Problems with scheduling for Unlikely Allies
I’m trying to stay canon-compliant except for those things that must logically change in response to my one deliberate change, and I’ve run into a real snag working out class schedules.
I checked Whitehound for normal British school schedules, and then compared it to my local middle school. Here (US west coast large city), the normal schedule is for children to spend a total of 24 hours in class a week-4 hours a week in each of 6 subjects. Teachers have a free period, so they teach 20 hours a week. Class size averages about 30, so each teacher teaches about 150 children.
If, as suggested, Hogwarts students have 3 hours a week of instruction (typically acto Whitehound one single and one double class) in seven subjects, their total class time is 21 hours-lighter than American students. The teachers, however… well, the teachers of electives apparently normally teach one section each for years three-seven, so 15 hours. (Possibly very popular electives might have two sections in any of years three-five, which could increase the total anywhere up to 21 hours.) But the teachers of core subjects teach two sections for years one-five, and at least one section for each of the two NEWT years. That’s twelve sections, three hours each, which is 36 hours. And they’re teaching about 220-240 students. (40/year for five years, 10-20/year in the NEWT classes.)
Moreover, all of this assumes that the forty students in Harry’s year is about the normal Hogwarts intake-if, as has been suggested, the intake Harry’s year was unusually low because of being born at the height of The War, it all gets much worse.
That’s insanely higher than real-life teachers do (I very briefly tried teaching, and 20 hours in class requires at least that much time outside it to do your kids any sort of justice). It’s also physically impossible (at least once all the Time-turners are destroyed), if one adds in the parameter that (according to Whitehound) British schools restrict classes to the M-F, 9 - 4 timeframe.
(Ioannina’s excellent schedule managed to squeeze 36 hours of instruction into a week-but she had core classes starting some days at eight am, other days running until 6 pm. She also ignored canon conventions about which houses shared classes, and that first year Potions had at least one “double” class, not three singles. And she added Latin as another core subject, which really does seem justified…. )
Really, had former teacher Jo paid any attention to the reality of the teaching load, the core subjects ought to have had two teachers: one for years one-three (six classes, 18 hours total in class, teaching 120+ students), one for years four-seven (six classes, another 18 hours. teaching 100+ advanced students).
Even assuming only 280- total students at Hogwarts and that all grading and most prep is done by wizarding TAs (peon 7th-years or house elves?) who are utterly invisible to Harry, it’s not physically possible to squeeze 36 hours of instruction into 5 7-hour “days”, less lunch and transit time.
Finally, it is canon that the very first Gryffindor-Slytherin Potions class was on a Friday morning. Yet the HPL says the Hogwarts Express ran on a Sunday and classes started Monday. (Of course, in RL September first 1991 was on a Sunday, so that may be where Steve got that calendar. Yet we can’t possibly expect “Oh Maths” Rowling to have checked the real calendar when she wrote.) So we’re expected to believe that Potions has one two-hour class a week for first-years? Or do we follow Whitehound and assume they had one single and one double class, and the Lexicon just messed up? (If the Express ran-in Jo’s mind-on a Tuesday, and Slytherin/Gryffindor Potions was scheduled for single Tuesday, double Friday, that could work to make Potions the last class to start for the Gryffs in canon.)
Astronomy, of course, is also presented as though “Wednesday at midnight” is the only class time, which makes no sense whatever from an instructional viewpoint. (Actually, just meeting at night makes no sense-surely the spell on the Great Hall’s ceiling or in Firenze’s classroom could be adapted to turn any classroom into a planetarium, displaying the sky of any desired time/date/either hemisphere? Without having to worry about the weather? Taking them out occasionally to see the real sky, sure, but having be the only or even primary means of instruction….)
Anyhow, it’s totally messed up. And it messes with my ability to write Harry’s first week.
Do I blink at utterly unworkable schedules for the core teachers, do I posit additional teachers whom Harry doesn’t notice (now, readjusting his senior teachers/heads of houses’ schedules so they are always teaching HARRY’s year is the kind of favoritism I could imagine of Dumbles-and I can imagine it going unnoticed by Harry-but not unremarked by [e.g.] Percy)?
Do I write in TA’s, and classes before/after conventional British school hours?
Do I just wave my hands and ignore the continuity errors?
Funny-this is the first time I’ve really bumped up implacably against the problem of trying to write canon-compliant fanfic where the canon is shoddily written.
Class schedules-what a thing to catch a former teacher on.
I checked Whitehound for normal British school schedules, and then compared it to my local middle school. Here (US west coast large city), the normal schedule is for children to spend a total of 24 hours in class a week-4 hours a week in each of 6 subjects. Teachers have a free period, so they teach 20 hours a week. Class size averages about 30, so each teacher teaches about 150 children.
If, as suggested, Hogwarts students have 3 hours a week of instruction (typically acto Whitehound one single and one double class) in seven subjects, their total class time is 21 hours-lighter than American students. The teachers, however… well, the teachers of electives apparently normally teach one section each for years three-seven, so 15 hours. (Possibly very popular electives might have two sections in any of years three-five, which could increase the total anywhere up to 21 hours.) But the teachers of core subjects teach two sections for years one-five, and at least one section for each of the two NEWT years. That’s twelve sections, three hours each, which is 36 hours. And they’re teaching about 220-240 students. (40/year for five years, 10-20/year in the NEWT classes.)
Moreover, all of this assumes that the forty students in Harry’s year is about the normal Hogwarts intake-if, as has been suggested, the intake Harry’s year was unusually low because of being born at the height of The War, it all gets much worse.
That’s insanely higher than real-life teachers do (I very briefly tried teaching, and 20 hours in class requires at least that much time outside it to do your kids any sort of justice). It’s also physically impossible (at least once all the Time-turners are destroyed), if one adds in the parameter that (according to Whitehound) British schools restrict classes to the M-F, 9 - 4 timeframe.
(Ioannina’s excellent schedule managed to squeeze 36 hours of instruction into a week-but she had core classes starting some days at eight am, other days running until 6 pm. She also ignored canon conventions about which houses shared classes, and that first year Potions had at least one “double” class, not three singles. And she added Latin as another core subject, which really does seem justified…. )
Really, had former teacher Jo paid any attention to the reality of the teaching load, the core subjects ought to have had two teachers: one for years one-three (six classes, 18 hours total in class, teaching 120+ students), one for years four-seven (six classes, another 18 hours. teaching 100+ advanced students).
Even assuming only 280- total students at Hogwarts and that all grading and most prep is done by wizarding TAs (peon 7th-years or house elves?) who are utterly invisible to Harry, it’s not physically possible to squeeze 36 hours of instruction into 5 7-hour “days”, less lunch and transit time.
Finally, it is canon that the very first Gryffindor-Slytherin Potions class was on a Friday morning. Yet the HPL says the Hogwarts Express ran on a Sunday and classes started Monday. (Of course, in RL September first 1991 was on a Sunday, so that may be where Steve got that calendar. Yet we can’t possibly expect “Oh Maths” Rowling to have checked the real calendar when she wrote.) So we’re expected to believe that Potions has one two-hour class a week for first-years? Or do we follow Whitehound and assume they had one single and one double class, and the Lexicon just messed up? (If the Express ran-in Jo’s mind-on a Tuesday, and Slytherin/Gryffindor Potions was scheduled for single Tuesday, double Friday, that could work to make Potions the last class to start for the Gryffs in canon.)
Astronomy, of course, is also presented as though “Wednesday at midnight” is the only class time, which makes no sense whatever from an instructional viewpoint. (Actually, just meeting at night makes no sense-surely the spell on the Great Hall’s ceiling or in Firenze’s classroom could be adapted to turn any classroom into a planetarium, displaying the sky of any desired time/date/either hemisphere? Without having to worry about the weather? Taking them out occasionally to see the real sky, sure, but having be the only or even primary means of instruction….)
Anyhow, it’s totally messed up. And it messes with my ability to write Harry’s first week.
Do I blink at utterly unworkable schedules for the core teachers, do I posit additional teachers whom Harry doesn’t notice (now, readjusting his senior teachers/heads of houses’ schedules so they are always teaching HARRY’s year is the kind of favoritism I could imagine of Dumbles-and I can imagine it going unnoticed by Harry-but not unremarked by [e.g.] Percy)?
Do I write in TA’s, and classes before/after conventional British school hours?
Do I just wave my hands and ignore the continuity errors?
Funny-this is the first time I’ve really bumped up implacably against the problem of trying to write canon-compliant fanfic where the canon is shoddily written.
Class schedules-what a thing to catch a former teacher on.