Recently, we had a chance to catch a glimpse of Harrow Beijing teachers through the paintings of Year 10 student Alex Z. Alex has been with Harrow Beijing since Year 6. Speaking about the inspiration behind the creations, Alex said: 'We have all experienced unprecedented challenges during the pandemic. I saw the great efforts made by our teachers and staff to keep students safe and ensure that lessons run smoothly, and so I wanted to pay tribute to these lovely people by creating their portraits.' The charm of art is infinite. Talking about the connection with art, Alex believes that art can immerse him in the fun of exploring the world, and through which he can express different emotions and ideas. In Alex's artworks, besides academic teachers, there are also some Harrow Beijing administrative staff. Harrow Beijing has been committed to providing quality services to make sure our students thrive in a warm community. We are incredibly proud that those efforts have been recognized by our students. Alex's tutor, Mrs Rachael Inns, is very impressed by his dedication to art and his outstanding skills in portrait and oil painting. 'Alex and I have conversations about who inspires him as an artist and any projects he is working on. We also discuss other forms of apparently simplistic modern painting and have had some great debates on how simplicity can become complex, depending on the observer and what they project onto the painting,' Mrs Inns told us. Ms Letitia EvansMinto, the Upper School Head of Art, added: 'Beijing has a dynamic, vibrant and continually changing and expanding art scene and market with top artists coming out of the city. It is a privilege to be able to live in such a melting pot of diverse creative fields, all coinciding together and being celebrated in and around the many beautiful art districts. Our school is also a place with such talent, energy and drive, with leadership skills being the common thread throughout all of the subjects and cohorts. Students such as Alex spearhead their own initiatives to not only give back to their school community in a heartfelt and meaningful way, but for Alex to put it on a platform via a public exhibition knowing that the sentiment will be shared and felt by many more than those he has depicted visually is a wonderful example of courage.'

On 4 March, it was an absolute pleasure for Harrow Beijing to host the Beijing International Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Maria Nauen, for 'Last Night of The Proms'. This was an unforgettable evening of music and reconnection of our Harrow community. Mrs Rachel Dent, Head of Harrow Beijing 'Harrow Beijing is a very special community and parents are a key component of that community. Throughout the last 4 years, you have supported us in so many ways that we genuinely hope this concert goes some way to expressing our gratitude and appreciation. My thanks to the Beijing International Chamber Orchestra's wonderful performance. Thanks also to Mrs Danielle Byrne and the many staff and students who have worked behind the scenes to make the night possible.' Dr Ahmed Hussain, Chief Education Officer of AISL 'On behalf of AISL Harrow, I would like to say thank you to the parents of Harrow Beijing for their commitment, togetherness, and resilience to stick with this school community. In the past few days here at Harrow Beijing, I've seen our students whose English is way beyond those in similar schools. Their reading and writing skills are equivalent to native level English students.  It's together that we achieve success for the children. I'm fully confident we will help your children achieve the very best they possibly can.' The evening program included a variety of popular classical film scores such as 'Moon River', 'The Lion King', 'Mission Impossible' and more. We were proud to see not only Harrow Beijing staff play with the orchestra, but seven talented students play alongside them in this celebration of a new chapter of welcoming audiences back to campus. The Prefect team also represented the student body, as well as our music ambassadors, who played a range of music at the champagne reception. These students showed the true spirit of our core values of fellowship and courage.

The baptism of the epidemic in recent years has made us more aware of the significance of providing help to those in need. The spirit of 'Fellowship' is also one of the core values of Harrow education. In the spirit of this, Harrow Beijing launched a 'Shoebox Appeal' charity campaign during the online learning period last November, aiming to send warmth and support to children in need. The generosity and compassion of the Harrow community surpassed anything that we could have hoped for. Over 600 shoeboxes filled with presents for disadvantaged children were kindly given by Harrow families, from students across the school – from Nursery all the way through to Sixth Form. Last week, staff and student representatives of Harrow Beijing were honoured to take the generous contributions to the children of Anmin school, who will benefit greatly from the kindness and compassion of our community. The other half of the donations will be sent to New Hope, an orphanage that supports disabled children. The influence of the donations given to this wonderful charity will make a huge difference. Along with this, the children at New Hope will also get the joy of receiving toys, games and beautiful gifts.   We are very thankful to everyone who donated to this excellent cause. It is so wonderful to see the Harrow values of Fellowship, Honour and Humility being so actively present in the Harrow community.

With the full resumption of post-COVID, in-school activities, last week Harrow Beijing was thrilled to be able to welcome our Year 2 to Year 5 parents to re-experience the fun of classroom interaction. Through participation in their child’s classes, parents were able to gain incredibly valuable insights into the teaching and learning activities which are being undertaken, while also seeing evidence of the outstanding progress being made by children across the Lower School. Year 2  After such long periods of time away from friendship groups and their teachers over the winter break, Year 2 students focused on ‘Re-establishing Relationships and Friendships’.  Parents and children engaged in activities such as Book Corner reading, English games table, crafting and colouring. They had a wonderful time re-energising and strengthening their relationships as a group. Year 3  Year 3 students learned about dinosaur fossils and constructed their own designed ‘fossils’ with their parents. Year 4  Year 4 students conducted a topic on ‘Explorers and Adventurers’ and studied the botanical artist Margaret Mee. Alongside their parents, students created their own sketches in Margaret Mee’s style. Year 5 Year 5 students were engaging in their current topic entitled ‘The Holiday’. Children and parents had a captivating discussion about the impact of tourism on the human and geographical environment.

If Early Years is as an area in which to learn and know oneself in the process of exploratory play, then Lower School is a new stage of independent personality development, knowledge expansion and social growth of the children. Helping young people better adapt to the changes in different stages and guiding their mental evolution are some of the key aspects that parents are specifically passionate about. Last week, Harrow Beijing Lower School held a ‘Transition Day’ event for the Year 1 parents of City Campus to help them fully understand the learning in Lower School phase at the Hegezhuang Campus. Ms Sarah Davey (Head of Lower School), Mr Robin Dunhill (Head of Pre Prep), and a variety of Lower School teachers welcomed the Year 1 parents from City Campus. Ms Davey gave parents an informative overview of the Lower School. Accompanied by the Head of Lower School, teachers, student representatives and the Admissions team, Year 1 parents visited the facilities and classes in order to better understand the student learning experience here in Harrow Beijing Lower School. After the tour, our Academic and Admissions teams listened to parent questions and gave detailed answers on a variety of topics.

We were excited to welcome all of our students and teachers back to school, and as part of Lantern Festival and school reopening celebrations, Harrow Beijing Hegezhuang Campus organized a series of cultural activities to celebrate new year and reunion. Lower School Lower School students crafted lanterns and cards to express their best wishes to friends and loved ones. In addition, activities such as pitch-pot and shuttlecock games were popular with everyone. Guessing teachers' names from photographs taken when they were babies was a special lantern riddle which the students particularly enjoyed. The lantern riddles and the way in which they required students to critically engage with the content were rather popular across both Lower School and Upper School, and it was wonderful to observe everyone taking part in this long-celebrated tradition. Students can also claim house points by guessing the right answer to their lantern riddles.   Upper School Prep Head Boy and Head Girl shared their thoughts on the new term and sent their best wishes to the entire school community at assemblies. Students and teachers also performed the Jasmine Flower and Czardas to showcase their musical talent. Making sticky rice dumplings is another regular activity we take part in at Lantern Festival each year, and students prepared some colorful sticky rice dumplings to share with their families. Form tutors also led tutor group activities such as making the paper lanterns and a Lantern Festival Quiz.

On January 31 we were very excited to welcome back our students from the winter break and Chinese New Year celebrations! It was wonderful to see Harrow Beijing students re-energised and ready to restart their learning journey in a fully functioning, open school where they will continue to forge ahead on the road of growth and development in this Year of the Rabbit. The students at Hegezhuang Campus enthusiastically returned to classrooms and were learning together with their teachers and friends. We are incredibly happy to see the lively and smiling faces back on campus again and look forward to spending another wonderful term with our students!  

According to the latest results, we are extremely proud to announce that Harrow Beijing students have received offers from leading universities in the UK, the US, Canada, Hong Kong China, including but not limited to University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Cornell University, the University of Hong Kong and many more. We are delighted to see Harrow Beijing students recognized by the world's top universities, and look forward to more offers coming through.  Our academic team strives to support students through the technical process of university/college applications and these initial offers are testament to the significant work undertaken by our students and staff. Check out the latest university offers of Harrow Beijing （Results by 2 February, 2023） UK Birkbeck, University of London     Brunel University London     Durham University     King's College London     Kingston University London     Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts Loughborough University     Oxford Brookes University     Queen Mary University of London Queen's University Belfast     Royal Holloway, University of London Sheffield Hallam University     SOAS University of London     The University of Edinburgh     The University of Sheffield     University College London     University for the Creative Arts     University of the West of England Bristol      University of Bath     University of Birmingham     University of Bristol     University of Cambridge     University of Glasgow     University of Gloucestershire     University of Leeds     University of Leicester     University of Manchester     University of Nottingham     University of Oxford     University of Reading     University of Southampton     University of Surrey     University of the Arts London     University of Warwick     University of Westminster     University of Winchester     University of York     York St John University     US Art Center College of Design  Boston University    Cornell University Fordham University    Indiana University  Lewis and Clark College     New York University     Pratt Institute School of Visual Arts  The New School Parsons   University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign     University of Wisconsin AUSTRALIA The University of Sydney CHINA The University of Hong Kong

The Beijing Central Axis application for the World Cultural Heritage Site Project was officially launched in 2011 and now the application has entered the 'sprint stage'. In order to support the application for Beijing Central Axis to become a World Heritage Site, 26 Harrow Beijing students have participated in the 'Young Cultural Ambassador for the Beijing Central Axis' competition.