Coal Hill School - Definition and Overview

The Coal Hill School is a fictional school in the television series Doctor Who. It is a secondary modern comprehensive school located in the Shoreditch area of London, England.

The Coal Hill School is the setting of much of the very first episode of the series, An Unearthly Child, first broadcast in November 1963 and set in the same year. In the episode, two teachers at the school discover that one of their students, Susan Foreman, is an alien time traveller who has been attending the school while her grandfather, the Doctor (the central character of the series), makes repairs on their time machine, the TARDIS.

The school appeared in the series again almost twenty-five years later in Remembrance of the Daleks, first broadcast in October 1988. In this serial, a nostalgia-laden tribute to the show that kicked off its 25th anniversary season, the Doctor returns to 1963 to complete some business left unfinished by his hurried departure on the previous occasion. The school is a featured location, as a group of Daleks set up a base there while attempting to locate a powerful Time Lord artifact known as the Hand of Omega, which is hidden on Earth.