The School System of SPDM
The School Primary Defense of Mankind is a private institution where every few years, they take in orphaned arcanists around the world to train them for the purpose of becoming members of the Foundation. Many of the graduates go into the military/investigative sector of the Foundation and a handful are assigned to offices, given positions in headquarters and in rare cases accepted by the political councils. There is also a chance to work at Laplace, but thus far, Mesmer Jr. is the only one who had been placed there because of her lineage.
Not much is known about how the school works, but I will be mapping out as much information as I can find about the school, and make sure its organized as possible.
Disclaimer: This is solely based on Chapter 3, Green Lake, and the characters we have thus far who were students at SPDM. The only graduates we have are Horropedia (oldest graduate), Sonetto, Mesmer Jr., Vertin, and Matilda (youngest graduate of the group). I'll be referring to them as the "Foundation Kids", since the name sounds fitting enough. There are going to be spoilers for Chapter 3 and the characters' stories, so tread carefully.
Additionally, I'm going to be rarely using images because I really do not want to go into the effort of making screenshots after screenshots right now.
So buckle up and get ready for a big wall of paragraphs and sentences.
Known Staff Roles of the School
Principal - The head that manages the affairs of the school and responsible for all the matters that happen within. The current principal as of chapter 3 is Richard. Instructors - Their main purpose is to teach students varying subjects, a few that can be named are biology, music, potions, and arcane history School Physician - The person that takes care of the overall health of the students. It can be assumed that there are two per semester, since Tooth Fairy in particular would only stay in the school as its physician for half a year. Janitors - Of course, people that clean up areas in the school, and they have the freedom to interact with the children. Some are referred to as uncles and aunts I'd assume. Monitor Assistants - Students or Student Graduates that choose to help monitor the students of the school as a means to train them for instructor roles. Matilda is the only known monitor assistant so far. Monitor Students - Students that are given the role to monitor their peers. There seems to be a head role given to the school's high-achieving students like Sonetto. They are changed routinely every day and can increase/decrease depending on the necessity.
Level System and Enrollment
Of course, a school would not exist without its level system. The SPDM has a curriculum in place that sections off the varying different age groups of the orphaned arcanists after taking them in. The average range of the arcanists they take in are between a few months to 4 years old at its possible max.
The youngest student that had arrived in the school is Vertin at 1 month old, while Matilda is the oldest known student that had willingly enrolled at around 6 to 7 years old. This means that enrolling at the school is possible if the arcanist family is known to the Foundation. (For our Foundation kids, Sonetto and Vertin are the only ones to have been adopted into the school, whereas the other three have family or at least a guardian prior to enrollment)
The age of which arcanists graduate from the school seem to vary, in which Vertin, Sonetto, Matilda, and Mesmer Jr. had graduated at 13-15 years old. Whereas Horropedia, claimed to have been "several grades above" the group when the breakaway incident had happened. He's estimated to have been 17 at the time of the incident, while the rest of the group were around 10-12. This makes the information conflicting at first glance.
But of course, figuring out this level system would be rather helpful. This would be considered as a K-10 or K-13 curriculum, and it seems that the students can be categorized by as "Academic Year # Semester #".
Nursery & Kindergarten (1-5 years) - Where new baby and orphaned arcanists who were taken in by the school are raised in the first few years at the school.
Early Stage (5-10 years) - Young arcanists start their academic journey in the school, where they learn about the world around them while being isolated from the outside. They also begin their physical/arcanum training as a means to strengthen them whilst their afflatus and arcane skills slowly develop and awaken over time.
Late Stage (10-12 years) - The age of which arcanists begin to awaken their arcane skill. They are given the materials and training to develop their arcane skills and are slowly introduced to the world around them, being shown the opportunities they could take based on their skillset and possibly being invited to explore the work environment. (Its also in this stage that the students have a change in uniform.)
Work Immersion & Graduation (12-15 years) - The arcanists will begin to do work immersion in the fields they choose to specialize in, to familiarize themselves in the environment and even make their placements in these fields early on. Eventually, they graduate and go into official work for their sectors within the Foundation.
Higher Education (15-18 years) - Student graduates who might choose to seek higher education as a means to train for more skilled positions in their line of work. This can give them more opportunities and guidance on their first few years of work.
Rules and Education
"May the peace be with us. May the peace be with mankind." The school's main pursuit for its students are some philosophers' exhortation: "Heritage, Honor, Rationality, Responsibility"
The education in SPDM is rigorous, and goes in depth about many of the topics at hand and also putting their students through difficult trainings to ensure that they are at their best physique and readied skills. They tend to be strict, and would have a consistent flow of tests to ensure every student studies well.
Their rules are also just as meticulous, wanting to make sure that their students' conscience and goals stay close to the ideologies of the school and the Foundation. Going from disallowing them from artistic/literary media that is "not advocated or approved by" the Foundation, treating outside attachments as "meaningless", and teaching students that they are meant to sacrifice themselves for the safety of mankind.
The school has a Student Handbook that goes through these rules and guidelines. The main idea and rule that the school imposes is to pay no heed to the world outside, as creating an attachment would only bring harm and regret. They are to focus on training themselves to serve their mission towards pursuing peace and order in the guidance of the Foundation until death, since all of the students are taught that they would die martyrs for the cause.
"To live is to lose things around us until the day we lose life itself to death. That's why we should only focus on the supreme missions." - Sonetto, Frogs and Toffee (3-2)
Some of these rules include the standard things (no skipping classes, no in-fighting) while also having rules such as no mass gatherings, conspiration against the school, acquiring and keeping contraband, leaving school grounds, etc. However, there are some liberties that are taken, such as having freedom with hairstyles, free use of arcane skills, etc.
Interestingly, one of the rules is that discussion about the "Storm" is forbidden. Its also forbidden to go out when its raining, and discouraged to discuss any incident that had occurred within the school.
There are routinely inspections that are carried out to make sure no rules are being broken, such as dorm checks and head counting. Monitor staff are also in place to ensure there is order among the students, and as mentioned previously, the school would have a head student monitor that would cooperate with the respective school monitor and monitor assistant. If strict supervision is required for any reason, the Foundation will step in and arrange to deploy their own units or Zeno recruits from the academy. (Like in the case of the Manus Vindictae's olitiaus having to be scouted out by Zeno recruits like Lilya)
Punishments
Punishments are of course, carried out based on the rule that is broken. Normally, these punishments wouldn't be so harsh (it just so happened our little troublemaker just actively likes to break major rules). The most normal of the punishments that have been given out so far is a timeout and confiscation of contraband. Of course, there is the more…extreme side.
With the little shit I mean Vertin having this tendency to break rules, one of the punishments we see her go through is isolation. There is a guardhouse in the school's campus where students who break major rules stay in it for a specific amount of time based on what rule is broken. The most merciful would be only a mention of the "Storm" (1 day with no food/water), the worst of it is mass gathering and what can be classified as rebellion (2 weeks with no food/water).
Campus
We currently have a complete map of the school thanks to chapter 3 and the manus. The school is walled off and has watchtowers to ensure that there are no outsiders (and of course, escapees). There seems to be air raid tunnels beneath the schools as well, why they were built in besides its main purpose is not known, but as we know it has been rarely used. In these air raid tunnels we find that there are also blast doors that border between the tunnels and the watchtowers.
There are no labels on where the guardhouses are, but they are of course meant to discipline the students. There are critters and tools at the kids' disposal, to mostly alleviate immediate problems. The guardhouse is checked regularly, and is cleaned up weekly. Though, some messages left behind by previous dwellers are left as is for the next to help guide them through.
George the Oak is a tree possibly situatied near the lake on the map, and is known to be a famous tree for the kids because of its age and its size. There, they can go in the tree hollow or even just sit under the giant leaves. Either way, it looks to be like a nice spot to go to for the students when they have free time. Sad it got cautioned off after the parade incident.
Employees from the Foundation headquarters have the freedom to enter the school campus and visit the facilities as they'd like, as we see with Constantine and Druvis meeting in the library, and Madam Z and Katz meeting in the sports field in chapter 4.
Lastly, the school is most likely situated next to the official headquarters building, and there is a town that is near the school since there was a time where Vertin and Sonetto went to watch an outsider parade from a distance.
Events
There are 3 important events for SPDM: The Annual Evaluation, Parade Ceremony, and the Graduation of Year 10 & Higher Education students.
The Annual Evaluation is where they evaluate the overall performance of their students, and rank them based on the evaluation. -Sonetto and Matilda had made it to the rankings prior to or during the 4th Year of the Storm. Sonetto made her way to rank 1, while Matilda had achieved rank 3.
The Annual Parade is to showcase the school's best image and boost morale, and with it, the school selects their best students to participate in a three-month intense training. Through this they would become the school's honor guard and represent the students in the best way possible. Before this, a pre-parade ceremony is held out to help practice and for the principal to send his regards/support to the students. -As again, one of the most outstanding students, Sonetto's "Parade Anthem" garment seems to be the honor guard uniform that she had been given, signaling that she was one of the chosen students for the training course.
And lastly, Graduation. Of course, the main focus here would be the year 10 students of SPDM; who officially become workers for the Foundation. We're not really sure how this ceremony happens, but it can be thought that the students will be given the choice to choose their paths immediately after the ceremony, or, it would be assigned to them.
Vertin and Mesmer Jr. are excluded from the choice/allocation, as they were both put into roles early on for special circumstances. For Vertin it was because she became the Timekeeper after the breakaway incident, and for Mesmer she had been put into the role of working in Laplace because of her lineage and heritage.
While Sonetto seemed to have chosen to be a field investigator, Matilda was assigned to her role as a Monitor Assistant.
Horropedia on the other hand seems to have sought out higher education since he stayed in the Foundation a bit longer than others, and thus graduated with such an honor. This made him able to start working in the external inspection unit as it seems.
Other notes on the Foundation kids before ending this megapost:
Sonetto has proven to be the most outstanding graduate of SPDM, and has been rewarded medals (i.e. Merit Medal of Session Eight) and even a ceremony stick because of her role as an honor guard.
Its very likely that Vertin was isolated from the rest of the students to train her for her role as the Timekeeper. Besides that, she is one of the most unique students of the school.
Mesmer Jr. had been assigned to work in Laplace's Rehabilitation Center at 12 years old, making her the youngest person to have started work among the five.
Besides Sonetto, Matilda has technically not seen her former classmates since graduation, and possibly has not seen Vertin for an even longer time.
Horropedia is the only person who had stayed in SPDM past the assumed graduating age, which makes me believe that he had received higher education or was held back by troublemaking…I can see both possibilities.
Overall, these are the observations that I was able to rule out. There are still some things that I might not have considered or taken to account yet, but that's just because I can't really tell if it can be added here + I wrote this at 5 am. SPDM's school system is a bit screwed because of the punishments and everything, but this entire guide feels like it can be comprehended better.
Thanks for reading to the bottom of this post. I'm open to answer questions as well as add into/fix the information here!
