Where is Sex Education set and is the school American or British?

20 September 2021, 16:32

By Polly Foreman

Where is Netflix show Sex Education set, and is it in the US or UK? Here's what we know...

After what's felt like a very long wait, the new series of Sex Education has finally dropped on Netflix.

The comedy-drama, which first dropped on Netflix in 2019, follows a group of teenagers navigating life and love at the fictional Moordale High School.

Sex Education features a British cast, and the show was filmed mostly in South Wales.

However, many viewers have noted that Moordale has many characteristics of an American high school, as they wear their own clothes, dress in Letterman jackets, and play American football.

Here's your need-to-know on where the show is set.

Where is Sex Education set? Why is the school American?

Speaking about the hybrid of American and British schools, Gillian Anderson - who plays Jean - previously said: "There is a bit of both worlds, decidedly, in the series, and the aim and the hope is that Americans won’t notice.

"For instance, the Brits may notice that they are throwing American footballs, whereas the Americans won’t notice that that might be strange for people speaking with British accents.

"The rules are shifting all the time in terms of how an audience receives the shows that they’re watching, what they’re willing to accept and what realms and worlds they’re willing to step into to suspend their disbelief.

"I think Netflix feels quite strongly that they’ve hit on something with this amalgamation."

Laurie Nunn, who wrote the series, has also said that she was influenced by American films and TV shows when writing the show.

She said: "I’ve always been really influenced by American film and TV shows; they played a really big part in my own teenage years, so that was always something I wanted to come back to.

"It’s definitely set in Britain, but we’ve made a very conscious choice to have that American, throw-back nostalgia, John Hughes feel to it."

Fans of the show may have noticed that the lockers in the school are very reminiscent of those in The Breakfast Club.

Speaking about this parallel, Laurie added: "It was stylistically a deliberate choice early on that we dislocated it from geographically knowing exactly where it was. Mid-Atlantic, American influence, but British ingredients.“I’ve always been really frustrated that the British school experience is never portrayed with positivity or colour or warmth or hope; it always tends to be sticking two fingers up and saying, ‘I’m out of here as soon as I graduate,’ she adds.

“Whereas I think there’s an American feeling that, even though the films are riddled with anxieties and angst, you’d still look back at them as the best years of your life. That became the backdrop of what we wanted to set Otis’s story against."