[HPforGrownups] Re: Number of Students at Hogwarts

[Robert A. Rosenberg]

No: HPFGUIDX 69158

At 13:00 +0000 on 07/10/2003, marephraim wrote about [HPforGrownups] 
Re: Number of Students at Hogwarts:

>My question would be: If Snape is /the/ potion master of the school,
>and no other is mentioned, how does he teach students of all seven
>years, given the inevitability that there would have to be more than
>one class with say the fifth years (more than one group of
>Gryffindors)?

Without going back and reading the issuance of class schedules 
section of each book, I can only guess at the distribution. I have 
the impression that the students are shown as taking multiple 
subjects (originally no double back-to-back sessions) each day with 
different subjects each day. Lets say that there are 6 sessions a day 
(for a total of 30 sessions in any topic a week). We know that the 
Griffidor takes their Potions Class with Slytherin so lets assign the 
other 2 houses to combined sessions also. That means that we need 14 
of the available 30 session slots to have one session each year-level 
(with 2 House Groups). I do not remember if there were multiple 
sessions a week in the early years but in the later (5th and possibly 
prior) there were double-sessions which only add 2 extra sessions per 
year-level where there are more than one in a week. That still leaves 
room for more than one Session in the same year level if the total 
class size of the other 2 houses are more than the 20 (Griffidor + 
Slytherin) in Harry's year. Also we do not need 4 slots for the 6th 
and 7th years (2 per year times two house groupings) since these are 
NEWT Level where the class size can be combined and all 4 houses fit 
into a single combined session. Thus the 4 allocated to 6th & 7th in 
my original "14" will handle the needed double sessions with no need 
to use any of the remaining 16. Even if we want the 1st-5th years to 
get 3 separate groups (Griffidor + Slytherin with the other houses 
meeting in individual sessions), you still have only the following:

    G+S 1y-4y (1) + 5y (2) = 6
    H   1y-4y (1) + 5y (2) = 6
    R   1y-4y (1) + 5y (2) = 6
    NEWT   6y (2) + 7y (2) = 4
                            --
    TOTAL                   22

Leaving 8 more sessions for 3 session NEWTs or 2 sessions in 4y. 
Having H+R sharing sessions gives even more slack to available 
sessions. Given the probability the H will be large I can see that 
separate sessions are probably needed.


--

Bob Rosenberg