Normally, after a certain while of homework and tests a student will get a report card or such to tell them how they are doing. Also for there parents to bitch at them. I've never seen any report card in the Harry Potter books besides the OWLS and most likely NEWTS results.

Am I missing something here? Or did I just space out and not see it?

 

Perhaps things are different in British boarding schools? The purpose of the report card is to inform you and your parents of your general academic progress, as well as provide a record that your future employers can view when hiring you. OWLs and NEWTs are fine for the last need, the professors themselves aren't more than a quick Apparation and a brief walk away from your parents, and you are there for the majority of the year.

Why would Hogwarts need quarterly or even yearly report cards, and why do you assume that the results are not published?

 

There are exams at the end of every year. The students turn in HW. They write essays, and they receive grades for them. And I'm not sure if it's fanon or not, but I think that Hermione was mentioned as being at the top of her class at one point. I would assume, therefore, that there is a grading system and that students receive report cards. Just because it's not mentioned outright doesn't mean it isn't there.

 

Its not described in detail, I always just assumed it would be based on the same system as the OWLs for simplicity (probably wrong there) A, EE, O etc

As for report cards, it is probable that at the end of each term the parents get a report. But bare in mind that during term time, why would the parents need a report card. In the real world it is so they can ensure that their child, who is under their care, is making the required effort. At Hogwarts, the teachers, and the prefects etc, are responsible for the children doing what they're told, doing the required work and generally being good students. The parents have no say in how their children behave when they are separated from each other for that long a period.

 

Perhaps the students are given a syllabus at the start of each year for each class, detailing just how much their essays and homework is worth over all. As much as it is true in university, I can't imagine a school giving 15 year olds end of year exams worth 100% of a grade.

 

You can't? Heh. Well, assuming that it's based on 50s style English boarding school, there isn't any. Corsework is a fairly recent invention. Even now in English schools you don't get corsework until you're doing your first externally assessed course (GCSEs).

 

True but that does not tie in with the frequent assignments being handed out. If they were not graded, I doubt Ron, or even the retard that Harry is in canon would bother with any coursework.

If detentions was the sole motivator instead of grades, I doubt Ron would do any at all. Maybe Harry would, but it is still questionable.

I think they are based on the same grading score we have seen for OWLs as it makes sense to keep it for the sake of simplicity.

 

There is a difference between homework and coursework. Harry has homework, certainly, but we have never seen any coursework: homework which counts towards your final mark.

 

If that were the case, Taure, would you honestly think anyone besides the Ravenclaws would bother with any homework?

Detention might not be a sufficient motivator, especially seeing the degree of procrastination and imbecility both Ron and Harry have shown.

 

But please, do not forget about our very own Gryffindor book-worm... but still there will be very few, besides the Ravenclaws and a very few others would actually bother to do it.

A bit off topic, I didn't found a separate thread for it but I doubt it hasn't been discussed yet - what of classes and actual curriculum is covert through the years?

There seems to be a lot of different levels of magical knowledge given to characters and they vary a lot from story to story... and how do they make a difference between OWL level transfiguration and NEWT's ?

 

A good point. I did leave out Hermione.

When it comes to the actual course material taught, we are handicapped by JKR's unwillingness to reveal any of the sort. Naturally, when faced with the idea of having some strange Alien crossover with romance and revealing more of what makes the magical world magical, Alien won.

I mean what sort of depraved, baby hating individual that dislikes bunnies would a person have to be to want to see more of actual magical things rather than monsters in chest?

All joke aside, the information is scarce, unreliable and mostly compiled from different statements. A Hogwarts curriculum project would be a nice to accomplish, inserting in some made up spells to compensate and add some diversity.

After all, I am always willing to expand wizarding culture. Very important thing. After Harry/Fleur, naturally.

 

There isn't really an "if" about it. That is the case in the English schooling system, and people do do their homework. Most people anyway.

 

And also remember, in a boarding school it is basically impossible to avoid a detention. You are in a closed in environment with people who can magically locate you if you don't turn up. And really, if you for instance don't turn up to a detention of writing lines with Flitwick, don't you think that maybe the replacement detention will be twice the length scrubbing cauldron bottoms with Snape, or trimming dangerous plants with Sprout?

 

...impossible to avoid detention?

Moving staircases, the ability to create a map to keep track of the comings and goings of anyone in a given location, invisibility cloaks, vanishing cupboards, vanishing rooms - including a room that can be whatever you want, secret passages, disillusionment charms, notice-me-not charms, memory charms, etc etc ad infinitum.

Avoiding detention is basically what Neville did in book 7, and that was against teachers who were actively trying to torture/kill him.Teachers aren't allowed to use disciplinary magic on students in normal circumstances, as told by McGonagall when Moody was bouncing Malfoy.

Add in Dumbledore's never-ending bag of second chances and fear of the kiddies joining teh dark side, and I gaurantee that anyone could've avoided detention if they truly wanted to.

 

The way i see it its not so much avoidinfg the actual detention, but rather not being able to escape the consequences. AT my school it's relatively easy to BS the teachers with some sort of excuse about extracurricular activities or family crises in order to escape - In a boarding school its a little different.

I wouldn't go as far as to say a 'report card' doesn't exist - though what you mean by a report card is probably different to what I understand. In England (or at least in my experience of life here) reports are given close to the end of the third term, in about May or so. THese are short written evaulations of our performance in class, as well as a 'grade,' which up until GCSE level is essentially a guess.

In HP, however, we know that end of year exams count for a lot (this happens in my school as well, but I think that's just us), at the end of PS Harry comments that it was a shame that Crabbe and Goyle didn't fail and be expelled, or something to those lines. The students must have recieved some notification of these results, and to me that's a report...

I think the other reason we've never seen a report card is because Harry has noone who would ever see or care about it. other than Mrs Weasley, who doesn't have any legal authority. Maybe it is sent to the Dursleys, but you'd think some comment would have been made by them about it.

 

This.

My school, which was rather like Hogwarts in that it's a British private boarding school, complete with houses and a house cup, had a strict system in place. Miss three detentions and you get a Saturday detention. Miss 3 Saturdays and you get suspended. Get suspended twice and you're kicked out.

 

I suppose he could have just skipped the detentions, but you underestimate Dumbledore's power to make Harry's life a living hell. He could take away Quidditch, Hogsmeade week-ends, have Filch breathing down his neck 24/7, assign more homework, take away all house points (Which would result in him being gang raped by his fellow Griffyndors every morning before breakfast. Yes, even Neville. Especially Neville).

Or he could just bluff and threaten to send him back to the Dursleys. Harry would be at his feet proposing oral services in exchange for his forgiveness in no time.

 

How does any school make the children do what they want? When it comes down to it, no teacher is able to stop a child if they really want to do something. It's against the law to physically restrain them.

In the end all you have is your authority as a teacher, and trust in your ability to control the class merely by virtue of that position. And for the most part, it works, though you do get classes that just don't listen.

As for Dumbledore and second chances, firstly Dumbledore clearly isn't against punishment where punishment is due, even on Harry; but more importantly, it would be McGonagall, not Dumbledore, directly in charge of Harry's dicsapline.