THEORY: Hogwarts curriculum

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 112219

macfotuk wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112151 :

<< Where are the 'games'/PE/sports? - PE is compulsory as far as know 
in muggle education worldwide. Hogwarts classes do one broom lesson 
(it would seem) and then never again - what DOES madame Hooch teach? 
Can Hermione fly a broom (as a complete one-time muggle before 
Hogwart's)? >>

We saw Harry go to his first broomstick flying lesson and be plucked
from it straight to the Varsity team. At my high school thirty years
ago, a person being on a Varsity or JV team counted as their PE
requirement: team practises and so on took more time and so on than
the regular PE classes. So Harry isn't giving us much information
about PE for kids not on the team.

We didn't follow Harry's classmates' broomstick flying lessons ... I
fantasize that students kept attending the class until they could pass
the flying test, so perhaps there might be no one left in the class by
Christmas break. If so, Hermione eventually learned to fly a broom,
because there was no room for broom lessons in her third-year
schedule, and I imagine even Neville eventually learned enough to pass
the test. Well, I passed Driver Training but not the driver's license
test...

I think they should have JV teams and/or reserve players, but we
haven't seen any reserve players on the Gryffindor team in Harry's
time, and Ron's secret practising to try out for the Keeper vacancy
suggests that there hadn't been any JV team for him to try out for.

>From what we see of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, the captain coaches
it, and there is no sign of Madam Hooch at practises. It seems to me
that she should be the coach of all four House teams, or at least
observe them and advise the captain/coach. She may be teaching a
regular PE class in Quidditch for kids who didn't make the team. 

I'm sure the wizarding folk have other sports than Quidditch and broom
racing, but the only one I've invented is not suitable for children:
it's a form of hippogryff polo, named something like gryff-grab.
Wandless, unarmoured (but covered in thick clothing!) players ride
unarmored, unharnessed hippogryffs -- nothing but their feathers to
hang onto. The players gather at a starting line ... the referree
flies up in the center of the pitch and drops the 'prize' ...
contestants try to catch the 'prize', take it away from each other,
and the object of the game is fly around the pole at the 'finish line'
with it. While players grab onto the 'prize' and have something like a
tug-of-war and maybe tear the 'prize' in half, their mounts use beaks
and claws to discourage the other mount's player, so loss of limbs is
not uncommon. Oh, and I haven't mentioned yet that the 'prize' nowdays
is a sheep or such, but back in the Good Old Days, it was a captured
Muggle.