Number of Students at Hogwarts

[James]

No: HPFGUIDX 69030

<snip>
<david.bartmess at m...> wrote:
> This is one of thoose issues that JKR almost defenetly made a 
> mistake.  1000 students in Hogwarts would mean around 250 students 
> per house.  Just immagine a "common room" big enough for 250 
> students.  

At my shool we had c280 people in the common room



> Now stop to think about that....  35 students in single classes, and 
> when 2 houses take classes together (like potions where Gryffindors 
> take there class together with the Slytherns)  there would be 70 
> students in ONE CLASS!  That's a bit absurd.  Not to mention the 
> fact that we are only told of about 5 boys in Gryffindor that are 
> Harry's age  (Harry, Ron, Nevil, Sean, and Dean).  

We din't know numbers for all the houses.  Logically there would be
more people in some houses than others, if the Sorting hat sorts for
ability and not 'make it even'ness.

I agree that classes of 70 are almost unteachable (my mother dealt
with over 50 in the bad old days of comprehensives in the UK), but we
never quite know how many people are in the classes, and there is no
guarantee that all the Griffindors are with all the Slytherins, or
Hufflepufs.

Think of the extra subjects - Arithmancy, runes, muggle studies. 
These will all use up students.

I think there is more of a problem with staffing.

It would be a bit of a yellow flag issue if students have free periods
(I can't think of them ever mentioning it, and in OotP surely they
would have done homework during them).

7 years, 2 clases (minimum) per year at once.  14 classes at any one
time.  Its hard to see how this would be timetabled.  Dumbledore
doesn't appear to teach.  so we have, (off the top of my head - I
should also point out I am going to spell all of these wrong)
McGonagle, Snape, Flitwick, Binns, DADA, Vectra, Hagrid, Sprout,
Astronomy (forget who), Muggle studies (no clue), ancient runes (again
no clue),   Madame Hooch (who would appear to only teach first years),
and I am drawing a blank.

Add to this the first two years dont use Vector (vectra?) or at least
three others.  and no one is taught by Madame Hooch past the first year.

You appear to have a massive shortage of Teachers.

But the extra teachers are not mentioned. And it would be weird to
introduce five more at once, this far in.

I think we need to refer back to Harry again.  We see the WW through
him and so notice what he does.  When he looks along the staff table
he only 'sees' the people he knows, and this must be true with the
students.  The boys in his dormitory feature heavily, others barely
mentioned.

It is also possible we have Gryffindor clique, and they just don't
speak to the others.

There could be 'sets' or 'streams' at Hogwarts so that there are three
Gryffindor classes for Harry's year and the different sets bunk
together.  Harry just wouldn't know the others very well.

In the UK this is often done on ability lines - but not always. 
Bizarrely we were taught maths in ability based sets, but science in
mixed ability groups, and PE (gym) along house lines.  Go figure.

I think it is just narrative convenience that is driving the numbers.

Readers couldn't deal with 1,000 characters, but it would take that
many to fill a big castle with people so that it would feel full.


On a side note - who on earth is the head of Ravenclaw house? I would
guess Vector (sp?).

Not sure I have helped at all,  oh well,

James