Thought

[nineveh_uk]

An awful lot of the idiosyncrecies (to put it nicely) of Hogwarts can be put down to the fact that it doesn't have a school secretary. I thought it was a law of nature that a school cannot run without a cardiganed middle-aged woman in the office doing everything to keep the place on an even keel.

I blame Dumbledore. There probably was a secretary, but she resigned because he was impossible to work for and he said that there was no need to replace her. So the heads of house have to do all her work, which takes them a lot longer than it took her, which is why they have no time to check that their pupils haven't vanished/had all their stuff stolen/been lured into looking for werewolves/ been beaten to a pulp. It comes back to haunt him when the lack of that sort of knowledge leaves a gap for people like Malfoy (as a governor) and Umbridge to exploit.

Comments

[madamedarque.livejournal.com]

I admit that a lot of my ignorance comes from being neither British nor a former boarding school denizen, so I suppose things that seemed like omissions to me are probably just par for the course in the UK.

I would never claim to understand the UK schooling system. But you have no graduation requirements whatsoever? My school had mountains of bureaucracy to wade through before they could hand us that diploma; tests, certain projects, and yes, a 20-hour community service requirement.

the concept of liability isn't one the wizarding world grasps!

LOL. I wish we'd gotten more about wizarding law, considering that it was a path Hermione was considering. What do lawyers do in the wizarding world? Defend their clients when a Stunning spell goes awry? Does the Ministry keep an army of lawyers to sue for libel? But then again, the professional world of HP was never terribly well-explained and what we did get was either vague or numerically impossible, so...

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Well, we don't graduate at all, so no. When you reach the age of 16, after taking your GCSEs, you can leave if you want (it's now changed so that you have to stay to 18, but only very recently), or you can stay another two years and take your A Levels. In both of these cases, you're in lessons until public exams start in May/June; you come in for the exams you're entered for (and as people choose different subjects, they all finish at different times) and then you're done.

[madamedarque.livejournal.com]

So the GCSE's are not actually graduation exams? Interesting. American students are also allowed to leave school at 16, but without a diploma.

Thanks for the explanation. It took me forever to get the difference between A levels and O levels (although I think the latter are phased out now?). Tbh, the British system of higher education sort of weirds me out as an American because of the singular focus on academic achievement/exam performance and nothing else--here, university admissions and even secondary school graduation take into account extracurriculars, community service, etc.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

No - you don't have to pass them to leave school, if that's what you mean.

O-levels were replaced by GCSEs in 1988 so yes, they've been phased out. Regarding the difference between US and UK education, I can see the good points in both; being used to the UK system, though, I do have a preference for it. :)

[jennyrad.livejournal.com]

If you fail your GCSEs, and leave school, you do so without your GCSE qualifications. So that sounds exactly the same, it's just that we have a certificate for each subject, rather than a diploma for high school as a whole.

My school had community service options at sixth form - that is, your non-compulsory pre-university study, 16-18 year olds - but not pre-16, and not compulsory.

[madamedarque.livejournal.com]

it's just that we have a certificate for each subject, rather than a diploma for high school as a whole.

Ah, that makes sense. And the community service explanation as well--my American brain has trouble grasping the concept of non-compulsory studies at the secondary school level.