Common Strands
The Harrow International Schools of Bangkok, Beijing and Hong Kong are part of the Harrow Foundation also comprising Harrow School and The John Lyon School, London.
The strands that they hold in common are:
The spirit of Harrow, as epitomized by its most famous sons, such as Winston Churchill, is to do your best and never give up. It is this determination that each school seeks to emulate and nurture in it students.
All four schools seek to achieve the best academic standards for all students, appropriate to each student's potential. The goal is to provide all students with the best opportunities to gain access to tertiary education based on teaching to the National Curriculum of England including GCSEs (and IGCSE), A-levels and value-added tests such as those provided by the University of Durham. The schools believe that A-levels provide more flexibility and choice and, study the selected subjects to a greater depth, than other curricula available at this level. Teachers are highly qualified and experienced and are committed to holistic schooling.
- Broad‐based learning experience
All schools offer extensive after‐school and weekend co‐curricular programmes that aim to provide opportunities for participation and excellence in a wide range of pursuits from games, music, drama, and art to outdoor education, community service and hobbies. The objectives of these pursuits are to provide students with access to a wide range of pursuits designed to become lifetime passions; expose students to the benefits of both fair play and team loyalty; place students on the edge of their comfort zones so that they develop resilience and loyalty to peers; and maximize opportunities for interaction with their teachers outside the classroom. Through these pursuits, students are given a range of opportunities to develop leadership skills such as School Monitors/Prefects, House Captains, and team captains.
- Teacher‐pupil relationships
The foundation of each school's programme is the commitment, dedication and expertise of the teaching staff. There is a range of contexts in which these relationships are nurtured – Houses, boarding, extra‐curricular activities, the classroom, and the tutor‐tutee relationship. The goal is to provide support, direction and role‐modeling in all aspects of a pupil's development.
The schools aim to bring the best of Harrow traditions together with the best of current practice. Students are expected to interact with teachers and peers with courtesy and respect.
Harrow School is renowned for its famous non‐British Old Harrovians (e.g. ‘Pundit' Nehru, and King Hussein of Jordan). 23 princes of the royal household of Thailand have attended Harrow School since late in the 19th century. Today there is a wide range of nationalities, cultures and religious traditions represented within and across the student bodies of all four schools.
Grounded in its Church of England origins, Harrow School in London has demonstrated a isingness to lead the way in terms of building bridges with other religious traditions such as the introduction of a Roman Catholic chaplaincy into the school. The other Harrow schools have entered the ecumenical spirit of this approach, for example at Bangkok, holding a Christmas Carol Service and the celebration of Loy Kratong demonstrate the ecumenical approach to building understanding between religious traditions. An overarching theme is the Golden Rule – to treat others as you want to be treated.
The very origins of Harrow School, as personified by the John Lyon Trust, have their roots in service towards those who, for some reason, have limited opportunity to access educational opportunities. The founding of John Lyon School demonstrates this. Seeking opportunities to serve local and distant communities lies at the heart of the school's charter and it is contingent upon each school, for each generation, to be guardians of this time‐honoured legacy.
All schools seek to provide the best quality of facilities and educational resources available. These are needed to support their extensive curricula and extra‐curricular programmes. Relationships between the four schools are continuously growing, for example, by means of teacher exchanges and GAP student placements.
