Welcome to Harrow School

The Harrow Foundation

Media Elements

The Harrow Foundation is comprised of Harrow School, The John Lyon School, John Lyon’s Charity and the Harrow Club as well as the two Harrow International Schools (plus Harrow International School Hong Kong, opening in 2012).

The John Lyon School is a nearby day school for 500 boys. John Lyon’s Charity gives up to £5 million a year in grants to schools and other organisations in the boroughs of northwest London and the Harrow Club in Notting Dale is a centre for sport and education for young people in a deprived part of London.

The Harrow Family of Schools

The Harrow Family of Schools includes the two Harrow International Schools, Harrow International School Bangkok, and Harrow International School Beijing, as well as The John Lyon School and Harrow School in London.

There are a number of elements that they have in common.

  • Academic excellence: 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 and Wales including GCSEs (and IGCSE), A-levels and value-added tests such as those provided by the University of Durham. Teachers are highly qualified and experienced and are committed to holistic schooling.
  • A broad-based learning experience: All the 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 maximise opportunities for interaction with their teachers outside the classroom. Students are also given a range of opportunities to develop leadership skills through becoming School Monitors/Prefects, having House responsibilities, and being team captains.
  • Traditional framework: 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.
  • 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-modelling in all aspects of a pupil’s development.
  • Inter-cultural relations: Harrow School is renowned for its famous non-British Old Harrovians (for example, Jawaharlal Nehru and King Hussein of Jordan). Twenty-three princes of the royal household of Thailand have attended 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.
  • Values: Grounded in its Church of England origins, Harrow School in London has demonstrated a willingness to lead the way in building bridges with other religious traditions, such as introducing a Roman Catholic chaplaincy into the School. The other Harrow schools have entered the ecumenical spirit of this approach; for example at the Bangkok school a Christmas Carol Service and the celebration of Loy Krathong demonstrate the ecumenical approach to building understanding between religious traditions. An over-arching theme is the Golden Rule – to treat others as you want to be treated.
  • Community service: The origins of Harrow School have their roots in providing a service to those who have limited educational opportunities for whatever reason. The founding of The John Lyon School also demonstrated this. Seeking opportunities to serve local and distant communities lies at the heart of Harrow School’s charter and it is contingent upon each school within the Harrow family of schools, for each generation, to be guardians of this legacy of service.
  • Facilities: 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, through teacher exchanges and GAP student placements.

    • Stats

    Did you know?

    92
    boys have opted to do Maths A-level this September
    30
    pupils achieved Duke of Edinburgh Gold Awards in 2008
    19
    winners of the Victoria Cross are Old Harrovians