to think Hogwarts is actually a really small school?

[FlutteringButterflie]

I watch the film earlier and realised in Griffindor in Harry's year there were only 5 boys and 3 girls. There are 4 houses so probably about 40 pupils per year.

7 years, so about 280 pupils - not really that many when you think about it.

[geek]

Rionach O'Neal is apparently a Gryffindor student in Harry's year

Maybe I need to read the books again..

Tee they either attend local primary school's or they are home-schooled.

They can't attend local primary schools, ABF or they wouldn't be so ignorant of Muggle ways, would they?

Must be home schooled.

Of course it's small. They are woefully undersubscribed, but that's because they only accept wizard children - what do you expect? There is hardly an enormous rush for places is there?

And Fay Dunbar is another Gryffindor girl.

Please someone say I'm not crazy and these girls never existed in the book.

Of course it's small. They are woefully undersubscribed, but that's because they only accept wizard children - what do you expect? There is hardly an enormous rush for places is there?

Well I'd never given it much thought before, but the film made it appear as if there were 1000(ish) pupils.

Anyway looking deeper into it, it appears there is evidence of many other characters in Harry's year who just didn't have a big part within the books.

Apparently there is Fay Dunbar and Rionach O'Neal and evidence to suggest a few more.

Very similar to my (private) all girls school. We lived in houses (in my house there were only 2 of us in our year group) and there were about 300 of us in the school. Needed two big dining rooms so we could all sit at long tables to eat with a table of teachers in the middle of the room on a platform so they could stare down at us ('on high' it was called). Watching Harry Potter is probably the only time I've been proud of my old school, I could tell my DS' I went to a very similar school and if they don't behave I would turn them into toads. We played lacrosse instead of Quiddich, which IMHO was more dangerous

that's the same size as my school was

less than 300 pupils altogether. my class was the biggest in the whole school, and had 16 people in it!

Oh my god, i love you all so much. So glad im not the only one!!!

x-posts, LostinWales

we ate at long tables too, and boarded in houses.

lacrosse deffo way more dangerous than quidditch

This may be the Asti butterbeer talking but I luff this thread. Definitely need a HP quiche.

I thought there always seemed a lot more students on the tables than in classes. Maybe some drop out, like uni?

how come they dont use magic to cure Harry's eyesight?
And owls C'mon, there has to be a spell thats the equivelent of wizarding Skype/mobile phones rather than the length of time owls take and not to mention owl poo.

I was always goalie cereal, took me longer to get all the safety kit on than the actual matches (Were you in the north or south of the UK?)

I thought that they all went to normal schools until they got the letter? Hermione with her dentist parents must have gone to a bog standard primary.

I have always wanted to know why they don't fix Harry's eye sight with magic!

Except Hermione doesn't know she's a witch, so of course she goes to regular Primary.

And so does Harry. Well a primary for bad boys, since his aunt and uncle are such crap.

Which, by the way, totally sucks. No one checked on him for 11 fucking years?!?!

IIRC Rowling was once asked about it and she said that she had originally thought that there were a lot more students to herself, but did the maths later on and realised that actually, there weren't as many as she'd originally planned.

There are actually at least five girls in Gryffindor in Harry's year too, two unnamed girls who aren't seen in the books but JK had them on her plans and possibly others.

I was south.

I was goalie in hockey, but sadly lacked any safety kit for lacrosse, as my wonky nose will testify.

I was horrified when I realised that the stupidly solid rubber ball that we had for our ridiculously large dog (since he chewed through everything else!) was actually a lacrosse ball, and that we would have to throw it at each others' heads...

I'd take quidditch over lacrosse. I still shudder at the memory of being checked on the knuckles on a frosty morning.

I always assumed it was paid for by the ministry because you need to go to school to qualify as a witch or wizard. They'd be severely limiting their pool of pupils if they were fee paying and wizarding society wouldn't cope.

However, it mentions in the deathly gallows that the ministry makes attendance at Hogwarts compulsory, so maybe you could be home schooled.

& unless it was a fanfiction I read hen I'm sure than the school can adapt to the amount of students magically?!

Might have been a Dangerverse thing or other FF tale I've read. The Dangerverse has to be my favourite HP FF series

mermaid There was talk in one of the books about how somebody from the school would let muggles into Diagon Alley I think?

I'm such a HP nerd, I've thought about a lot of this and talked about it on other forums.

www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-secrets-of-the-classlist.html

This essay has a list of all the students in Harry's year, breifly shown in a TV documentary years ago. Apparently there are 40 students in his year, probably evenly divided between the 4 houses. Basically, what this shows is that Harry is pretty oblivious to his class mates, as he doesn't even know the names of everyone in his year at school (or ever notice them, despite sharing classes with them). It's entirely possible there are even two other gryffindor girls that he never once speaks to in seven years of school!

With the teachers, basically none of it makes sense. Those teaching core subjects have an awful teaching schedule- McGonagall, for example, seems to have about 22 classes- unless students only have one transfiguration lesson a week (which seems unlikely), when does she teach them all- never mind doing her pastoral duties as head of house. Snape's schedule is a bit kinder, assuming all his lessons are joint between two houses, he has only 12 classes, but that still only really leaves room for an absolute maximum of two potions lessons a week.

The teachers who teach 3rd year electives probably have a smaller teaching schedule, teaching between 5-10 classes each, so it would really make more sense for them to do most of the pastoral/administrative duties, but poor McGonagall seems to have to do everything from sending out letters before the start of term (can't Hogwarts affor a secretary?) to pastoral care for at least 70 children, and she's deputy head.

The numbers in the school (in Harry's year at least) don't translate to the size of wizarding population that's supposed to exist. Some students can be home schooled or educated abroad, but it seems pretty heavily implied Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in the UK, and possibly the whole British Isles.

I do think Hogwarts is a state school, though, given the level at which the ministry can intervene in book 5. They just take a laissez faire approach, most of the time. However, students seem expected to pay for some really expensive kit, which probably explains why most of the Weasley's stuff is second hand.

This thread is taking me back to the old days, I used to be in a group at college called 'affectionately' "The Harry Potter Crew" as we were all obsessed with it. I used to be very involved with an American Charity set up based on HP and knew absolutely everything about books 1-5 as I sped read 6 and 7 as I hated them so much

My coursework was based on HP and Tom Browns schooldays, didn't even read one page of Tom Brown yet managed to get a B in the exam based on my HP knowledge alone

Can't remember much now though