Head of English

Harrow School is one of the best-known schools in the world. It is situated on a 324-acre estate in Harrow on the Hill in north-west London, and employees particularly value the School’s beautiful green estate, the positive working environment, and good relationships with their colleagues.

Harrow is an independent boarding secondary school for boys aged 13-18, all of whom live in the School’s 12 boarding houses. It was established by royal charter in 1572 for the education of 30 poor boys in the parish of Harrow on the Hill. This original purpose of offering a life-changing education to boys from every background continues today; in 2023/23, 340 of our 834 pupils benefited from some form of fee assistance.

While Harrow’s rich academic education leads to top examination results and entry to the best universities in the world, our focus is on pastoral excellence with the wellbeing of our boys at its core. The School also offers a host of co-curricular opportunities, allowing each pupil to follow or discover his own particular interest, and boys regularly achieve sporting success at a national level. All this is underpinned by world-class facilities.

Knowing that we are part of a much wider community, our Shaftesbury Enterprise partnership programme is a key element of our curriculum that encourages all Harrovians – pupils and staff – to participate in projects to support young people to flourish in every area of their life, whatever their circumstances.

Harrow also has a family of schools that offer a similar outstanding education across Asia, the Middle East and the USA.

Head Master

Alastair Land

Values and vision

Harrow School believes that the success of students should be measured not purely by grades but by their influence on the wider world.

The School believes that all organisations need strong and clearly expressed values to create identity, focus, unity and drive, and answer the questions: what do we belong to, what’s important to us?; why do our collective efforts matter?; what holds us together?

Harrow’s four Values of courage, honour, humility and fellowship aim to help the School make decisions from day to day that mean members of its community behave and perform better. These Values link closely to Harrow School’s Christian foundation and the principles of ‘godliness and good learning’ established by its founder, John Lyon.

ISI report

‘Pupils are high achievers in all areas of their academic lives. Their success owes much to the strong and supportive boarding community to which they all belong, and which gives the encouragement to work hard and aim high, and the confidence to set themselves ambitious goals.’

‘Pupils invariably work hard and utilise their strong motivation and desire to succeed, and this is one of the main drivers in their success. The strong progress they make, and their all-round excellent achievement, is enabled by many innovative approaches and initiatives introduced by school leaders.’

View Harrow School’s latest ISI report