Harrow School - a diluted global brand?

[Mrspepperpot1979]

Our DS has been offered a place at Harrow, which of course is wonderful – it’s a school with an extraordinary heritage. However, we're beginning to wonder whether Harrow, perhaps more than any other UK public school, has now evolved into something quite different from what made it so unique.

One concern is the sheer scale of Harrow’s international cohort - particularly the large number of pupils from China. While cultural diversity is something to be celebrated, it feels as though the balance may have shifted too far. When comparing Harrow with schools like Eton or Radley (both of which have made a point of avoiding overseas franchises), the contrast is quite stark.

Harrow has opened a significant number of international schools abroad over the last few years - notably in China – and continues to expand in this direction. While one can appreciate the commercial rationale, one can’t help but question what this says about the school’s strategic focus. Has the essence of what Harrow was – a quintessentially British boarding school experience – been changed for the worse or better as a result?

A number of the traditions certainly remain: the Harrow Songs, Bill, the distinctive dress, Long Ducker etc. But if the pupil body is so heavily international and the school’s global brand is now arguably its driving force, are families still getting the same experience that once made Harrow unique?

I’d really value hearing from others – whether you have current boys there, or considered it but chose differently. How does this international cohort impact the school culture, does it cause division? Through, for example, a lack of cultural reference points and different cultural sporting interests - i.e Rugby and cricket.

Do others share these concerns, or do you see this evolution as a positive step for a 21st-century institution?

@ItalianWays - the Harrow website has all the relevant information for anyone seeking correct facts. There are also a number of posters on this thread who have tried to be helpful who actually have boys at the school. They have probably given up now as this discussion has become ridiculous.
At this point, it is very confusing what your actual agenda is (as well as the OPs).

From the Admissions page of Harrow School (as at today’s date), in clear stated facts:

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF CURRENT BOYS ARE THE SONS OF OLD HARROVIANS?
Around 15%.
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF BOYS LIVE OVERSEAS?
Approximately 20%.

The website is excellent and has a huge amount of information which any prospective parent should read and absorb carefully.

In particular, as regards PURPOSE and then the stated values.
Harrow prepares boys with DIVERSE backgrounds and abilities for a life of learning, leadership, service and personal fulfilment.

They are explicitly looking for boys “who will make the most of the opportunities Harrow offers: boys who are generally bright, with an enthusiastic attitude to school life, the potential to show great leadership and the sort of personality that will make a notable contribution to our community.”
Note the house motto etc, being part of a team - it is all very clear and well communicated.

The current academics are excellent, 16 boys with all 9s, the uni offers and A levels too. A lot of parents are now looking at uni destinations in the global top 10 unis, that is a fact. The website states there were 68 offers for global top 10. That is excellent in a cohort of 180 (approx 20 joining in Sixth Form).

Harrow on the Hill in Middlesex, the local area, is very diverse according to the 2021 Census, which anyone can look up.

A lot of British public school’s have very clear strategies and mottos and it is really worth people trying to understand it well. Those who come from families with multiple generations of public schooling, know instinctively what it means. For anyone else, I really think most Admissions departments will happily take their time to really let people understand what it all means and answer questions of fact transparently. The website for this particular school is incredibly helpful and transparent, the school has very strong leadership and is thriving academically and extracurricularly.

The ethnic make up of London and England as a whole (and each area within it) and recent changes can be clearly and factually tracked in the Census from year to years. There is no need to further go into this.
In particular, there is no point in bringing politics into school choice.

@ItalianWays yes of course, and neither of my DC see career networking as a big thing - I was simply picking up on a point made upthread. What I would say though (from experience of having kids in a boarding school) is that plenty of international students stay in the UK for university and then work in London, while plenty of home students 'disappear off' overseas themselves for a few years after school - so there's a sizeable number of students for whom those national boundaries aren't terribly important. And although the percentage of international students (at lots of schools, not just Harrow) has grown, they're still in the minority, leaving plenty of home students to kick a football around with. I'm not denying there's been some change in the population - I just don't see it as being a big negative shift.

Did you ask ChatGpt to write that for you?

@linepainter like everything it is a matter of degree. You said you had children currently in the private sector - are they actually boarding at an independent senior school right now? Because until you’ve been the only non-international boarder in your house/dorm/year you would not really understand what it means.

Following with interest. To recap, we were Harrow parents until three years ago, so we were connected with the school for nearly a decade, perhaps longer if you include pre registration visits and so on. While the below is written from experience at Harrow, much of it applies elsewhere.

There is a good deal of conflation between opinion and fact in the preceding ten pages. To restate a couple of points of fact:

The school may claim “20% overseas”, but as I have said before, having a residential address, and or a long term visa, in Knightsbridge or Mayfair does not make someone a British student.

There has been a great deal of unhelpful commentary drifting into a rather tedious racist or anti racist debate about whether children care about the diversity of their friendship groups. The point is that race or colour is irrelevant. This is about maintaining the culture of a British boarding school, boys engaging fully in character building activities, teamwork, and forming lifelong friendships. This becomes much more challenging when 30 to 40% are from a very different culture. It is a real factor, regardless of how it is presented.

Networking. There is no meaningful concept of international networking with the offspring of a so called global elite. Many of the Chinese pupils, for example, go on to universities in the US or elsewhere internationally and then disappear from the network.

Chinese government sponsorship. Many Chinese pupils, not just at Harrow, are supported through state linked schemes, often on full or more than full bursaries due to exceptional academic or musical ability. This support can come with conditions, leaving them effectively indebted to the PRC long term.

Until the Ukraine war, there were a fair number of oligarchs’ children at the school, most of whom were technically “British”. The boys generally integrated well and formed strong friendships, helped by cultural similarities and, in many cases, time spent in the UK prep system. The parents often did not integrate in the same way, tending to be extremely wealthy, showy and ostentatious. You can picture the type. Despite that, the boys themselves were good company and many of those friendships have endured despite political developments.

This is a real issue. It is not simply an extension of modern British diversity. It has fundamentally changed the face and character of these schools. Perhaps it was necessary as a source of income. Perhaps it will be managed more carefully in future, as many parents view it negatively. Or perhaps it will increase, as leading independent schools become entirely unaffordable for the traditional professional classes, the small town solicitor, the GP, or the occasional naval or military officer.

“Did you ask ChatGpt to write that for you?”
@ItalianWays - no, most definitely not. All my own words. Is that a compliment now after all?

@Araminta1003 , quoting the Harrow website rather illustrates the issue. Admissions websites are marketing documents, they present the school exactly as the school wishes to present itself. Simply reproducing lines from the website isn’t “evidence”, it’s just the brochure. Those with real familiarity with the schools tend to look rather beyond that.

Not really @Mrspepperpot1979 - when the school is stating exact percentages and facts, in writing. Of course people have different experiences of any school, but statistics are statistics. And school values are school values. Now you can say with any business or school that a school value is BS, but from my own personal experience, they do tell you quite a lot. Culture of a school or ethos really does matter and can be very consistent across decades if not centuries.
The whole premise of this thread seems to be that the ethos of Harrow has changed because of some Chinese students.

When I look at DS2’ grammar school, which happens to be very old, the ethos has not changed at all, despite a complete change in student demographics - far more so than what Harrow has. And more recently, yes, there are also a lot of children from a HK or Chinese background but they are not at all separate or not part of it. Most have assimilated very well, speak English perfectly and will likely stay very long term. DS is very close friends with quite a few and also does music with a lot of children of Chinese background from all sorts of schools. For his instrument, St Paul’s boys in particular.

It also seems to me that the Chinese state regime is separate from Chinese or HK people and children settling in the UK. I think less suspicion towards them as a group would aid integration. When new demographics settle in England, it often takes a while for them to assimilate and become part of our own culture. British state schools do actually kind of celebrate Chinese New Year now, there is going to be a new Chinese embassy, there are countless Chinese students in some of our unis, including the very top ones, this is a culture and demographic here to stay. Which can add real value to the UK. That would be my take on things.

I also have an anecdote. When the Chinese Government tried to replicate the TCM microchips with top scientists, they just could not get it right. The rumour goes that too many people in the command chain were too scared to speak up and did not know how to work as a team. Now if some elite Chinese families recognise that team play etc and British public school culture helps with that, I see that as a good thing. For me, cross cultural integration is a positive thing. Presumably a lot of boys who do come to Harrow from China may find it hard at first (I mean, who wouldn’t so far from home and different food/language/weather), but if their British friends knock on their doors regularly, include them etc, they, like all children, will be more than happy to take part!
And if the majority were failing to knock and do that, then the issue would be with the majority, not the minority.

“Chinese government sponsorship. Many Chinese pupils, not just at Harrow, are supported through state linked schemes, often on full or more than full bursaries due to exceptional academic or musical ability. This support can come with conditions, leaving them effectively indebted to the PRC long term.”

@elenuntis - whilst obviously the “conditions” and “indebted” bit is not great. When I hear this all I think is how sad that our own Government no longer gives opportunities like this to some of our own children in some of our own best schools.

Other than the point about cross-cultural integration, which, in the right balance, I agree can be positive, I fundamentally disagree with most of what you’ve written.

Frankly, I couldn’t care less whether the Chinese government benefits from a British public school education. Why on earth should that be a priority for UK parents choosing schools for their children? The PRC is doing perfectly well advancing its own interests.

Whilst I fully support the idea that children benefit from a global outlook and meaningful interaction with pupils from different backgrounds, it becomes self-defeating when a school develops a heavy reliance on a particular overseas cohort. That is exactly what many parents feel has happened at Harrow.

At that point it stops being healthy internationalism and starts to erode the natural culture of the institution. Harrow has increasingly relied on East Asian demand and funding, and the character of the school has inevitably shifted as a result.

I find it rather extraordinary that some posters appear to frame this as something the UK should actively encourage in order to “support” or “develop” the PRC. British public schools were never intended to serve that function.

A sensible international mix is valuable, but an over-reliance is not.

Those pretending this shift hasn’t happened, or insisting it has no consequences, are simply ignoring the obvious.

@Crisphead ignore this at your peril.

@Araminta1003 for the avoidance of doubt, what is your actual connection with Harrow, if any

@Araminta1003
When the Chinese Government tried to replicate the TCM microchips with top scientists, they just could not get it right.

I don’t understand this sentence. Does TCM stand for traditional Chinese medicine? That was all I could find on google.

Try "tsmc chips"

Yes sorry typing on my phone and it often does odd automatic corrections. The Taiwanese semiconductor business which is geopolitically very significant for many countries, it seems.

@MrsHLQ - my knowledge is sound from many trusted sources. However, I think whatever outing information I give you, you will likely find some objection anyway. So why would I out myself?

Would it really be so bad if the UK Government allowed gifted boys from more deprived backgrounds (make it white working class, if you like) a chance at an elite education and then an automatic fast track in the civil service, for example?

I really do not know why you think the Chinese are the baddies here. It is our own Governments that have deprived access to elite education to the many, first the cancellation of grants, now VAT on private school fees?

What if public school education, if diverse, really were to set kids up to leadership?

Interested to follow the to and fro on this topic.
All I can add is that I was surprised to bump into parents from our prep school last term at a different all boy boarding school - they had moved their son from Harrow at the end of his first year for precisely this reason (we are year 10 so this is current). All the boarding schools are diverse in terms of international students but this does indicate that Harrow have got the balance somewhat out of kilter.

@MrsHLQ I think that’s a “none” then.

Last time I checked, there was no required qualification to give a view on MN. Lots of people hold views on lots of different topics for lots of different reasons, with varying degrees of personal experience (or none), and nobody can decide to set themselves as arbiter of who is sufficiently qualified to give an opinion, though you seem to be trying to do so. It's particularly ridiculous given that even those on this thread who say they are Harrow parents could be making it up, for all any of us know - as anyone can on an anonymous forum at any time. You are very welcome to read or ignore or disagree with all the opinions given, as you see fit, but please stop with the 'What's your qualification to give an opinion?' business. It's very tedious.

@linepainter anyone can give an opinion on MN, it’s true.
But here we have an OP with a difficult decision to make, who repeatedly asked for well informed insight.

And what they have in response is someone who has admitted they have no actual knowledge to offer, but instead constantly lectures other people on this and a vast array of unconnected topics, makes things up, contradicts themselves, makes weird accusations, and when asked reasonable questions about their arguments, or about the basis of their opinions, refuses to answer and instead changes the subject to something even more unrelated.

Of course noone can stop them expressing their opinions, but for me, this all comes across like a fantasist with a bit of an obsession and what they say on this topic should be taken with a grain of salt.

Some of us are entirely immune to rage bating and ad hominem personal attacks. And prefer to focus on substantive discussion, rationally.

@LLissues - did the boy leave to a lesser top tier boarding school or to the biggest name one? Because the biggest name one can only take an extra boy if they also had attrition - which could be asked to leave or didn’t like it either. The biggest name one has a big cohort and will lose some boys in year 9 too.

@LLissues - please do not answer that question directly as it would be outing. I only raised it to illustrate a point. Which I explained in my previous answer very clearly.

Anyway back on topic:

Harrow offers are due in the coming weeks

we will accept if offered and then use the time to visit Harrow a number of times and make our own observations/enquiries