Waterloo Road is a BBC television drama series set in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, "[...] the Rochdale branch of Aspinall Incorporated?" - Grantly, 2x03 and is about a troubled comprehensive school. The programme focuses on its teachers and students, and confronts issues of affairs, abortion, divorce and suicide.

Waterloo Road is produced by Shed Media, the production company responsible for Bad Girls and Footballer's Wives. It is filmed in Manchester, England, however controversially, it had been billed as being filmed by BBC Scotland to raise the Scottish division's quota of UK-wide network programming.

An eight part series was made and aired in 2006. It was then re-commissioned for a second series , where the first seven episodes were airing on Sunday nights at 8pm in Scotland and Thursday nights at 8pm in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Waterloo Road has been compared to numerous school dramas such as Teachers.

Series 2 finished airing 26 April 2007. Series 3 began on 11 October 2007 on BBC One except on BBC One Scotland where the series began four days earlier. A fourth series of 20 further episodes will air in 2008, it has been confirmed.

Series 3 paused from airing for the Christmas break. Episodes halted in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with the end of year Cliffhanger on 13 December 2007 and 16 December 2007 in Scotland. Episodes resumed airing in Scotland on 6 January 2008 and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on 10 January 2008. The series finale aired on BBC One on Thursday 13 March 2008 in most of the UK apart from Scotland, who were left to wait until Monday 17 March 2008.