it is for the article to quickly become outdated. Like assistant principals, associate principals likely change more frequently. In all honesty, we could even do without the principal for most high schools and it wouldn't really affect the quality of the articles, but that's a discussion for another time, if ever. Outside the principal, the only other person I've seen listed consistently for a high school is a president, which has typically been for private schools. --JonRidinger (talk) 00:09, 15 June 2026 (UTC)