The Sorting Ceremony (but it's more efficient now)

The Sorting Ceremony

Right, so all of our lovely students have arrived safely at the castle for another year of magical fun and shenanigans. Time to sit in the great hall and watch all the new students be sorted.... right? Well, we have 154 first years this year (some years we may have up to 200) and each sorting takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes, we'll say on average each student takes one minute to be sorted, that's 154 minutes, in other words... TWO AND A HALF HOURS. At least. So, no. I am not going to put my students through that for two main reasons.

1. It's BORING for the older kids! Unless your family member or friend is being sorted, who really cares which kid goes into which house? Everyone will find out eventually anyway.

2. It's not fair on the poor first years. Imagine being muggle born, suddenly finding out you're going to a wizarding school, it's all so much to take in. You're only 11, you're probably scared as shit... only to be told that you now have to get up in front of hundreds of people who all stare at you as McGonagall puts an old crusty sentient hat on your head that screams out a house name based on your personality that you probably don't even understand the meaning of yet. Then the whole school makes an immediate judgement based on that house name, that again, you are too young to fully comprehend. It's messed up and I'm not doing it, not at my school!

So what do we do instead? Here is what I propose. All of the older students are free to go to their dormitories to change into their school robes and catch up with friends. No sitting watching 11 year olds be sorted for 3 hours, just chill guys. Welcome back, get in your robes, unpack a bit. R e l a x. Unless you're a prefect, in which case you are expected to change and meet the First Years in The Great Hall. In the mean time, all of the first years are immediately escorted off of the boats by the boathouse, where head boy and girl await to walk them up the steps into The Great Hall. Presumably it's around 1:45pm by the time they're all sat down in there. All prefects, head boy and head girl, all four heads of house and Headmistress McGonagall are there. McGoogs gives a short and sweet welcome to Hogwarts speech, basically goes over the main rules, the houses are your family, these are your prefects, standard stuff. Head boy/girl are also expected to give a short (I'm talking 5 minutes) welcome speech. The four heads of house also give a brief five minute intro to their houses and the values they hold. The sorting then begins at around 2:20pm, and it does take about 2.5 hours this year.

HOWEVER. No reasonable person would expect a bunch of 11 year olds to sit still for a 2.5+ hour assembly at school, that's insane. So, 30 minutes into the sorting, the 5th year prefects take their new students who have already been sorted up to their dormitories to explain how the entrance works, show them around and leave them to get changed into their robes and settled in. Then again, after another 30 minutes the 6th year prefects take their sorted students up to their dormitories, then again after another 30 minutes the 7th year prefects take the next lot up. By this time the 5th year prefects are back down to take up round two of kids. This goes on until all students are sorted. Now I see some glaring flaws this this plan, most notably:

1. Sucks for the students who are the last to get sorted. They're still waiting around for potentially 3 hours.

2. Sucks for the prefects and head boy/girl.

However unfortunately with what I'm given, it's the best I can do. I'm willing to change a lot, but changing how students are sorted just isn't something I want to touch. I love the sorting hat idea and it wouldn't be Hogwarts without it. After all, I see it as the prefects' and head boy/girl's responsibilities to be present for things like this and it is only once a year. Same with the actual sorting, it may seem unfair that your friend who's last name begins with A is out of there in 30 minutes but Mr. Zoolander is stuck there for 3 hours... and it totally is. It would suck. No one's denying that it would suck. BUT. It is one time in your whole schooling life. It may be seen as a rite of passage of sorts. It annoys me that I can't make this 100% efficient lmao, but I do think it still works better than the original way.

Anyway, say it's about 5pm by the time all of the students have been sorted and settled into their dormitories. Students then have an hours more time to socialise before dinner at 6pm. At this stage the whole school would come into the Great Hall, including the newly sorted first years, for the traditional Hogwarts welcome feast. This is when headmistress McGonagall will give her real welcome speech to the whole school, including any staff changes and news students should know. The entire student body and all faculty are at the welcome feast.