The school and its teachers college have the distinction of being both the first gymnasium and the first higher education institution in Norway which admitted girls and women, and the school and its owners played a key role in promoting female education during the 19th and early 20th century.

[2] The then relatively new progressive girls' school is also referenced in the 1862 play Love's Comedy by Henrik Ibsen.

[4] Nissen's Girls' School was the first institution in Norway to offer examen artium—the university entrance exam—for women.

Due to its location in the wealthy borough of Frogner and also because few working-class Norwegians attended gymnasium before the "education revolution" that started in the 1960s, it remained a school of choice for pupils from affluent families also after it was acquired by the municipality, although today, it has pupils from all parts of Oslo and with more diverse backgrounds.

The current school building in Niels Juels gate 56 was commissioned by then-owner Bernhard Cathrinus Pauss in 1897, designed by Hartvig Nissen's son, architect Henrik Nissen, and built by Harald Kaas.

The show is about teen Norwegian girls and boys who live in Oslo and who attend Hartvig Nissen School.