>>11
>How are the students sorted into houses at real schools? Are the houses equivalent?
Usually random allocation, although siblings tend to be automatically enrolled into the same house.
The house system creates arbitrary, internal competition in preparation for competing with other schools. There is often a house point system, where pupils are awarded merit points for their house based on superior academic achievement or behaviour, and then there are the inter-house competitions, sports, public speaking, that sort of thing.
The system is rife with corruption and error, with teachers favouring pupils from their own houses simply because teaching for 35 years gets a little bit tedious, and so then things like "winning the house merit cup" become exciting.
Now, although the houses are randomly allocated, talent and achievement are not, so certain houses end up over-achieving in certain areas, giving a knock-on effect as to what gets focused on next year. This means that houses develop a temporary character of their own, the clever house, the sporting house, the theatrical house, the crap house, and this identity is reinforced year on year, until something dramatic occurs in the crap house like in an 1980's movie, and they doggedly win the big game to the amazement of the smug opposition, or whatever.