Netflix’s teen drama series ‘Heartbreak High’ tells the story of a group of high school students, exploring their pursuits of love, passion, identity, and beliefs. The story centers around a sex-ed or SLT class that these students are forced into attending after a series of secret hook-ups revealed by a mural. ‘Heartbreak High’ is a reboot of an Australian series of the same name, which aired on Network Ten between 1994 and 1996 and on ABC TV between 1997 and 1999. Although the characters and narratives are very different from the original series, Hartley High students can be found in both shows. We have the answer if you are wondering if Hartley High is actually a school.
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Hartley High is a real school?
No, Hartley High isn’t a real school. Students attended Hartley High in series one until series five. It is eventually closed down and students are transferred to Hartley Heights, another nearby school. Hartley High was depicted in scenes on the original TV series at Maroubra Bay High School, New South Wales. The Netflix series was filmed in New South Wales, with Sydney being the main location.
The original series was about Generation X’s daily life in Australia. The reboot aims to be the same for Generation Z. “When we first started this process, I was like ‘We’re gonna have 50 million legacy cast [return for] every episode!’ and it was really something that Fremantle and Netflix [pushed against],” Series co-creator Hannah Carroll Chapman told The Guardian in a September 2022 interview. “When we were teenagers we got our own ‘Heartbreak High,’ and what we’re doing here is giving this generation their own show.”
In the original series, major themes included class exploitation as well as race. These themes are still important in the reboot. However, Chapman along with her collaborators also explore themes that are unique to Generation-Z such as gender identity and sexual orientation.
“[Heartbreak High] was groundbreaking for its time, so the team sat down and thought ‘What are the things that need to be discussed now?’” Executive producer Carly Heaton told the same outlet. “It (class exploitation] is part of its essence, that lower-to-middle socio economic group; that’s where most of us grew up. We want aspiration, but in the same way Heartbreak did it; they’re cool, and you still want to be them, but there are people struggling, single parent families, people doing shift work. Often TV has portrayed that in terms of the struggle, and it can be very dark, but there’s love and hope in this. Just because you don’t have a lot of money doesn’t mean you don’t have a good life.”
Chapman said, “I don’t think at that time we were having the same conversations around queerness and neurodiversity we’re having at the moment.” The newer series reflects how pro-student the education system has become in the last decade or so. The digital age has made students more aware of the world. The reboot reflects that.
Read More: Netflix’s Heartbreak High Ending, Explained: What Happened to Harper?