British Schools - competition

[Pam Scruton]

No: HPFGUIDX 1716

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Peg Kerr <pkerr06 at a...> wrote:
> This message has run on pretty long, and the only thing I'll add is 
a
> question to our UK members.  Is the picture of Hogwarts being set 
up to
> run on interhouse rivalry an accurate picture of British schools?  
Upon
> thinking about it, I wonder at Dumbledore a little for running a 
school
> structure that seems so fraught with the potential for causing
> envy/competitiveness/competition to ferment into bad feeling

An interesting question.  At the risk of repeating myself (again!) 
one has to be a bit careful in talking about 'British' schools - 
apart from the fact that Scotland has a separate education system 
from England and Wales, there are many different types of British 
school.  Hogwarts is not typical of state schools - mostly state 
schools are not boarding schools.  However most boarding schools and 
some state schools do operate on a house system.  In some boarding 
schools it means much as described in Hogwarts - children in the same 
house live together.  I do not know of any schools that organise 
teaching in separate houses but that doesn't mean there aren't any.  

If the children participate in competitive games (and any game that 
has a system of scoring points is by definition a competitive game - 
else why bother to score?) then the house system is a convenient way 
to organise tournaments.  Then there is the behavioural control side 
of it - systems of rewards and punishments - which enables all 
children (whether good at games or not) to earn merit for their 
house.  It is this aspect of houses that some state schools have 
taken up - the convenience of organising competitions - sports, 
chess, cooking, in fact anything - internally.  This has its good 
points and its bad.  Encouragement of competition is not always a 
good thing but, many children who could not hope to represent their 
school in their chosen sport or interest (whether it be chess or 
swimming or whatever) do get an opportunity to represent their house 
and sports or other coaching at house level may give children more 
individual attention than even the regular year group class teaching.

Where the house system of Hogwarts seems to be quite at odds with any 
house system I've ever come across is the idea that personality has 
any bearing on the house to which one is allocated.  When I was at 
school (a state school) I asked to be in a particular house because 
all the members of my family who had attended that school had been in 
that particular house (Clare House: motto - Semper Fidelis; house 
colour -  bottle green; house song -  He who would valiant be).  If 
there were no family connections to a particular house children were 
allocated on a random basis.  I think this would have been the method 
in most schools operating a house system.

Interestingly enough, about half way through my school career the 
school had grown to the extent that it was decided to form two new 
houses and the rules were changed at the same time.  Clearly it was 
felt that there was something wrong with putting members of the same 
family in the same house - possibly because there were a couple of 
families, each with two or three children at the school at the same 
time, where sporting talent ran in the family.  It was possibly also 
felt that children have to put up with their siblings at home - there 
is no need for them to have to put up with them at school as well!

That being said, I believe the great majority of state schools in 
Britain are like the one attended by my children - it gets along 
perfectly well with no house system at all and no other system of 
internal competition.  This really bothers some people who believe 
that Britain is the poorer for the demise of competitive games at 
school.  Some people who feel this way seem to think that the UK's 
worth is determined by how many medals are won at the Olympics and 
whether or not England, Scotland or Wales qualify for the football 
world cup.  This is clearly rubbish - the UK's worth is quite 
obviously determined by the performance the England Cricket team! 
<big grin>.