The production of HBO’s new Harry Potter TV series will include the construction of a temporary school that can house up to 600 pupils.
Cast members will attend classes alongside their filming duties, with around 150 children expected to attend daily lessons, and space for up to quadruple this amount at peak periods, BBC News has reported.
The need to juggle filming with school time was also a consideration for the stars of the previous Harry Potter films — but the creation of a temporary school goes further, and speaks to the enormous size of the TV show’s production, which is due to feature a cast of hundreds and last for the “next decade.”
The school, housed in portable buildings at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, and overseen by the Three Rivers Disctrict Council, will be open from 5.30am each weekday morning until 8.30pm each evening, in order to fit studies around day and night filming. It’s there that children, including the series’ core stars, will attend lessons while being available to film when needed — swapping arithmetic for arithmancy as appropriate.
According to planning application documents seen by the BBC, the school will be in place “for the next 8-10 years” but be dismantled afterwards.
HBO marked the beginning of the series’ filming this week with the release of a photo showing Dominic McLaughlin, the young actor now playing Harry Potter, in costume for the first time. This was then followed by a first look at Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost in costume as Hagrid.
The production plans to adapt each of the Harry Potter books into a full season of TV episodes, with the first set to air in 2027.
Alongside a small army of children, veteran actor John Lithgow will play Albus Dumbledore, with Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Paul Whitehouse as Argus Filch and Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
