The Dumping Ground

Did You Know?

• The show's eleventh series in 2024 introduced a new house, title sequence, and logo, and removed animated sequences.
• A fourteenth series began airing on 23 January 2026 and concluded on 27 March 2026.
• The series deals with issues such as racism, LGBT parenting, and mental health.

Production

The first series of thirteen thirty-minute episodes was commissioned in March 2012 and produced in summer 2012 at the former La Sagesse convent school in the Jesmond area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a location previously used for Tracy Beaker Returns. The exterior of Elm Tree House was filmed at the former Fathers' house, while interior scenes were shot in a grander building elsewhere on the same site. After the first series, property developers Barratt Homes redeveloped the school buildings into a luxury housing estate, forcing production to relocate.

The cream and red exterior of Elm Tree House was demolished in March 2014, though the interior building partially remains intact. From series two through four, interior filming took place at the former Hookergate School in High Spen, Gateshead, which had earlier served as Bradlington High School for the CBBC series Wolfblood. The exterior of the new care home Ashdene Ridge was provided by a nearby children's respite care home called Kites Rise on Smaile's Lane in Rowlands Gill.

The move was not explicitly explained on screen, but the 2013 Christmas special Jody in Wonderland showed residents and staff unpacking boxes. Nearby housing estates in Rowlands Gill doubled as the fictional Talbot Ward area of Pottiswood, where the show is set. The exact location of Pottiswood has never been stated within the programme, though the Tyne Bridge has appeared and characters have acknowledged being in the North East of England; in Series 10 a map placed it northwest of Ponteland in Northumberland.

Garden exterior scenes were filmed against the back of a building at Hookergate School and did not match the front exterior of Kites Rise.