On 22^nd October, the BBC will be inviting us back through the doors of Coal Hill School, a staple location in the history of Doctor Who. Class’s mature content offers a new set of young adult characters battling against unseen foes and hormones in the fight to end all fights: saving the world and get good A-Level results. We know that the Doctor will be popping up in the debut episode. But what of the history of this mysterious school-turned-academy? It’s time for you to find out. Settle down, class.

Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright

Coal Hill School played a key role in the genesis of Doctor Who by being the setting of its very first episode An Unearthly Child. In this story, two concerned schoolteachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, follow their unusual pupil, Susan Foreman, back to her home. Her home turns out to be a mysterious police box in an old junkyard at 76 Totters Lane, a setting later revisited in Attack of the Cybermen. The intriguing blue box is also inhabited by a miserly old man called the Doctor, revealed to be Susan’s grandfather. Susan and the Doctor are both Time Lords from the planet Gallifrey, wandering aimlessly through time and space.

In fear of Ian and Barbara exposing them to the authorities, the Doctor kidnaps the two schoolteachers, who had forced their way inside his TARDIS: his spaceship disguised as a police box. The TARDIS hurtles back in time to prehistoric Earth, where the four time-travellers provide the secret of fire to a tribe of cavemen, thus launching the greatest and longest adventure in the history of television.

The Dalek Incursion

Upon the Doctor and Ace’s visit to London in 1963 to retrieve the Hand of Omega, an ancient Time Lord artefact, two rival Dalek factions also arrive at the school where it all began. Remembrance of the Daleks marked the first return to Coal Hill School since the beginning of Doctor Who, twenty-five years previously. London becomes a battleground between the Imperial Daleks, led by Emperor Davros, and the Renegade Daleks, featuring the fan favourite Special Weapons Dalek in it’s arsenal.

This story managed to examine real issues surrounding racial hatred, from Ace discovering the ‘no coloureds’ sign in the window of a typical 60s house, to the Daleks’ fanatical devotion to ethnic cleansing. The Doctor managed to thwart both Dalek factions by reprogramming the Hand of Omega to destroy the Dalek home world of Skaro, seemingly engulfing it in a supernova. A morally challenging battle against his deadliest enemies put a great cost on the conscience of the ancient Time Lord. Still, Ace managed to beat up a Dalek with a baseball bat in the science department. Ooh, and from now on, Daleks can climb stairs.

Clara Oswald and Danny Pink

Since it was first established as Clara Oswald’s workplace in The Day of the Doctor, Coal Hill School went on to become a recurring setting throughout the Twelfth Doctor’s first season. Clara’s romantic interest in the form of fellow teacher, Danny Pink, was introduced in Into the Dalek as a former soldier with a morally complex past. The romance between the two teachers blossoms further in Listen when after their first date, Clara meets a potential descendant of both her and Pink, named Orson: a future space pioneer. The Doctor’s distaste for soldiers becomes particularly evident during his own difficult meeting with Pink in The Caretaker, an episode set entirely inside the school. In this story, Coal Hill School comes under attack by a ruthless warrior robot called the Skovox Blitzer. Despite the Doctor’s scepticism and condescension towards him, Danny Pink still manages to save the day with some exemplary gymnastics skills.

The Doctor learns to become a less aggressive figure as time progresses, which he shows by taking naïve Coal Hill School pupil Courtney Woods to the Moon in 2049 with Clara in Kill the Moon. Danny’s resilience continues to impress the Doctor in In the Forest of the Night, where Pink leads a group of his pupils through the overgrown forests that have overrun the entire planet overnight. Sadly, even the Doctor’s loyalty to Clara was not enough to save Danny from death, and a Cybernised-corpse of Mr Pink died heroically saving the Earth in Dark Water / Death in Heaven. The Magician’s Apprentice indicated that Clara continued to work at Coal Hill School, no doubt with the memory of her dearly departed boyfriend resting in her thoughts… until her own tragic departure in Face the Raven. The Peter Capaldi era of the show has therefore perfectly set up the new spin-off Class by re-establishing Coal Hill School within the context of the Doctor Who fictional universe.

The future

In October 2015, the BBC announced a new BBC3 spin-off for teenagers, set in the new Coal Hill Academy. It is written by award-winning author of The Knife of Never Letting Go (a book strongly recommended by my mother and I), Patrick Ness. It is clear from Ness’ 50^th Anniversary Doctor Who anthology short story Tip of the Tongue that he has an aptitude for this genre.

I am confident that an acclaimed writer like Patrick Ness will be able to bring a refreshing approach to reconstructing one of the most iconic settings in the history of Doctor Who, when Class arrives this week. Right, Class dismissed.