The Worst Witch: Episode List (Series 1 and 2)

1- "The Battle of the Broomsticks"
Airdate: October 22, 1998

The strains of a school song can be heard echoing through the vaulted halls of a Gothic castle. For this is Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. The young witches fly in on their broomsticks across the dark wooded slopes and over the school gates for the start of another year. The stern and staunch Deputy Head, Miss Hardbroom, is taking a register of the first years as they arrive. She is very pleased to see Ethel Hallow come flying in and make a perfect landing, but has to inform the Headmistress, Miss Cackle, that Mildred Hubble hasn't yet arrived. Mildred Hubble, an eager but awkward young girl, arrives breathless at the other side of the gate just as it shuts. Inside the courtyard, Miss Cackle is making a speech of welcome to the girls. At that moment Mildred, in full flight, rises up over the gates, swoops along the courtyard and crashes straight into the school dustbins, breaking her broomstick in half. Everyone has a laugh at her expense, but Maud Moonshine comes to her rescue, and Miss Hardbroom is clearly not impressed. The next few days are full of madness and mystery as Mildred comes to terms with all the rules and age-old traditions of Cackle's Academy. The first two weeks are devoted to broomstick flying, unfortunately for Mildred, who is afraid of heights. She is warned that, though she may be a scholarship girl, if she doesn't pass her Broomstick Aptitude Test, Miss Cackle will be forced to ask her to leave. But when the time comes, with a little bit of magic from somewhere unexpected, Mildred stays the course and manages to perform some extraordinary manoeuvres.