[HPforGrownups] Re: number of students

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 8192

Sorry - I meant to add "no. students" to the Subject line of my last post
[Re: Runes (was.../classes/...)] to account for the rambling piece below.  I
know how annoying it is when people do this, especially re scanning for the
club FAQs. <g>

[repeated in part]

> Point (b)(iv), above, brings me to Chistian's comment (from his mammoth
> post):
>
> <<<Is it also plausible that a teacher does not teach all the forms
(grades
> in US English) -
> so that Professor McGonagall for instance only teaches every second form
and
> those that
> have transfiguration and related subjects as electives, with another
teacher
> (or two)
> tackling the rest of the transfiguration-classes?>>>
>
> He also said:
>
> <<<Therefore I think that 300-400 students is a too low number, as
> the population of wizards this would indicate only barely would be able to
> support the
> level of activity we see.>>>
>
> During the 'number of students' debate earlier this year, I posted
something
> on the number of teachers, which made a similar point to Christian's.  I
> didn't calculate the lesson times in the detail he has, but I did conclude
> that the apparently small staff we know could not be expected to teach
1000
> students within a weekly timetable.  If I may recap:
>
> - If there were 1000 students, the average year size would be about 150,
> which would place around 75 students in each double-House class.
>
> - Even the elective classes, which presumably draw from all four Houses,
> could easily attract 40-50 students.
>
> - The above suggest that there would need to be (a) more than 14 sessions
> per week for compulsory subjects even if each class was taught only lesson
> per week or (b) massive class sizes for all subjects.
>
> - From the students' point of view, there would have to be more than one
> lesson of the compulsory subjects per week or they would have a pretty
thin
> timetable.
>
> - We can assume that the students have at least two sessions of each
subject
> each week, because they sometimes have "double" lessons.  Christian's
> assumption of four lessons per week seems reasonable.
>
> - As Christian calculated, a Professor such as McGonagall might be facing
56
> teaching sessions per week even if we ignore class sizes.
>
> - If we accept that there are 1000 students and agree that most of the
> classes would have to be split into streams to make the numbers smaller,
> McGonagall could be teaching 56+ classes per week, but it might be
> approaching 100.  At an hour a lesson, that would be 13 hours of teaching
> every weekday with no breaks for a catnap.
>
> - Conclusions: (a) 1000 students is virtually impossible unless there are
> many more teachers than we have seen, (b) JKR didn't do her sums (and
> probably didn't expect her work to be examined quite *this* closely).
>
> Happy New Year
>
> (a) Neil
> (b) Flying-Ford-Anglia
>
>
>
>
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