Age question

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7313
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: Age question
Reply To: [Yahoo! #7293] Age question
Date: 8/19/00 6:37 pm  (ET)

> Hermione's birthday is in September (snip)_is she 10 months older
than, or 2 months younger than Harry? When is the normal cutoff day for
schoolyears in the UK?

A while ago, on one of these e-mail-lists, one of the Brits said that
the normal cutoff day would be September 1, altho' a child born in the
first week of September probably could ooze into the earlier school year
if his/her parents wanted. IE, Hermione is ten months older than Harry
unless Hogwarts was willing to bend the rule for her. Since Hogwarts has
a magic quill that writes the names of children when they are born and
then sends letters to the ones who are 11, I don't see them bending that
rule. Maybe part of her high grades is that she already did sixth grade
(first year) in Muggle school before doing it over at Wizard school.

> When is the normal cutoff day for schoolyears in the UK? Here in the
US, it's generally either August 31, September 30 or sometimes December 31

I think it was luck rather than planning that my mother started me
in kindergarten and first grade in a school district with a December
31 cut-off (my birthday is November 7), so when we moved to a district
with September 30 cut-off, they couldn't force me to do first grade over
again. They did start me in the middle of my second grade class's four
reading groups (in order to be with my next door neighboor, the only
person I knew in the whole school except my brother in kindergartener)
but after the first day, the teacher immediately told me that I had to
switch to the earlier-awakening schedule (boo-hiss!) so I could be in the
fastest reading group. As for my brother, when he got to second grade,
he was sent to the principle's office for secretly reading TREASURE ISLAND
concealed behind SEE DICK AND JANE RUN during the reading assignment.