Fred & George and school leaving

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 89232

--  Ray

> 4.  Fred and George did indeed finish school. In Hogwarts,
> the Seventh year is completely voluntary, and I suspect
> the twins aren't the first students to withdraw during the
> term - although probably the most memorable in a long time.
>
>
K

In fact the wizarding education system does seem to be based fairly closely
on the British muggle system with some elements from the Scottish system and
some from the English and Welsh system and in both cases (I think) you can
leave after the first set of exams. In fact if you had to stay till you
finished the second set then there wouldn't be very much point having the
first set. In England you become an adult at 18 but can work full time from
16, in the ww these things seem to happen at 17 (it's not entirely clear if
you get some rights before then). I am guessing here but I from what we know
of how the ww works I would have said that you can leave with parental
permission after the OWLS (the only reason to make them external exams
rather than simple end of year exams like we've seen in every other book
that I can see is if you can leave after you've sat them) and without
parental permission when you reach 17. It's impossible to say for certain
since we've not really seen much about what happens after your OWLS because
we see things through Harry's eyes for the most part and his attention is,
naturally, concentrated on his contemporaries.

My theory about OWLS being the first set of school-leaving exams (like
GCSEs) is somewhat backed up by the Auror requirements only focussing on
NEWTS - in the muggle world your GCSEs are pretty much irrelevant if you
have A-Levels and your A-Levels become irrelevant after you get a degree etc
etc. A good set of OWLS will show that you have a broad magical knowledge to
back up the more focussed study you engage in for the NEWTS (at least I
assume you drop some of your subjects), but unless you've totally failed
something in the basic curriculum I doubt anyone would care exactly what
marks you got once you've taken your NEWTS - in which case there is no
reason to have a set of exams at the end of fifth year if *everyone* goes on
to take NEWTS. I think Fred and George caused such a stir because of the
manner of their leaving rather than simply the fact that they left.

K