History Main / HighSchool

* ''Toys/MonsterHigh''' is set around students of a high school populated by classic and fantastical monster creatures.

* ''ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}}'': A fair portion of the story arcs are based on things occurring at Tim's various high schools, cliques and various common high school are present and discussed and quite a lot of time is spent on high school campuses. The series follows Tim from a high school freshman up until a few weeks after he drops out as a senior.

You will notice that the writers often base high school themed works off of where ''they'' went to high school, or off of popular stereotypes that are present in a lot of high schools. Part of the reason AlphaBitch, BookWorm, and JerkJock tropes are ''so'' prevalent in these works is because ''everybody'' knew someone like that (detailed below). It's often heavily exaggerated, too, for RuleOfFunny and RuleOfDrama. As a result of how different all schools are from one another, there's going to be somebody in the audience saying "Have these guys ever actually ''been'' to high school?!"

There's something about secondary education -- the nature of teenagers, the nature of the adults that work with teenagers, parents' expectations that things will be just like when they were a kid -- that lends itself to the accrual of strange national customs. Every major country has its own, but as far as 90% of the entries on this wiki are concerned, only three countries' systems actually count -- the US, the UK[[note]] It should be worth mentioning that England and Scotland have different systems, rendering 'British' confusing for actual Brits.[[/note]] and Japan. (Sorry, [[UsefulNotes/GermanEducationSystem Germany]].) The Canadian system (at least the Anglophone one) is basically similar to the US, the Irish system broadly similar to the British one (though it starts a year later than the British do), and the (South) Korean one similar to Japan (sorry, Canada, Ireland, and Korea.) This entry is primarily about the American one.

* ''Literature/MacdonaldHall'' is a series that takes place in a high school … specifically an all-boys Canadian BoardingSchool located near another one that is an all-girls finishing school.

* ''Literature/MacdonaldHall'' is a series that takes place in a high school … specifically a Canadian BoardingSchool.

* ''Literature/MacdonaldHall'' is a series that takes place in a high school.

* Subverted in the first two ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' series. which were shot in real schools, often on weekends, when no one was present. The setting of Degrassi High is now a community college (Centennial) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya''. Still a lot of focus on {{Moe}}, but at least there, the girls look more their age (Haruhi-chan spinoff notwithstanding). As for the school itself, most of the action takes place in the club room where the titular character hosts her SOS Brigade, though there is focus on other parts of the school.

See UsefulNotes/AmericanEducationalSystem for more information. For schools in Britain, see TheGoodOldBritishComp.

You will notice that the writers often base high school themed works off of where ''they'' went to high school, or off of popular stereotypes that are present in a lot of high schools. Part of the reason AlphaBitch, BookWorm, and JerkJock tropes are ''so'' prevalent in these works is because ''everybody'' knew someone like that. (Detailed below) It's often heavily exaggerated, too, for RuleOfFunny and RuleOfDrama. As a result of how different all schools are from one another, there's going to be somebody in the audience saying "Have these guys ever actually ''been'' to high school?!"

A word about school dress codes here -- from the mid-90s to the early '00s, an entire trend towards stricter dress codes and uniforms in American public schools has developed, peaked, and largely died out with hardly [[NoDressCode any notice from the creators of fiction]]. There are a number of reasons for this -- it started after the creators were out of school, the Real Life version of this trend was more common in elementary schools (and never even considered as an option by some 80% of them), varied clothing helps in characterization, the creators want their cast to look cool to teen viewers, the actors can't wear golf shirts and khakis without looking like [[DawsonCasting computer salesmen]] -- the upshot is, if there's a strict dress code in a fictional American public school, chances are it's a CompressedVice and probably also a ChekhovsGun. The common "no-hat" rule was put in place largely to deter gang activity in kids. It's one of the few consistently accurate depictions of modern high school, perhaps because having actors wear hats makes lighting difficult in live action and is hard to render accurately through 360deg in animation.

* [[http://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/i-dated-a-teenage-cyclops-part-one I Was A Teenage Cyclops]], a story from ''Wiki/TheWanderersLibrary'', combines traditional teenage drama with Time Cube to great effect, twisting many typical high school problems in bizarre ways.

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* The obscure Nintendo 64 dating sim ''VideoGame/GetterLove!!'' (released only in Japan, to no one's surprise) has four boys and eight girls who go to high school. The school itself is located right in the middle of the map, but it's only purposes are to meet Makoto or Meifa, to get together with someone if you've planned to go to someone's house, the beach, or the Shinto shrine, or where Alfonso explains the rules of the game to everyone before things begin. All the girls' lesser endings take place somewhere within the school, seeing that the end of the game marks the end of everyone's summer vacation for the year.

* ''VideoGame/EscapeFromStMarys'': Set fully in a high school, with typical school tasks, like playing basketball, working with the website team, hunting for aliens, traveling through time...
* ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' has its action put in Yamaku, Japanese high school for disabled, ill and/or otherwise requiring assistance students. (however, it also accepts healthy people, but they are a minority)
* Sora and most of his human friends are supposed to be High School students in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', but he doesn't seem too concerned that he's now missed a whole year of school while off saving the multiverse. He even expresses amused bewilderment in Twilight Town when Olette asks him about "homework" upon meeting him. Kairi, however, ''was'' shown to attend school while she was back home.
* The main setting and theme of ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' is High School, as you control a BullyHunter who tries to bring peace to the ever-warring cliques of [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors Bullworth Academy]]... by beating the crap out of them. Plenty of high school hi-jinks ensue; panty raids, sabotaging football games, wedgies, swirlies... the whole 9 yards.
* ''VideoGame/CorridorZ'' is set in Massville High School, which has become infested with zombies, and is in lockdown. Three survivors (Logan the jock, Megan the cheerleader, and Sgt. Williams) need to make it to a guarded door where they can escape by running through the halls to it from hordes of zombies.
* Everyone in ''VideoGame/TheCaligulaEffect'' attends Kishimai High School, and thanks to a GroundhogDayLoop they stay there for as long as they're in Mobius. As such, while everyone in the setting is ''physically'' high school age, much of the cast is either [[YoungerThanTheyLook Younger]] or OlderThanTheyLook.
* ''VideoGame/ObsCure'' (aka ''Mortifilia'') is a ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''-style SurvivalHorror game set in a high school and based on teen horror movies. The sequel moves on to a university, though you do return to the ruins of the school late in the game.

* ''Webcomic/UrbanAnimal'' has most of the main cast are students or staff at a high school.

* The default map for ''VideoGame/MitadakeHigh'' is a high school, funnily enough. Some logical thinking about where things are coupled with some hijinks like you get up to in your actual school will soon leave you knowing the place like the back of your hand.
* [[http://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/i-dated-a-teenage-cyclops-part-one I Was A Teenage Cyclops]], a story from ''Wiki/TheWanderersLibrary'', combines traditional teenage drama with Time Cube to great effect, twisting many typical high school problems in bizarre ways.

* When not on world-saving missions, ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' and friends attend Middleton High, apparently the only high school in a mid-sized city. The only faculty member seen in most episodes is the DrillSergeantNasty coach/teacher, Mr. Barkin. The mascot, portrayed at pep-squad events by hapless sidekick Ron Stoppable, is the Middleton Mad Dog.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' has Buddy Cianci Junior High and James Woods High School.
** For those who don't get the joke: Buddy Cianci served two stints as mayor of Providence, RI (1975-1984 and 1991-2002). He was forced to resign both times: the first time because of assault charges (to which he pleaded guilty), and the second time due to criminal racketeering charges (of which he was ''found'' guilty, though only of one charge out of the 27 levied against him). He became legally eligible to hold office again in 2012, though he was defeated in next election for mayor of Providence in 2014, and Cianci died of cancer in early 2016.

* ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' The X-Men heroes and villains as teenagers in High School? A ''real'' high school, not just Xavier's mansion? Yes, it could be done.

* Miyagami Academy, the school in (and main setting of) ''Anime/BestStudentCouncil'', is not only huge, it has a cannon that its AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil can use and an underground tube (with high-speed roller coaster-style chair) connecting the dorm and main school building.
* ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' falls into this category, though it's in a Japanese high school and those usually don't have lockers in the hallway.
* ''Manga/SchoolRumble'' is a romantic comedy set in high school.
* ''Anime/PaniPoniDash''. Welcome to Momotsuki Academy, where one of the classes is governed by 11-year-old supergenius Rebecca Miyamoto.
* ''Manga/LuckyStar'', set in Ryou High School, is an odd example. Even though it's supposed to be high school, everyone looks and sounds like they're Becky's age (see above) and the music sounds a lot more appropriate for grade school, consisting of a rinky-dink piano and some other such instruments. However, Konata and Patricia do have a part-time job, and there is talk about breast sizes or current events every now and then. Its anime studio [[Creator/KyotoAnimation is the same company]] that gave us the following two examples:
* ''{{VisualNovel/Kanon}}''. Most girls are still OlderThanTheyLook, but not so much as in the example. And...

* In ''Anime/AngelBeats!'', the high school is eventually revealed [[spoiler:to literally be Purgatory, intended to purify the souls of dead high school students to let go of their regrets.]]
* ''Manga/YamadaKunAndTheSevenWitches'' takes place on a high school and uses most of the standard tropes, though with the twist that most of the plotlines derives from PsychicPowers that are [[MagicKiss used by kissing]].

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* ''Series/OurMissBrooks'' may be television's UrExample, with much of the action taking place at Madison High School. A SoundToScreenAdaptation, the program first aired on the radio in 1948, debuted on television in the autumn of 1952. The show's official GrandFinale, a film released in 1956, was the second [[TheMovie cinematic adaptation]] of a television series ([[Franchise/{{Dragnet}} Joe Friday]] beat Miss Brooks to the punch by four years).
* ''Series/{{Room 222}}'': A high school dramedy from the late 1960s and early '70s, with most of the action at Walt Whitman High School (in a blue-collar Los Angeles neighborhood) taking place in the classroom of Pete Dixon; some scenes shifted as well to the classroom of Alice Johnson, a pretty young college graduate who (in the first season) was in her rookie year of teaching and was gently mentored by Mr. Dixon. Most stories were innocent enough, although there were some very meaty topics thrown in: censorship, plagiarism and cheating, teaching competence, the Vietnam War (still very prevalent in the early 1970s), race relations, the needs of special education students, bullying, anti-gay harassment and much more. Seymour Coffman was the principal and Liz [=McIntyre=] was the guidance counselor.

* ''Series/WelcomeBackKotter'' was set in Buchanan High, and followed the archetype of a single hall and classroom.
* ''Series/MySoCalledLife'' popularised the unisex restroom. (In reality, it was the girls' restroom, but Ricky spent so much time in there it might as well have been unisex.)
* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' also had the archetypal one-hall layout, though was fortunate enough to have multiple classrooms. It also had unisex bathroom scenes, but less often. To further compound the claustrophobic nature of the set, there exists a [[http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/486.html theory]] that the entire ''Saved By The Bell'' universe is contained inside the school. Furthermore, Bayside High is an example of TelevisionGeography: in ''Good Morning Miss Bliss'' (the original title of the series), it was Midwestern, moving to northern California for ''Series/SavedByTheBell''. The selfsame school reappeared years later in ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'', by which time it had migrated to San Francisco.
** ''Saved By The Bell'' only appeared to have more than one classroom. There was just the one, but it had multiple doors, so a simple rearrangement of the furniture made it appear to have more.
* ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' went to a school with two hallways and a cafeteria, but very few classrooms. Their mascot was the Fighting Scallion.

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'' attends Neptune High, which has a very liberal attendance policy, and lets the more popular students "buy" additional liberties such as pizza delivery. She has also held unisex restroom conferences.
* The setting for ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', often with a HighSchoolDance going on.
* ''Series/SquarePegs'' and ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' both had unusually expansive high school sets, though in the latter, most of the action took place in the library anyway.
** Buffy's high school had the obvious drawback of being built directly on top of a gateway to Hell, which tended to give typical school problems a supernatural and lethal twist (oh, and assuming you got out of the place alive, the Hellmouth still made the entire town a magnet for vampires, demons, etc).
* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' had it all, and did a lot of LampshadeHanging about it. The school was named for John Adams (probably a reference to the fact that William Daniels, who played one of the only faculty members we ever saw, had played John Adams in both the Broadway play and the film adaptation of ''[[Film/SeventeenSeventySix 1776]]''); it had two classrooms (to accomodate a second teacher introduced for one season) but only one hallway (The "Senior Hallway" seen in later episodes is the same set shot from a different angle). In one season finale, a recurring character who had left the cast years ago reappeared, and explained his absence by pointing offstage and announcing that all his classes had been down the other hall. The regulars responded with shock and fear, as they had never set foot in that part of the building themselves.
* In ''Series/GilmoreGirls'', Chilton, being a private school, does not obey many of the standard public High School cliches. However, plot-driven class lengths are so powerful that the average class lasts about three and a half minutes.
* In ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'' the characters actually attended junior year twice, in a move to extend the life of the popular show.
* ''Series/WelcomeFreshmen''
* ''Series/LizzieMcGuire'' ushered in a newer tween version on the Disney Channel, leading to other, similar shows like ''Series/PhilOfTheFuture'' and ''Series/HannahMontana''.

* ''As The Bell Rings'' is a curious Creator/DisneyChannel show. Originally the Italian ''Quelli dell'intervallo'', the 5-minute-episode show came to Britain and was remade with a British cast... but in a very ''American'' style school (Creator/WilliamShakespeare High), with no uniforms, lockers and ''one'' set - a corridor with a Shakespeare Bust in it. You'd think Disney would at least ask the cast what British schools are like, but no. It was remade for a U.S audience and later featured Music/DemiLovato.

* Subverted in the first two ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' series. which were shot in real schools, often on weekends, when no one was present. The setting of Degrassi High is now a community college (Centennial) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

* ''Series/BostonPublic'' featured, well, a Boston Public High School. While it's size and economic status would change depending on the episode, most of the time it managed to keep the feel of a public high school (with multiple classrooms no less).
* ''Series/FreaksAndGeeks'' managed to get the look fairly well with a single T-shaped hallway set, plus classroom, cafeteria and gym sets. They did go through ''three'' different schools as exterior locations over the course of [[ScrewedByTheNetwork 18 episodes]], however.
* In ''Series/CaliforniaDreams'' there was one hallway, but which had a slightly unusual architecture, and it had two classrooms, one which never changed, and one which housed everything from auto-shop to cooking class and was eventually also used for the graduation ceremony.
* ''Series/StrangersWithCandy'' has Flatpoint High, complete with all the classic sets and a couple of less common ones. Certain teachers spend an unusual amount of time down in the basement, and then there's the teachers' lounge, complete with its own shower. The principal's office also bears the distinction of being accessed via secret passage.
* ''Series/TheSteveHarveyShow'' has Booker T. Washington High. It has two hallways, a music room (sometimes it actually had instruments), an office, another classroom, and a cafetorium. There was a staircase that led to a second floor of the school but that part of the school was never seen.
* ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris'' has [[Film/TheGodfather Corleone]] Junior High, [[Series/SanfordAndSon Lamont Sanford]] Junior High and [[Film/TheGodfather Tattaglia]] High.
* The main cast of ''Series/GossipGirl'' go to Constance and St. Jude's high schools during the first two seasons.
* ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'': A standard episode mostly involves the teens [[InfoDump infodumping]] in the one hallway of Ulysses S Grant High. It wasn't until the second season that they were even shown in a classroom. There were brief appearances of a coach, a secretary, and a teacher in that first of about three classroom scenes. Other than that, the school staff seems to only consist of the guidance counselor.
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'' is set at [=McKinley=] High, Which [[IndecisiveParody may or may not]] be a parody of this.
* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' is set at Hollywood Arts High School, and all bets are off about it fitting ''anything'' about this description.
* ''Series/SummerHeightsHigh'' was actually shot at an Aussie High School in documentary fashion.

* ''Series/ANTFarm'' uses Webster High for the setting of most episodes. Justified as the premise of the show is gifted middle school kids attending high school. It has lockers, one main hallway with a large staircase and at least a couple of minor hallways. It also has a science lab classroom, Home Ec, the Ant Farm (which is where the Ants spend at a lot of time), and what looks to be a makeshift auditorium. Only a few episodes take place entirely outside of school and that was during their summer vacation.
* ''Series/MrIglesias'' has Creator/GabrielIglesias (playing [[TheDanza "Gabe Iglesias"]]) as a history teacher at UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson High School. Most, but not all, of the action takes place in the school; in addition to Gabe's classroom, there's the school office, the school auditorium/theater, and at least two hallways.
* ''Series/GirlFromNowhere'' is an anthology that revolves around the lies and misdeeds taking place between the student body and teachers of various high schools.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', the four schools described in any detail are the Assassins' Guild School (initially boys only, now co-ed), the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies (girls only) and Hugglestones (boys only). One of the Yearbooks adds the Thieves' Guild School, which is described in terms of TheGoodOldBritishComp. The first three pack in every trope you can think of concerning British boarding school life and expressly parody both real and fictional public schools[[note]]"Public" in the British sense of being exclusive and fee-paying[[/note]] with every knob turned UpToEleven.

* ''WebVideo/ClassT1T5'' uses the trope with the Singaporean High School system. While the faculty's name is 'Titan Academy', it functions a lot more like a high school.

* ''Film/TheWave'' by Todd Strasser, based on a real-life social experiment carried out by a Palo Alto, California history teacher with his class in TheSixties. In order to teach his students how fascism arose in Europe and demonstrate that it can happen here, the teacher organizes them into a fascist movement, complete with [[PuttingOnTheReich armbands and salutes]]. It [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeds beyond his wildest dreams]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}}'': A fair portion of the story arcs are based on things occurring at Tim's various high schools, cliques and various common high school are present and discussed and quite a lot of time is spent on high school campuses. The series follows Tim from a high school freshmen up until a few weeks after he drops out as a senior.

Fictional American high schools are almost always named after historical presidents of the United States, with the more obscure 19th-century presidents ([[Series/HeadOfTheClass Fillmore]], [[Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide Polk]], [[{{Series/Glee}} McKin]][[Series/FreaksAndGeeks ley]]...) most favored though other famous historical figures may be used as well. Hillariously obscure or inappropriate figures (such as George Wallace or [[Theatre/{{Thirteen}} Dan Quayle]]) may be chosen for comedic effect. A high school named for the community where it is located [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer (Sunnydale High)]] is often used to invoke a small-town or suburban setting and geographic names like [[Webcomic/ElGoonishShive Moperville North and Moperville South]] usually[[note]]although not always, and that particular example is actually an aversion[[/note]] indicate that a cross-town rivalry is going to figure into the plot. These are the most common sources of names for US high schools in the real world as well.

Bells often do not work the same way as real life high schools. In fiction, students will often be seen chatting in the hall while a bell rings and don't seem to have any hurry to go anywhere once the bell does ring. In many real high schools, students are expected to be in the classroom before the bell rings and nobody should be in the hallway at that time.

Schools have mascots. As in real-life, they appear to have been chosen entirely at random. As in real-life, they are often patently ridiculous. Often, an "uncool" male protagonist will take a turn in the school mascot costume, for one episode, but almost never takes over the role for an entire season.

In the US, high school is usually the last four years of compulsory education (grades 9-12), although in some districts it's the last three (grades 10-12). In Japan it's three years (equivalent to grades 10-12), and not compulsory. In both cases students are likely to be coming from a JuniorHigh, which consists of grades 7-9 (although not all US districts have those). In the American South and other regions of the U.S. grades 6-8 are called middle school, and elementary school ends at grade 5 rather than at 6, as it does when the school district is zoned for junior highs instead of middle schools. In Russia, it's called "middle" school, "high" being the university, and lasts through grades five to eleven, being kind of conjoined with JuniorHigh. For Britain, see TheGoodOldBritishComp (though that isn’t the only option for teen-school stories in Britain by any means).