British School System

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Pinguthegreek" 
<pinguthegreek at p...> wrote:
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: linlou43 
>   To: HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com 
>   Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 4:42 PM
>   Subject: [HPFGU-OTChatter] British School System
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   Hi all!
> 
>       First, is it the normal practice in a British school to keep 
the 
>   same instructor for a given subject until you have progressed 
through 
>   the first testing level? 
> 
> 
>   In a smaller school, very much so. 
>   Remember, classes are combined, so that two houses are in the 
> same lesson. So, seeing as it seems like each subject only has one 
> session of contact time, they would only have 14 or so classes a 
> week to teach. This is feasible. 
 
Right.  I think that the size of the school has a significant amount 
to do with it.  Even in small American schools, this is done.  When 
I was in seventh grade I went to a private school that was K-12, 
with a lower school and an upper school (7-12).  In the upper school 
there was one English teacher (who was also the headmistress), one 
Math/Latin teacher (she taught both) one Religion/Handbells teacher 
(again, both) one Science teacher, one History teacher, one Chorus 
teacher and one Gym teacher for the girls and one for the boys.  
There were eleven kids in the seventh grade.  That year there were 
only FOUR seniors.  (I thought the yearbook looked like a joke.)  It 
was a tiny school.  

If most years in each Hogwarts house have 8-10 students, that's only 
about 32-40 per year.  As long as the students have combined 
Astronomy classes (because she can only teach at night, not all day) 
plus combined Potions, Herbology and CoMC (and for all we know, they 
also have combined Arithmancy, Runes and Muggle Studies), there's no 
reason you couldn't have one teacher per subject.  

It's also strongly implied that some students won't be taking 
courses like Potions after fifth year, if they don't qualify for the 
NEWT-level classes.  In fact, you have to wonder whether some of the 
students will disappear entirely after fifth year (like Seamus and 
Dean, not to mention Crabbe and Goyle), should they decide not to 
pursue their NEWTs.  I've always thought that it was odd that Stan 
Shunpike, who was supposed to be eighteen or nineteen when he 
encountered Harry at the age of thirteen, shouldn't recognize Harry 
from attending school with him.  (If he was six years older than 
Harry, he would have been a seventh-year at Hogwarts when Harry was 
in first year.)  However, if Stan left school after his OWLs and 
wasn't at Hogwarts when Harry started, that would explain a thing or 
two.

--Barb

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
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