Prefects

[Shaun Hately]

On 26 Jun 2003 at 23:31, Tim Regan wrote:

> In your dreams. I went to a UK school at roughly the same time as 
> JKR, it was a comprehensive school (= public high in USA) rather 
> than the posher model Hogwarts seems based on, but the head boy and 
> girl were drawn from the ranks of the prefects. If you are good 
> enough to be head boy then you are good enough to be a prefect. I 
> may be generalizing from too little evidence though. For those on 
> the list who went to, or taught at a UK school, did anyone find that 
> a head boy could be chosen who was not also a prefect?

I went to a school in Australia that was *heavily* modelled on the British 'public schools' 
- one of a number of schools set up here in the late 19th Century, so colonial 
administrators and the like could avoid having to send their sons all the way to Britain to 
get a 'proper' education. At my school, the equivalent of the Head Boy (School Captain) 
did not *have* to be a Prefect - but there were only three occasions in over a century 
when he wasn't.

I'm also on a discussion list that includes a lot of people who went to British boarding 
schools, and schools around the world modelled on them. We've actually discussed this 
issue over the past week (everybody is reading Harry Potter). At most of the schools 
which have a Head Boy of some sort, he is either drawn from the Prefects, or appointed 
at the same time as the Prefects (and is considered a Prefect as well). But there are a 
significant minority of occasions where a Head Boy does not need to be a Prefect - most 
commonly in cases where Prefects are elected and the Head Boy is appointed, or where 
the Head Boy is elected, but Prefects are appointed.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They
don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit
the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the
facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia