Hogwarts Curriculum

[beyond the rain]

I want to talk about the Hogwarts school curriculum - namely any non-canon subjects/clubs/courses that should take place in the castle. There's a good outline set up, but personally I think that there could be a lot more additional lessons, than the ones we have. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following clubs/courses: 

• charms club
• frog choir
• apparition lessons (although I believe it cost to enroll)
• quidditch 
• gobstones club
• duelling club (occasionally) 
• astronomy club (although that was film only) 

 

There are probably more that I just haven't thought of. I have heard a lot of people discuss the idea of a healing/medical course which I think would be really useful for any St.Mungo's hopefuls - and just for general common knowledge. I thought it would be a good idea to list any additional ideas of clubs/additional classes/courses that we could use in our own fics if we need them! I'll start, here's a few ideas I've considered using for my own fic, you're more than welcome to use them: 

• Magical Law  - an additional lesson. Would be useful for anyone wanting to work in the ministry, or a career in law. In my headcanon there are no NEWTs/OWLs, it would be coursework based and the student would get a certificate and qualification once they completed it. On offer to 5th years and upwards, and lasts 1-2 years depending on the student. 
• Elemental Magic - Looks at magic that works strictly with fire/water/earth /air  
• Creature Appreciation Society - A club that studies magical creatures, they talk about their favourite animals, and sometimes Hagrid (or any gamekeeper) will take them out to the grounds in search of [insert creature] 

 

If any of these work for your fic, you're more than welcome to use them! I'd love to see some discussion on any ideas that you have too! 

[Ravenclaw_scientist]

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON THIS! 

I agree that there would be something on health/medicine for those who want it, lead by the school nurse. 

Also:

• Citizenship, where students learn to be decent members of society. 
• Potions club.
• School newspaper.
• Wizarding cooking lessons.
• Practical magic (how to clean/fix things).
• Homework club, where a few subjects run an open study space after school each day and students can drop in with questions or be forced to go if they're falling behind. 
• Wizards chess club. 
• Wizarding art because someones gotta paint those portraits. 

And for the love of all things holy there needs to be some sort of mandatory exercise every week. In my fic, it's run in-house by quidditch captains and the students can pick which training session works best for them, per week.

(I make timetables for all my Hogwarts characters that I follow while I'm writing that nobody else gets to see, I just really like timetables)

[felicis-purpure]

Muggle football or rugby club, in all honesty. It doesn't have to be official, but it does need to exist.

[Guest Noelle Zingarella]

3 hours ago, felicis-purpure said:

Muggle football or rugby club, in all honesty. It doesn't have to be official, but it does need to exist.

agreed. and at ilvermorny there's totally a baseball club.

[felicis-purpure]

46 minutes ago, Noelle Zingarella said:

agreed. and at ilvermorny there's totally a baseball club.

At Ilvermorny they should definitely have magical baseball. It developed from people cheating with magic until it turned into a totally different game.

[mydearfoxy]

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS.

Like, literally too many. I will not bore you with all of them.  

Basically I think the Hogwarts curriculum is crap, and I have an entire version of an alternative curriculum designed. But the very most important thing is some kind of reading and writing education. Because BELIEVE ME, most 11 year olds still need to work on their reading skills and effectively all students still need to work on their academic writing skills. And Hogwarts offers zero literacy instruction and then has professors assigning multi-page academic papers. It does not make sense! I have feelings!

Most kids that age aren't really comfortable with algebra or fractions either, and maybe advanced math study is not absolutely essential (though I still think it's great), but those seem like pretty foundational skills. 

i could literally keep talking about this for 24 hours straight so i'm cutting myself off but if you want to have a long and dorky convo about magical education policy and pedagogy and etc., I promise your DM on the topic would make my day 

[PinsandKneazles]

11 hours ago, MuggleMaybe said:

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS.

Like, literally too many. I will not bore you with all of them.  

Basically I think the Hogwarts curriculum is crap, and I have an entire version of an alternative curriculum designed. But the very most important thing is some kind of reading and writing education. Because BELIEVE ME, most 11 year olds still need to work on their reading skills and effectively all students still need to work on their academic writing skills. And Hogwarts offers zero literacy instruction and then has professors assigning multi-page academic papers. It does not make sense! I have feelings!

Most kids that age aren't really comfortable with algebra or fractions either, and maybe advanced math study is not absolutely essential (though I still think it's great), but those seem like pretty foundational skills. 

i could literally keep talking about this for 24 hours straight so i'm cutting myself off but if you want to have a long and dorky convo about magical education policy and pedagogy and etc., I promise your DM on the topic would make my day 

I completely agree. Literacy and numeracy are key skills and I'm surprised the curriculum doesn't include maths and english for the first three years at least. I'd go as far as including sciences and geography too - doesn't the wizarding world physically and socially differ from the muggle one? And what about art and music (as subjects or after-school clubs) - imagination is the foundation of innovation and creation, and these subjects help stimulate and develop those thought processes.

Also, there could be some kind of modified curriculum to support squib teaching at Hogwarts; you don't need to be magic to do some of the subjects currently on offer! 

In my version of modern Hogwarts, students from 1st year to 5th year participate in a castle-wide chores rota. This does away with the requirement for house elves (maybe employ a few to do the cooking) and develops domestic skills.

[mymischiefmanaged]

Oo yes me I have thoughts! What a good idea to share all these ideas so we can think about them in our stories.

Some ideas I have:

• I agree with the posts above about literacy and numeracy - especially given that most wizarding children seem to be home schooled before Hogwarts so have probably not had any consistent primary level education. I like the idea that these subjects are compulsory lower down in the school, and then perhaps some muggle style qualifications are available at OWL level for those that want to pursue them, which brings me on to...
• Muggle Literature - I see this as a subset of muggle studies and it would be a lot like English Literature studies in the muggle world but with the added benefit of teaching wizards about how muggles interact with the world and have done through history. Back in the day on HPFF, Roisin and I got halfway through planning a ScoRose which focused on the two of them learning about Much Ado About Nothing and not noticing their own parallels with the story and fighting about Rose's feminist society, which brings me on to...
• Activist/Political societies. I think for sure there would be women's groups and feminist discussion groups, spaces for people from minority backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and legacies from Hermione's SPEW days about dealing with inequalities in the wizarding world. I know some of these are often more associated with university students than school students, but given that it seems most people go straight from Hogwarts into working life I think they'd need these opportunities to figure out their identities and work through their values and principles with their peers.
• For muggle born students and students like Harry who grew up in the muggle world, I really think there should be some kind of 'intro to magic' class in their first year. It seems crazy that they learn about goblin rebellions and whatnot in History of Magic but don't understand how the MInistry works, that there are other magical schools, or what kind of careers are on offer in the magical world. When you properly think about it, it's pretty staggering that these 11 year olds are expected to just make themselves at home in a world they never knew existed. 
• I also think there needs to be some kind of PSHE/Citizenship going on, making use of teachers' willingness to share their experiences. These kids are at boarding school away from their parents and need some guidance in e.g. consent, figuring out their sexuality, understanding money etc. I like to think this would have happened more for Harry if everyone hadn't been distracted by Voldemort and if he'd gone back for his final year, but I would hope that by the time his kids are at Hogwarts these things would be more integrated in the curriculum.
• ALSO I wonder if there should be a short course, maybe alongside OWLs, that's just useful household spells and things to get by? I'm remembering Tonks finding it difficult to use magic to pack Harry's trunk, and definitely don't think Harry was ever taught to cook and clean etc using magic (and tbh that's the aspect of magic I would find most exciting). Maybe there could be a certificate for this, a bit like what @beyond the rain suggested above for Magical Law.

I could go on, but I won't because I suspect this is already too long. I should do a disclaimer that although these are all things I've thought about (extensively), they haven't yet made their way into any of my writing because I tend to find it easier to just fall back on what JK gave us. Maybe something for me to work on in the future...

[felicis-purpure]

Is it at all plausible that maths/literacy skills could be distributed among the different subjects? We only see a small slice of what classes are like overall, and I think that perhaps contextualised skills could be taught within them. For example, there's probably some math that's relevant to Herbology, and 'how to keep an experiment log' could be part of it as well.

[Ravenclaw_scientist]

20 hours ago, felicis-purpure said:

Is it at all plausible that maths/literacy skills could be distributed among the different subjects? We only see a small slice of what classes are like overall, and I think that perhaps contextualised skills could be taught within them. For example, there's probably some math that's relevant to Herbology, and 'how to keep an experiment log' could be part of it as well.

Totally agree with this! I see Herbology and potions as biology and chemistry classes, astronomy is physics, HoM (with a decent teacher), charms, DADA and transfiguration should integrate literacy. Arithmancy surely needs to be a core subject in at least years 1-3 though! 

[felicis-purpure]

6 hours ago, Ravenclaw_scientist said:

Totally agree with this! I see Herbology and potions as biology and chemistry classes, astronomy is physics, HoM (with a decent teacher), charms, DADA and transfiguration should integrate literacy. Arithmancy surely needs to be a core subject in at least years 1-3 though! 

Hmm, what if Arithmancy isn't 1:1 with arithmetic, though? Based on its name, it sounds like the application of mathematics to magic, which would probably require you to have a good understanding of both magic and math to get your head around easily. I think its placement as a higher level class indicates that there should be some kind of pre-Arithmancy math that everyone has to learn.

[felicis-purpure]

Here's something that has been playing on my mind since I spoke to @MuggleMaybe about the Wizarding curriculum: there are more things in it that don't make sense than just the content of the subjects.

I need to quickly outline some parallels to the real world. This is a simplification and if you're interested in further information, you can find more info (and info split out by country) on the UK Government's website. (...G-rated, I guess?). You can also find information on similar systems in other countries on Wikipedia. (G)

So, in the UK, every student is supposed to take GCSE exams at 16. (In Wizarding terms: O.W.Ls). A lot of your time in school up to that point is spent, essentially, in preparation to take GCSEs, which are, effectively, supposed to sort the best students from the middling students from the worst students. They are graded on a curve so that the same proportion of students get the same amounts of grades each year, i.e. if we make the test too easy, then you'll need a higher grade to get a high mark. If it's harder, you'll need less marks.

Then, if you want to, you can continue on to A-Level exams at 18. (In Wizarding terms: N.E.W.Ts). These are graded in the same way. You can also do an apprenticeship, or take other types of qualification. Or, you could stop your education entirely. This is why Fred & George could just yeet out of school on their broomsticks and never come back, without finishing their NEWTs.

The basic idea is that you take a fairly wide array of GCSEs, then take a smaller set of A-Levels in the subjects you were best at. Schools usually won't let students who did badly at a GCSE subject take an A-Level in the same or a closely related subject because chances are they won't be good at it.

I've got My Own Opinions about the overall effectiveness of this strategy, because it's incredibly exam-heavy. But that's beside the point...

 

"I understand what a GCSE is, get to the point!"

 

The point is, in real life, we have these standardised qualifications because they at least give the appearance of fairly ranking students across the country. All students study to take the same sets of exams and are ranked against each other, usually for determining university places. As far as I can tell, Hogwarts is the only Wizarding school in Britain; if it isn't, then there can't possibly be enough other schools to... justify running exams like this. There can't be enough students that ranking like this makes sense. Also, what universities? More than one university? Is it a secret department at Oxford?

Are we comparing students across countries? Surely wizards in different countries would have different ideas about education? If OWLs and NEWTs are supposed to be directly comparable to GCSEs and A-Levels, were they introduced around the same points in time? Why? Did a Muggle bring them in? Did they face outside pressure from Magical Ofqual somehow? I'm so, so, so, confused.

*softly headdesks*.

 

[mydearfoxy]

6 minutes ago, felicis-purpure said:

Also, what universities? More than one university? Is it a secret department at Oxford?

I totally head canon this fyi  It's a very magical feeling place and the university is suuuuuuper old

7 minutes ago, felicis-purpure said:

I'm so, so, so, confused.

^Literally my exact feelings about everything to do with education policy and pedagogy and curriculum (and also anything involve math or historical dates) in the potterverse 

[felicis-purpure]

@MuggleMaybe the uk education system is Very Messy, but it more or less makes sense in context. Copy-pasted to a different context, it just becomes overtly ridiculous. Why, JKR, why?

4 minutes ago, MuggleMaybe said:

^Literally my exact feelings about everything to do with education policy and pedagogy and curriculum (and also anything involve math or historical dates) in the potterverse 

On one hand, some of the weird specialisms make sense if you consider that you only want a certain set of subjects to be taken at OWL level so they can be continued at NEWT level.

On the other hand, I can't think of a single good reason why OWL and NEWT levels should even exist, let alone mirror muggle qualifications so strongly. Hogwarts pre-dates, as far as I can tell, the existence of any kind of standardised school leaving certificate in the UK. Who introduced this nonsense??

 

I blame Umbridge

[grumpy cat]

On 5/26/2020 at 7:51 PM, felicis-purpure said:

It developed from people cheating with magic until it turned into a totally different game.

lol i adore this headcanon, it's both hilarious but i can totally see it happening

On 5/26/2020 at 7:57 PM, MuggleMaybe said:

I have an entire version of an alternative curriculum designed

i'd love to see this! (if you're willing to post it here?). i keep my fics very vague about curriculum on purpose but i'm very into world building and love seeing what others come up with

also on topic of wizarding universities, i strongly headcanon that they exist and harry is just unobservant. i can't imagine healers becoming healers (or just going straight to st mungo's without any prior knowledge) straight out of hogwarts where there are zero healing lessons. just one example but it's the first that came to mind. and i'd be a bad architect if i didn't fancy a magical architecture school

[beyond the rain]

^my headcanon is that university is an option (it was originally going to be explored in Raising Helena, but murder and teen angst got in the way) but specifically with Healers, they can do an apprenticeship with a healer or the school's healer - who will have to be trained at St.Mungo's level. I like the idea that there are multiple pathways, and that university isn't the be all and end all to success, nor does it pave a quicker route. 

I would also like to say that when OotP was written, it was legal for a child to leave education at that age, which is why it makes sense that the Weasley twins did. Now, in Britain, education is compulsory until 18? I think? I remember being in school when they bumped the legal age up so that you couldn't leave school until you were 17 (I remember this because I was the Hermione Granger at the back that was quietly pleased. Nerd.) - so you either have to be doing A Levels or an equivalent to that, or an apprenticeship. I'm bringing it up because I just wondered if people thought it might transfer from the muggle world to the wizarding world? 

I think qualifications and stuff like that were originally muggle ideas, that the wizarding world took on themselves - hence the horrible names/acronyms. Prime Ministers interact with the Minister of Magic a lot, don't they. Maybe one day they got chatting about something the muggle minister of education had brought up in the Commons or in a cabinet meeting? I do know that O-Levels and those sort of qualifications were brought into British society in the 50s, to replace the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate...I have no idea how long they were in existence though. There wasn't much of a grading system with them though. 

 

We also use numbers now instead of letters to grade GCSEs which would be OWLs. Do you think that would be discussed too? Honestly, don't mind me, just going off into a tangent about our education system.

[felicis-purpure]

13 hours ago, beyond the rain said:

^my headcanon is that university is an option (it was originally going to be explored in Raising Helena, but murder and teen angst got in the way)

as a fellow writer: that sounds distinctly relatable

13 hours ago, beyond the rain said:

I would also like to say that when OotP was written, it was legal for a child to leave education at that age, which is why it makes sense that the Weasley twins did. Now, in Britain, education is compulsory until 18? I think? I remember being in school when they bumped the legal age up so that you couldn't leave school until you were 17 (I remember this because I was the Hermione Granger at the back that was quietly pleased. Nerd.) - so you either have to be doing A Levels or an equivalent to that, or an apprenticeship. I'm bringing it up because I just wondered if people thought it might transfer from the muggle world to the wizarding world?

I originally was going to mention that, but it's actually only been changed in England and the rules are variable in the other countries of the UK and I was basically like 'I'LL BRING IT UP IF IT COMES UP'. I would hazard a guess that Wizarding society feels very distinctly English, despite Hogwarts' location in Scotland--it seems like Scotland was chosen more as a method to make it seem far away and hidden from England than to have Hogwarts be Scottish--they would either have adopted English rules or purposefully ignored them. That's just my interpretation of it, though.

13 hours ago, beyond the rain said:

I think qualifications and stuff like that were originally muggle ideas, that the wizarding world took on themselves - hence the horrible names/acronyms. Prime Ministers interact with the Minister of Magic a lot, don't they. Maybe one day they got chatting about something the muggle minister of education had brought up in the Commons or in a cabinet meeting? I do know that O-Levels and those sort of qualifications were brought into British society in the 50s, to replace the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate...I have no idea how long they were in existence though. There wasn't much of a grading system with them though.

I think that makes sense too, as some kind of flailing 'we must introduce standards!' measure. If the Minister for Magic felt like Hogwarts was being outdone by Muggle schools, they might want to try to 'become more competitive' despite that competition not really existing.

 

13 hours ago, beyond the rain said:

We also use numbers now instead of letters to grade GCSEs which would be OWLs. Do you think that would be discussed too? Honestly, don't mind me, just going off into a tangent about our education system.

The Wizarding grades don't follow a letter scale anyway. They have three degrees of success and three degrees of failure - Outstanding / Exceeds Expectations / Acceptable and Poor / Dreadful / Troll.  I feel like at some point someone might come in and say 'maybe we should not be giving students marks that insinuate that they are dreadful trolls' which could provoke a switch. I guess maybe it could be timed with the GCSE grades changing for a similar 'the muggles can't show us up' kind of reason.

[Ravenclaw_scientist]

18 hours ago, felicis-purpure said:

Did they face outside pressure from Magical Ofqual somehow? 

Ofqual are everywhere, I'm sure this is what happened. Although I think it might be so the ministry can rank students against other year groups maybe? 

Surely half the fun of Potter fanfic is rewriting the curriculum! It needs help! 

[felicis-purpure]

1 hour ago, Ravenclaw_scientist said:

Ofqual are everywhere, I'm sure this is what happened. Although I think it might be so the ministry can rank students against other year groups maybe? 

Surely half the fun of Potter fanfic is rewriting the curriculum! It needs help! 

It totally is, sorry if I've taken this thread off the rails. I think whether it's relevant depends on your starting point for changing the curriculum, i.e. is the canon situation something that has happened in your headcanon, or did people just totally avoid it?

WRT year group ranking, you make a good point, though I think leaving meaningful assessment to the end of a two- or five-year course isn't necessary for that or even the best way to compare the progress of year groups across time since you're only sampling years 5 and 7 every year - if there's any sliding in standards, you might not necessarily be able to pick it up until there are larger consequences. I guess that's what school inspections are supposed to be for, though...

(Maybe that's how Snape gets away with being such a bad teacher - and Binns keeps his job - because as long as you can effectively cram and pick up the basics across the course, your marks during the year don't matter that much?)

[PinsandKneazles]

On 5/28/2020 at 7:55 PM, grumpy cat said:

 

also on topic of wizarding universities, i strongly headcanon that they exist and harry is just unobservant. i can't imagine healers becoming healers (or just going straight to st mungo's without any prior knowledge) straight out of hogwarts where there are zero healing lessons. just one example but it's the first that came to mind. and i'd be a bad architect if i didn't fancy a magical architecture school

Yes!! I'm so with you on universities. Existing UK collegiate universities (Durham, Oxford, Cambridge) could definitely be "adapted" so that there are magical colleges which muggle students are unaware of, or buildings/wings within existing colleges. It would make sense to sneak Healing students in with muggle medics for some of the courses (anatomy and physiology, for example). I could totally see most of Cambridge's colleges having hidden halls for magical students. 

This has all given me a lot of food for thought and I've just had an idea for a re-write...

[Raspberry_cordelia]

Woohoo!  I love talking about school and extracurriculars - this thread is perfect! 

On 5/26/2020 at 9:22 AM, felicis-purpure said:

Muggle football or rugby club, in all honesty. It doesn't have to be official, but it does need to exist.

I've always thought why there seems to be only one sport played at Hogwarts.  Where I come from at least, the sports intrigue is spread pretty evenly throughout the year, and there are a variety of individual (swimming, track and field, etc.) and team sports.  There are so many opportunities to create cool magical sports anyways - I've always thought that there would have been broom races and whatnot.  And I understand that the Wizarding community is rather insular, but there are a fair amount of half-bloods and Muggleborns attending Hogwarts every year, so I'd like to think that they would have at least campaigned for some sort of Muggle sports team.

Idk, is it different in the UK?  I feel like most schools don't have just one sport or one big sport.

[sibilant]

PLEASE tell me there's a wizarding sex ed class, magic + irresponsible fucking = DISASTER omg.

my personal headcanon is that there are also apprenticeships open for students in the higher years, like a junior healer apprenticeship (idk what else might apply? i'm all about hands-on-learning though, so i like to headcanon that such a thing exists for any student who wants to pursue that). i also think that there's gotta be informal clubs that are just about like, idk, debating the validity of various types of sandwiches (i.e., is a taco a sandwich?). these kids are living together and probably bored out of their minds

also like the idea of there being a club that is focused specifically around taking apart and understanding Muggle technology. but that could just be my engineer side poking out