Kids today are getting older, younger.

No sooner have they packed up their Barbies, they want to move in with their boyfriend.

And the same kids you left plopped in front of Sesame Street have now got a show of their own.

School Rules (TV3 @ Tuesday,7.30pm) takes cameras into the { classrooms of a liberal Auckland high school, Selwyn College, for six months.

Three camera crews (the production company hired the youngest I camera operators available so they wouldn't seem intrusive) follow nine kids morning, noon and night. Kids such as 17-year-old Amber - "with my bikini car washing and my job and school ... I'm really busy" who supports herself in a flat in central Auckland and dreams of being a go-go dancer. Or 16-year-old Anton "I live to dance. It's my life" - who got a Playboy bunny tattoo the day before school started (his parents don't know) and the school jock 18 year old Ashton - ""It's much easier [this year] because I'm second year seventh form and so I know everything there is to know".

The kids ("not kids!", producer Bettina Hollings screams, "young people or students") taking part in School Rules range in age from 16 to 18. And the problems they face are sometimes inconsequential, sometimes monumental. What the show reminds us is when you are a teenager you can't always tell the difference. Everything is treated with the same degree of breathless drama.

In the first episode 17-year-old American emigrant and would-be trapeze artist Wendy goes out on her first date. There's a card from her mother Patty: "Congratulations on another milestone in your life Wendy. This will be your first date. I hope that every boy that goes out with you recognises what a special privilege it is. you are beautiful inside and out. I will always love you. Mom." She has three friends over to help her with her hair, make-up and wardrobe 'and there's a top crisis (Wendy is worried her pink top is "too slutty" because it shows her bra straps and not wearing a bra is "not an option"). And there's the "to kiss or not to kiss" question: "I won't want to kiss on the first date," Wendy says. "I would just say 'I would. like to get to know you better'."

Then there's Troy, a 16-year-old gay student, who gets up at 6am to commute for three hours a day from the North Shore. His mother brought home a magazine which discussed the experiences of gay students in the school system and mentioned Selwyn's anti-harassment policy. "The schools out where I live, I wouldn't touch with a 50-foot barge pole," he says.

Head girl 18-year-old Allie moved to Auckland from Northland. Last year she won nine sports awards and a cup for all round excellence.

"I'm the second girl to win it," she says. "And the first Maori ... most of my friends up north have had children ... I left in fifth form then they were having babies by the end of sixth form year. I'm really glad I got out."

Or Ashton-the-jock who lives with his mother, sister and his ex girlfriend Marilyn. The two have broken up but still share a room. "We have been together [two years] pretty much," Ashton says. "It's a long time without doing other stuff with other people."

School Rules is, admittedly, utterly compelling. Very few people have been compelled to build a shelter on a desert island or find love on a cruise ship, but we've almost all been, will be, or are being a teenager.

And while the problems Amber et al face might have a certain modern day spin, the essence of adolescence is unchanged. Finding yourself, fitting in and facing the world - it's hell to do, but hey, fun to watch.

The production company approached several schools before deciding on Selwyn. It distributed a questionnaire and spoke to about 30 students. The eventual nine were picked for diversity, Hollings says. "We wanted different ages, different views, different cultural backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds."

Different from each other, sure, but - no matter what you call them these are all just kids. Are they able to judge the potential outcome of sharing their lives with the nation?

Participants in reality TV are normally consenting adults. These guys are, at least technically, younger. Are they making an informed decision? Hollings says yes.

"They knew exactly what they were getting into. Kids today, young people today, students today are very media savvy. The students that came forward wanted to be involved and . knew what was involved.

"These are grown-ups ... we haven't followed a group of third and fourth formers. Which would be interesting but very, very difficult."

The show spent "a lot" of time with the students and their families before filming started, explaining what was involved. Family consent was vital, Hollings says, and privacy laws require that with anyone under 18, the interests of the child must be protected.

"It was in everybody's interests that we kept that uppermost in our minds," she says. "You have got to be sensitive. It's a sensitive area. But I don't think that's a reason that we shouldn't make it."

There's always an element of construct in television. School Rules shot more than 300 hours of footage for less than 10 hours on screen. The participants could ask for no cameras if they were doing something they didn't want filmed.

"We didn't think it would interfere with the overall value of the programme," Hollings says.

"It's not constructed. We don't send them off to camp and film them under difficult conditions for 20 days and see whether Amber would kill Wendy. We lived their lives with them.

"Nobody won a prize on it. They are probably not happy about that actually ... but it's a key difference of this programme. We haven't constructed an environment in which to put them. So I'm loath to call it reality. I like to think of it more like factual documentary."

And it will give a voice to an age group that television neglects. There's a lot of television made for this demographic, Hollings says, but not a lot about them.School Rules aims to give us a snapshot of teenage life at the start of the millennium. And it will give everyone else a glimpse into a society as closed and alien as a foreign country - adolescence. Sure, it's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live their.