The Grand Wizard (Tim Curry) is the only male character in this movie.
Jill Murphy wrote "The Worst Witch," the original book in the series, c. 1964, when she was still 15-years-old. She was unable to find a publisher. Her manuscript was accepted by publisher Allison and Busby in 1970, but the book was revised before its publication in 1974.
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.
Filmed at St. Michael's College, Tenbury Wells, England. They apparently used most of the interior and the outside where the girls are practicing broomstick flying was filmed in the cloisters.
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 8 books written. They cover 4 years in the life of protagonist Mildred Hubble.