[HPforGrownups] Re: Colin Greevy and Social Promotion

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 93149

OK I snipped everything because I decided that it wasn't necessary to
understand my reply and besides I'm addressing the issue in general rather
than anyone's individual points.

My reply is based on assuming Hogwarts is roughly analogous to the British
school system. What makes anyone think there is any system for a child not
to automatically progress to the next year each year? It doesn't really
happen in the British school system - every year you are at school you go up
a year until you sit your GCSEs (muggle equivalent of the OWLs) at which
point you either choose whether or not to continue in school (although that
seems to happen at 17 in the WW rather than 16) or you fail dismally and
don't get given a choice (ie you can't continue because you haven't reached
the academic standard required to carry on, although with many more
vocational qualifications available in school now besides the academic ones
total failure doesn't guarantee an end to your education).

I never got the impression that failing the end of year exams at Hogwarts
would get you kept back or kicked out but rather that they were there to
show the students (and their parents) and their teachers where the students
were magically and where their strengths and weaknesses lay. I suspect a
'failing' student would simply be given extra coaching and such rather than
being kept back.

Now obviously the petrified students were special cases since they didn't so
much fail to learn the material as they weren't in a position to be taught
it, but I still think they would simply be given extra work to catch up if
they had missed something important for their later education (ie spells
that form the basis of more advanced spells to be taught later or which are
likely to come up on the external examinations) and the rest would just be
something they never learn (except I suspect Hermione would run along to the
library and learn *everything* she missed regardless of how insignificant
and irrelevent just because she's that sort of person)

K