The Grand Wizard (Tim Curry) is the only male character in the movie.
Jill Murphy wrote "The Worst Witch," the original book in the series, c. 1964, when she was 15 years old. She was unable to find a publisher at the time, but her manuscript was later accepted by publisher Allison and Busby in 1970. The book was revised before its publication in 1974.
The film is based on "The Worst Witch" series of children's books, written by Jill Murphy. The series started in 1974 and concluded in 2018, with eight books written. They cover four years in the life of protagonist Mildred Hubble.
Filmed at St. Michael's College, Tenbury Wells, England. Filming apparently used most of the interior, and the outside scenes of the girls practicing broomstick flying was filmed in the cloisters.
This is one of four movies in which Fairuza Balk has been that featured witches. The others were Return to Oz (1985), where she was hunted by a wicked witch; and The Craft (1996) and The Craft Legacy (2020), where she was a wicked witch.