School is back in session on Sex Education, which returned for its fourth and final season on Sept. 21. While we’ve followed the horned-up British teens throughout much of their journey at Moordale Secondary School, this year they continue their education at Cavendish College — and, for Maeve, Wallace University. While Moordale Secondary was a somewhat buttoned-up British educational institution (albeit one with a very progressive student body), Cavendish Sixth Form College takes a more free-spirited approach to the students’ schooling.
That modern sensibility had to be reflected in the look of the new filming location, senior art director Christina Tom explains to Tudum. Cavendish “had to be bigger, and open, and brighter, and frankly from a different era,” she says. Moordale scenes were filmed in a real school (the University of South Wales’ former Caerleon campus, much of which has since been demolished, according to Tom) but production couldn’t find an existing school that fit their criteria for Cavendish. Building school interiors in the show’s studio is more practical when shooting, anyway: “It’s a lot more controllable with lighting,” Tom notes. Meanwhile, the College’s exteriors are actually a museum building, part of St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff, Wales, which Tom likes for its “modernist kind of vibe — a little bit more ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, lots of concrete and geometric shapes and straight lines.”
Even though the “retro tone” of St Fagans’ exterior is a subtle refresh for the show, Tom still believes the filming location is in line with the look of Sex Education’s previous three seasons. In fact, Tom and her team tried to strike that balance with the whole production. “The designer came up with a whole new color palette,” Tom says. “There’s rainbow colors, but it’s all with a slightly muted retro vintage vibe still, so it wasn’t jarring with the rest of the show, but definitely had a different look.”
While earlier seasons drew inspiration from mid-century and ’70s design more than anything else, Season 4 feels more modern, with plenty of ’80s references. There’s even a climactic scene that takes place in a mall, which Tom reveals was demolished shortly after Sex Education shot there.
Creator Laurie Nunn told Tudum earlier this summer that the ’80s notes were intentional to establish Cavendish’s new look, but also, “I think we’ve always had little ’80s touches because we’re so inspired by the John Hughes films and that era. It’s always been a mismatch. I remember in [Season] 1 where people thought that it was set in the ’70s, and then they found out [it wasn’t] and people were just like, ‘What the hell is happening?’ ”
Says Tom, “There’s always been ’80s vibes, but I think the brightness and poppiness of the new characters and the new school just lifts the whole thing slightly forward in time.”
This isn’t without its growing pains. Tom says she wanted to show our favorite fumbling adolescents “feeling overwhelmed by this totally different environment, something that they’re not used to.” She adds, “Moordale had a slightly frantic environment, and this is very calm and ordered. There’s a lot of technology brought into Cavendish. Each student is issued a tablet, while Moordale is generally analog — lots of paper and posters.”
While real-life locations are integral to Sex Education, “we can never walk into a location and film,” Tom explains. “There’s always something we have to do to bring it into our world, whether it’s adding walls, bringing paneling in, bringing light fixtures in, painting, wallpaper. We always have to bring some sort of Moordale element to a real-life location.”
When it came to creating Cavendish, that meant building an entire lobby onto the outside of St Fagans, and a matching one in the studio as well. “We had a kit in parts, basically,” Tom says. “The bones are a bit there, because it’s a great building and it’s practically perfect for what we needed. You don’t want to cover up too much. Just more layers of making it into a school, really.”
Find out more about Sex Education Season 4’s filming locations below.
You can actually stay at Otis and Jean’s house — when not being used for filming, it’s bookable as a vacation rental. “It’s such a beautiful location,” Tom says, though the interiors are filmed in the studio. Another thing you won’t find on location: the treehouse. As Tom explains, “Every time we go to the Chalet, which is two to three times per season, we usually take about a week to set that up. We have to build a treehouse out every time, because between shooting, people are staying there."
School was never really Adam’s thing, but when he gets a job as an apprentice on a farm, he’s almost surprised to find that he’s actually quite good at it. (Turns out: Just because he wasn’t good at school, doesn’t mean he’s not good at other things!) The real-life farm, located just outside Abergavenny on the Wales-England border, is bookable for vacations promising quality time in a hot tub, an indoor pool, and in the company of the farm’s many animals.
Welsh schoolchildren will recognize the exterior of Cavendish College even though it’s not a real school — it’s actually St Fagans National Museum of History, a common field trip destination for youngsters all across the country (and many tourists, too). Says Tom, “Anyone in South Wales would recognize it, because it’s always where you used to go when you were a kid.”
Maeve is supposedly studying abroad in a US-based writing program (with Dan Levy as her professor!) but in real life, the American scenes were filmed at the Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire near Bristol.
Can you imagine a more picturesque place in which to have a religious experience than this gorgeous bridge, built in the late 1800s, that overlooks the Monmouth Viaduct?
