Huh...

Both my primary schools had 'houses', although this was primarily for Sports Day, class competition, or breaking into groups on day trips out. High school had two houses, but this was to split the timetable up so there wouldn't be 10 year 8 Maths classes going at once, but 5 Maths and 5 English.

Which was why I'd never thought anyone would NOT know of houses/teams. They were such a common thing through all the local schools (some schools actually sharing houses between them, so multiple school Sports Days could and did happen), and widespread to other counties too.

Maybe it's more a British thing to happen in every school?

 

I've just asked a bunch of people I know on Facebook, and all of them were in consistent houses through primary, and then again through high school. The only one who went to boarding school said it was significantly like portrayed in Harry Potter, but all of them knew what it was, and everyone knew/guessed what they were used for.

 

Yeah I'd never heard of the House System over in California until reading Harry Potter when I was younger, and when I had to look up what prefects were I learned they were a common part of boarding schools, but I had no idea they were common even in public schools.

 

I came to post that here in Argentina we have some schools with House system but IdSayWhyNot beat me. I didn't go to one, just some Italian Elite bullshit my mother made me go. Everyone there was Italian, and I'm not saying with Italian ancestry, sons and daughters from Italian ambassadors, knights, retired officials, etc. At one time only Italian children by blood could enter (Jus sanguinis), and there was some stupid pride to be one of the few schools who did that, but when the budget suffered with the economic situation of the country they allowed everyone else.

And you don't have any political view at 11, trust me.

Lol!

BTW, you went to St. George?

 

In the context of canon, as something that serves purposes both practical (the one's Taure and others mentioned) and magical, perhaps it served another function the Founders might have considered. Magic is an intellectual art, and in HP, higher intellects often equate to the kind of supremacy exhibited by Dumbledore, Riddle, Snape, etc., and more often even than that, it could be said that the nature of one's intellect determines the nature of one's magic, however intelligent one might be relative to others (as with Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, the other professors, and so on).

So, if we lend credence to the idea that the four houses, selected by some or other character trait or set of traits, which they either need or have, and in consideration of their best interests, we can acknowledge that in addition to the development of their character, the Hat is considering the development of their magic.

It selects houses based on intellectual qualities, qualities that will affect (to some extent) how that individual perceives, learns, interacts with, understands, and performs magic, because it knows that magic and mind are one, and outlook, creativity, ambition, courage, loyalty, and cleverness can be everything when it comes to doing well in magic. It does the practical things others in this thread have said it does, but perhaps it also considers the relationship between someone's character and the nature of his or her magic, trying to put them in the House (or with the Founder) that will make them the greatest wizard they can be. And the Hat could also consider, in addition to whatever set of characteristics the student has, how the student deals with the process of sorting itself (Hatstall), because decisions (like the one Harry made) are a part of performing magic as well.

 

I'm in the same boat as most Americans in this thread: I didn't realize that the House system was a real thing until Taure set me straight. It must be a British thing, or at the least a non-American thing.

Today I learned...

 

St. Gregory. Pretty decent school. The House colors were even yellow, red, green and blue like in HP. Though I suppose there aren't that many options. You can't very well make your House colors malachite, falu red, citrus and opal.

 

For me it is almost something new (I encountered it also in other stories, but I never thought that it is based on a real thing), it is probably British thing.

 

Well, at my school, red and navy were the school colours, so the house colours were yellow, green, light blue and white.

 

And what about mascots?

Every school I went to as I was growing up (and there were quite a few as I was a military brat) had a mascot. Here in HK, though, I haven't seen anything of the kind. With Hong Kong being a former British colony and following British conventions in things of this nature, I'm guessing mascots aren't a big part of school culture?

Hogwarts didn't really seem to have a whole school mascot--those were reserved for the houses.

 

For the record, when Taure says "British public schools," he means what we would call a private boarding school (well, not always boarding, but definitely private I think). Actual equivalents to our U.S. public schools (almost always referring to government run day schools) have different names there.

In my own public school (the standard American kind), they actually did divide the students into three "houses." It was nothing like the HP/UK setup, though - no competitions between houses. It was only an administrative division.

In the US, you are most likely to find rough equivalents to the House system at some of the more hoity-toity universities, such as Harvard and Yale.

 

At my school they started a House system while I was in year 10 or 11 (probably 11) and everyone joked that they were copying Harry Potter. Although I'm not sure which was the Hufflepuff- I always thought that Hodgekin had a similar ring to the name, but my house of Colman was yellow.

You know, I was actually the House Captain for a year. Mostly because I was curious as to what the House Captain actually does and that was interpreted into wanting to be it.

I really should wander on over and see what they are doing with the house system nowadays.

 

A big deal? Not really. They were just the colours our sports teams wore and our ties came in.

Never even seen a school with a mascot, sorry. Our houses had animals associated with them, but if you asked a student what Brightwell house's animal was they'd give you a blank stare.

 

My school had bottle green as its colour, though the only real effect that had was on the colour of jumpers and the logo.

Me neither. Closest we got was the horse that got tied up on the field next to ours. That thing barely touched the grass for the number of apples it got fed.

 

CalTech uses the house system still, or it did when I visited 6 years ago at least. Doubt its changed since then.

 

Yeah, I would guess that the 'school colours' in the UK are more what jumper/blazer/socks/summerdress colour they're required to wear. That said, I'm not sure if I've seen any other colours barring red, purple, blue, dark green and - on the rare occasion - yellow.

I myself was blue throughout primary school, but our secondary school was just the usual black trousers/white shirt/black blazer affair.

 

We have houses in Singapore, given our status as a former British colony. However, houses aren't that big of a deal because you spend more time interacting with your classmates than people in your houses.

My class in secondary school have a strong habit of gathering together even though we are supposed to be split apart during my school's sports day.