Charity administration

The John Lyon Charity, administered by Harrow School Governors, gives grants worth £5 million per annum to schools, youth projects, environmental schemes, disabled facilities, homelessness projects and other causes in the boroughs along the Harrow Road. The Charity has recently given £500,000 to enable state schools in northwest London to achieve Specialist Status and £1m to start a new Academy in Lots Road, Chelsea.

The School supports and administers the Harrow Club in Notting Dale, a centre for both young and older people in a deprived part of London offering sports, adult education and social facilities.

The Peter Beckwith Harrow Trust is administered with assistance from the School and supports the community in various ways. Recent grants include the establishment of a library in the cancer treatment centre of Kingston Hospital and support for drama in Kingston, Richmond and Hounslow primary schools.

Local use of School facilities

The School's facilities are used extensively by local schools and the community: the theatre, swimming pool, playing fields, badminton, golf course, fishing lake, tennis courts, fives courts and other sports facilities. Several major borough swimming tournaments are held at the School. We host the local Harrow Lawn Tennis Club, Golf Club and Fishing Club.

The School accommodates a Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre, at a highly subsidised rent, in a building within the School Farm complex. Harrow School pupils visit the Centre to help out with a variety of projects and have recently been instrumental in fundraising for the Centre.

We have a specific organisation to enable members of the local community to benefit from our facilities, The Friends of Harrow School. Members are invited to School functions and we also lay on specific activities for them such as quizzes, dances and concerts.

We run a shooting competition (The Hamlin Trophy) every March and a drill competition in June for the six Harrow and Wembley Cadet organisations plus the Metropolitan Police Cadets. We also make available the facilities and equipment of the Harrow School Cadet Force to the same organisations. The local TA regiment have had use of our assault course and leadership course along with our sports hall and swimming pool.

Community Service

Community Service is undertaken by many pupils for the benefit, largely, of elderly people in the locality. They also help staff charity shops in Harrow Town Centre - Oxfam and SCOPE. Elderly residents from a local housing association warden-controlled complex of flats are invited to an all-expenses-paid day trip to places of historic or cultural interest twice a year. Harrow Social Services often ask us for 'taskforces' of boys to help with house clearance or gardening for the borough's elderly and/or vulnerable residents.

Events for the local community

The School supports a number of events each year which are put on for the local community. These include:

• Town Carols: a carol concert for 1,000 local people
• The annual Civic Service
• The annual Remembrance Day Service
• Metropolitan Police Awards Ceremonies

Other community activities

• Musicians from the School give regular (free) lunchtime concerts in St Mary's Church.
• The School pays for a street cleaner to clean public streets in Harrow on the Hill.
• The School Art Gallery is open to the public without charge every afternoon.
• The School provides four paid apprenticeships a year to local young people to work and develop their skills in its Estates department.
• We support the Middlesex branch of Relate and a Harrow School teacher has been on their Board of Management for the past twenty years.
• We let a large area of parkland, Church Fields, to the local authority at a very low rent for public use.
• The School participates in the annual London 'Open House' Scheme which allows free access for part of one weekend to buildings that are normally closed to the public or that would usually charge admission.
• The police are given regular and free use of the School's facilities for training dogs.