Tag:amenity=school

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Public-images-osm logo.svg amenity = school
Stąporków, Szkoła Podstawowa nr 2.jpg
Description
A primary or secondary school (pupils typically aged 6 to 18). Show/edit corresponding data item.
Rendering in OSM Carto node
Rendering-amenity-school.png
Rendering in OSM Carto area
Rendering-area-amenity-school.png
Group: education
Used on these elements
may be used on nodesshould not be used on waysmay be used on areas (and multipolygon relations)should not be used on relations (except multipolygon relations)
Implies
Useful combination
See also
Status: approvedPage for proposal

Use amenity=school to identify a place where pupils, normally between the ages of about 6 and 18 are taught under the supervision of teachers. This includes, according to the ISCED:

  • primary schools (ISCED 1, tagged with isced:level=1) and
  • secondary schools (ISCED 2 and 3, tagged with isced:level=2;3), in some countries called high schools.

For other educational establishments, see

For school grounds, see the feature landuse=education.

How to map

There are several standard situations regarding schools. Each school should be mapped only once. Don't double them.

Other relevant information can be added with the following tags:

  • operator=* – Name of operator, often the local education authority.
  • operator:type=* – type of operator, e.g. community / religious / private / government
  • Address and other contact details
  • capacity=*, the maximum number of pupils the school can accept
  • grades=* – Which grades the school provides, can be used in conjunction with isced:level=*
  • min_age=* and max_age=* to indicate age range of children that attend the school
  • fee=yes if the school requires a direct charge for core services.
  • religion=*, if the school is associated with a particular religion (also denomination=*)
  • school:gender=* to indicate which genders can go to the school
  • language:*=* or school:language=* to indicate which is the main language of the school
  • ref=*, if school has a reference number
  • Contact information such as phone=*, email=*, website=*...
  • wikipedia=* or wikidata=* if the school has a Wikipedia- or Wikidata-entry.
  • pedagogy=* if the school has adheres to a particular pedagogical philosophy (e.g., Steiner or Montessori)

Single school on one site

If you have a single school on one ground, mark the boundary of the school using an area area or place a node node in the middle of the site if you are in a hurry (or don't have access to information about the boundary and it is not obvious from aerial imagery). If you use an area area it is also optional to mark the area with landuse=education too, but it is not necessary.

Example of usage at a single school

Multiple school on one site

When one or more schools share their grounds use the following schema. This also applies when schools share a site with other amenity=*.

  • Mark the outer boundary of the shared school grounds/campus/area using an area area with the tag landuse=education. If this shared area has its own name, tag this as well.
  • For each school or other amenity tag a node node at an appropriate place within this area, or if the school has its own building for its exclusive use on the grounds, add the amenity-tag to the building outline area. Make sure that there is only one OSM-element for each school. Add the school's details to the relevant amenities.
Example of usage at a school complex with "shared ground"

School with multiple sites

If a single school occupies a discontiguous campus, it should be represented by a multipolygon relation that includes all the parts of the campus. If part of the campus can only be represented by a point for some reason, then a multipolygon would not be valid, but a site relation has sometimes been used as an alternative.[1] Either way, make sure to use amenity=school and other tags on the relation.

Multiple school campuses operated by the same organization should be separate amenity=school areas. Do not use a relation to express the relationship between the campuses; instead, tag each campus with a matching operator=*, brand=*, or owner=* tag.

Rooms within the buildings

Also see

School classification

Many regions distinguish primary and secondary schools more granularly than amenity=school alone, but more discretely than grades=*, min_age=*, and max_age=*. A few different schemes exist for classifying schools:

  • school=* – ad-hoc keywords based on age group or specialization
  • school:type=* – UK terms for funding source or governance model
  • isced:level=* – a numeric scale based on an international statistical normalization scheme based on national education programs

Campus details

Several details can be added when drawing the complete school campus.

  • building=school is used for purpose-built school buildings (reused buildings keep their building type).
  • appropriate additional tags can be added to the building, for example leisure=swimming_pool.
  • entrance=* and if appropriate barrier=gate can be considered for the points where roads, paths or other access routes into the school grounds cross the boundary of the school. Building entrances can be mapped with a node on the building outline, with one of the following tags:
  • leisure=pitch is used for individual sports pitches. Where an individual sport can be identified, sport=* and surface=grass/asphalt/... can be added.
  • leisure=sports_hall is used for indoor sports facilities, if purpose-built with building=sports_hall.
  • landuse=grass is used for areas of grass, possibly covering multiple pitches or used for other purposes.
  • leisure=schoolyard is an open space in schools, specifically for recreation but usually without playground infrastructure. It is typically concrete or asphalt and most often in urban areas. In American English it is often referred to as a "blacktop". Often micro-mapped with additional areas for playground=hopscotch/map/four_square/... and others.
  • leisure=playground is often found on primary school grounds with infrastructure such as playground=structure/swing/... and others.

Country specific rules

As school systems vary over the world, some country-specific tagging schemes have been developed. Please, refer to the following wiki pages for regional information:

Country-specific tagging rules for schools
Country or region Wikipage
Belgium Conventions
France Specific rules
Mali school:ML=* and school:ML:academie=*

Disambiguation

Typical facilities outside the scope of amenity=school are:

Rendering

See also

Possible tagging mistakes

If you know places with this tag, verify if it could be tagged with another tag.
Automated edits are strongly discouraged unless you really know what you are doing!

Notes and references

  1. For example, this school occupies multiple classrooms scattered about a campus shared with other schools. Each classroom is mapped as a point because the exact indoor layout of each building is unknown. Since a valid multipolygon cannot include a point as a member, a site relation is the next best representation of this school. A Role label point allows the school to be represented as a simple point, since few if any data consumers understand site relations.