Vision and Values

VISION

‘The School’s vision is to promote Educational Excellence for Life and Leadership through an outstanding education that blends elements of philosophy, practice and tradition from Harrow School with an awareness of the cultural context of Hong Kong and the needs of its international community.’

Leadership, of course, is a very Harrovian quality and some of the great Old Harrovians, such as Winston
Churchill, Nehru and King Hussein of Jordan are renowned for providing profound leadership at significant
points in modern history. Educational excellence for life and leadership aims to equip and challenge Harrow
Hong Kong pupils to use their knowledge, skills and talents to make life better for other people in their
community and the wider world through developing six identified key Leadership Attributes:

  • Contributing Positively to the Community
  • Applying Knowledge with Compassion
  • Solving Problems Collaboratively
  • Solving Problems Creatively
  • Making Fair and Just Choices
  • Facing Challenges with Determination

With input from teachers, pupils and parents, the previously mentioned social vision statement was created
to outline the expectations of how members of the School community are expected to treat each other.

“A caring, respectful community in which everybody thrives.”

This Social Vision statement goes to the heart of the Leadership Attributes and the modelling of them
in the Harrow Hong Kong community. It also provides a framework for staff, pupils and parents in their
interactions with each other.

VALUES

In order to strive to achieve our vision we call upon four values that are common to all of the schools
within the Harrow group. These are:

  • Courage
  • Honour
  • Humility
  • Fellowship

As stated at Harrow London:

‘In any organisation – be it a school, a company, or even a family – strong and clearly expressed values create identity, focus, unity and drive, answering the questions ‘what do we belong to?’, ‘what’s important to us?’, ‘what holds us together?’ and ‘why do our collective efforts matter?’ At Harrow, our Values help us to make decisions from day-to-day that mean we behave and perform better, inspiring us to try harder as individuals, so that collectively we thrive.’
Courage
encourages us to innovate and take risks, inspiring change for the better. It means challenging adversity and complacency, making the most of opportunities, putting fear of failure to one side and staying the course, even when it is difficult.
Honour
is about doing the right thing, having the highest standards and leading by example. It involves taking responsibility and, ultimately, is what makes us worthy of the trust of others.
Humility
asks us to recognise that one’s self is a work in progress and that struggling with one’s weaknesses is essential to growth. Humility increases our awareness that talent and achievement alone, however impressive, are not sufficient to succeed as a human being – and that none of us is at the centre of the universe.
Fellowship
means building binding, constructive relationships that help us all to make a positive contribution. This is resonant with our belief that the strongest relationships of all are based on faith, hope and love.
Our four Values link closely to our Christian foundation and the principles of ‘Godliness and good learning’ established by our founder, John Lyon. In our context, their meanings are replete with much more than their dictionary definitions, just as the word ‘Harrow’ means more than just a school. Outwardly, they give a sense of the distinctive quality of Harrow School, and express what we think is important. A school that values courage, honour, humility and fellowship is a school at its best: one deserving of the name ‘Harrow’ and one to which we aspire.

Gabby, Wu House

“Harrow has a really accessible pastoral care system and we are constantly reminded about the people that we are able to talk to. I think the main element of the pastoral care is the house system as we can catch up with our tutors or head of house at any point in the school day”
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