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Beauxbatons Academy of Magic or simply Beauxbatons is an introductory film about the origins of the school which bears the same name. It focuses on its founders and their pursuit to nurture the academic development of students hailing from France, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal and Luxembourg.

The Academy is situated in the Pyrenees, a beautiful chateau surrounded by formal gardens created out of the mountainous landscape by magic. Founders Catharine Alexandre and Sebastien Vaugrenard utilized a house system based on the learning modalities of their students. Beauxbatons Academy is primarily an educational institution with a central focus of defensive and offensive magic as well as artistic expression.

Eleven millenniums past, eleven millenniums gone. Still, people speak of Atlantis, grand as it was, and doomed to fall in a day and night. Sunken like a stone in the bottom of the ocean, the ruins of the island are no strangers to oceanic oddities flitting past, and it often plays host to curious merpeople who are drawn to the magic of the lost civilization. The people of Atlantis were unusually extraordinary–eccentric, even–basking in their utopian kingdom for years upon years. But the utopia did as utopias do: it fell. Not to natural disasters, but to a monumental earthquake brought on by the people themselves, for the magic folk do not take well to muggle disturbances. When the Athenian army stepped foot on the island, the Atlantean sanctuary was breached. As a last resort to preserve the purity of their magic, they brought destruction to the island. Better no magic than impure muggle influences penetrating the magical society. And so, down, down, down went the shell of the civilization, hoarding secrets in its ruined chambers and drawing strange creatures to its ebbing flow of magic. Many believe the merpeople have made a sanctuary of the island, preserving the scrolls and learning the ways of the Atlanteans. However, the mystery of Atlantis remains just that: a mystery. The island, to this day, has not been found, for places that have no intentions of being discovered often remain that way. [photo cred]

The Israeli School for Young Witches and Wizards is located in Jerusalem in an undisclosed location, although many speculate it lies underground, and is accessible through the Western Wall tunnels. Legend says the school was carved out by golems, who turned back to stone and are now memorialised by the hulking columns peppered along the wide underground halls. For centuries, the school remained undisturbed without a hint of spell protecting its presence. In recent years, however, a thin magical blockade had to be cast around campus to weaken the subtle magic drifting from the prayers folded into the Western Wall. Although the school is split by gender, both the female and male sectors are housed on the same campus within walking distance of each other. Unlike other wizarding schools, the Israeli School for Young Witches and Wizards does not host classes on Fridays and Saturdays to accommodate for Shabbat, and other religious holidays are integrated into the calendar as well as the school hosts students from a variety of backgrounds from Israel and its neighbouring countries. A regular school day is split between normal classes and studying holy texts. Aside from commonplace wizarding classes, the school also offers extensive studies in astronomical divination, which is open to all students, and practical Kabbalah studies, which is offered to upper-year students. Over time, more and more muggle topics and secular subjects have been added to the curriculum to provide a wider education. Many students often willingly and happily take more than the required course load as education is highly valued amongst society.

Originally located in Arnhem Land, The Australian College of Sorcery and Witchcraft was a sprawling campus of large huts that eventually coalesced into one single structure. The college detached from mainland Australia soon after British settlement in order maintain their practices and culture. Ever since, the school has been drifting haphazardly in the ocean, although it never strays far from the Australian coast for ancient magic keeps the school tethered to Australian soil. Every year, a team of witches and wizards must be employed to anchor the floating campus so students aren’t forced into a cat-and-mouse chase at the beginning of the year in order to attend school (a frustrating endeavour which often results in the postponing of classes due to a large number of absences). To students’ great enjoyment, various creatures (including the occasional mermaid) can often be found sunbathing around the perimeter of the campus which gently slopes into the water. Due to their exposure to unusually friendly oceanic creatures, the college boasts incredibly extensive courses in aquatic-life studies, and is held in high esteem by the international wizarding community for its innovations in water magic. 

If the city of Venice seems a confounding maze of canals and narrow alleyways, then the Venetian Academy for the Magically Gifted can only be described as a dangerous labyrinth of corridors, many in various stages of submerge. Wild magical marine animals inhabit abandoned hallways, and the sound of rushing water echoes in empty classrooms at night. The school is housed mostly underwater in sunken parts of the city that linger undetected below Venice with a few buildings scattered throughout the island. In the years when Venice flourished with prosperity, the magic and non-magic folk mingled with affection, particularly during the Carnival of Venice during which muggle folk would be quite taken with the charmed flourishes decorating witches and wizards’ masks. As a result of these close interactions, most inhabitants of Venice harbour faint traces of magic in their blood, most of whose power—however little and insignificant—manifest in one’s elder years, or sometimes not at all. Although, there are often whisperings that tell of Venetians’ strange ability to walk on water. Some swear to have heard the sound of pattering footsteps on the canals, usually at night time on days when the fog is particularly heavy. Other claim of shapes of men and women passing over the water. No one knows for certain the magic Venice holds, except for the inhabitants themselves.

ϟ Specialised wizarding schools around the world ϟ

ϟ Wizarding schools around the world ϟ

“Located amid the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil, it accepts students from all over South America.”

It is no secret that magic folk do not deal with the likes of muggle technology, for what could these mundane trinkets accomplish that magic could not? Although this sentiment has echoed across continents and generations, even the most stubborn could not resist the peculiarities of our universe as muggle space exploration advanced far beyond our solar system. The inkling of an idea for a wizarding space program started with a group of fanatical astronomy students, who created their own wizarding radio programme to recount and enthuse over man’s expeditions into the mystery of space. Although the programme gained a substantial amount of loyal listeners, it is not until a movement to adapt technology to magical environments succeeded in America that the possibility for advances in wizarding space science beyond rudimentary astronomy courses became a reality. It would take decades and countless classified meetings between presidents and ministers of wizarding and muggle territories to establish an academy that would benefit both muggle and wizarding sciences. Many renowned magical theorists were brought on board in the early days to research, adapt, and establish magical practices in technological and alien environments. Now, the academy offers a range of courses such as planetary herbology, wizardry and interstellar travel, and elemental transfiguration. Although the academy, much like space exploration itself, is still very much in its early days, students and professors alike are already pushing magic far beyond what was previously thought possible. A new dawn in space exploration is sure to come. But for now, per aspera, ad astra.

WIZARDING SCHOOLS AROUND THE WORLD