A Muggle School at Hogwarts

Ok, not really. But how to describe the school that has been built for the child actors on the Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden set for the upcoming HBO Max Harry Potter series? The series will be filming for the next decade and, just as in the original films, the child actors will be growing up alongside their characters. Except they will not be getting their entire education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Witchery. They will also still need to complete their Muggle coursework — and the Muggle Studies class at Hogwarts will not be sufficient to that end. In addition to their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, they will need the O-levels and A-levels that are part of the British educational system’s assessment of student learning.

The new series began filming in July 2025. (Some cast and crew were spotted filming Harry and Hagrid walking through London, presumably on their way to Diagon Alley via The Leaky Cauldron.) The actors playing first year students at Hogwarts had not yet been born when the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, was released 14 years prior. Growing up on essentially the same film set will present commensurate demands on their time and attention. The original actors had tutors on set; this generation will have a school that will educate not only the lead actors but the extras as well.

The school will be able to accommodate around 600 pupils but there likely will not be that many children on set except for filming crowd scenes such as Quidditch matches and feasts in the Great Hall. Students may have to hang out on set for long days of reshoots and night shoots, so the school day will begin as early as 5:30am and run until 8:30pm. (Hermione will love that!) You can find out a bit more about the on-set school will likely be organised here.

Filming for the first book, which will make up the entirety of the first season when the series debuts on HBO Max in 2027, will continue through the spring of 2026, so the child actors have been withdrawn from their previous Muggle schools to begin their multi-faceted on-set education.