Interview With Andrew Leale, Founding Principal, Harrow International School, Bengaluru

Careers360 recently interacted with Andrew Leale, founding principal, Harrow International School, Bengaluru. Here are some excerpts from the conversation you wouldn’t want to miss.

Careers360 | How are Harrow Schools planning to set up their base here in India and what is their vision?

Andrew | It's an exciting project. Harrow Bengaluru will be a truly outstanding school and one of the best in India, we're opening with Class 6 upwards in August 2023. And in due course we will be opening a primary school but at the moment, we're focusing on secondary education which will provide outstanding academic preparation and holistic opportunities. We are offering international curriculums, including Cambridge IGCSE, A-levels and the IB diploma. To deliver that first class education we have recruited outstanding teachers from across the world.

One of the great benefits of being part of the Harrow Group of Schools is their tradition of supporting children to move onto outstanding universities around the world. Oxford, Cambridge, the G5 in the UK, IVY league in the US—every year Harrow sends a large number of students to those universities on the back of achieving outstanding grades.

Careers360 | Could you elaborate on the legacy of Harrow Schools?

Andrew | There's a great legacy of Harrow Schools, spread over 450 years. That legacy is reflected in the great names of old Harrovians—Sir Winston Churchill, the great British wartime prime minister; Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India; and King Hussein of Jordan.

However, the legacy of Harrow is far wider than that—multiple Nobel Prize winners have been educated at Harrow,, and great literary figures across the centuries—Anthony Trollope and Lord Byron, for example, where both old Harrovians. Harrow has schools around the world that have built strong reputations and allowed students from outside of the UK to benefit from that legacy. That's very much our intention— to bring these unique opportunities to a new generation of students from across India.

Careers360 | How do you think that the students who study at Harrow here in India will get an edge over other students not studying at Harrow?

Andrew | There's two aspects to that. One of them is the qualifications they will gain—those International qualifications are very strongly recognised in the US and the UK, and around the world. So for our students targeting the top universities around the world—the fact that they have those globally recognised qualifications, at IGCSEs and beyond, will be invaluable. Beyond that, when they want to move to the world of employment after university—global multinationals will be familiar with and appreciative of those same qualifications. So that's tremendously important.

The other side to the International Harrovian edge will come from the way those courses are delivered. Classes at Harrow Bengaluru will require our students to engage actively with their subjects and will seek to build in our students a lifelong love of learning. They will go beyond memorising content to allow our students to develop the skills and qualities which will allow them to flourish in the future as intellectual and interesting young people.

Careers360 | Are there any exchange programs also that are being planned for the students who studied at Harrow?

Andrew | Yes, both for the students and for the teachers. Our teachers will have the opportunity to connect within a collaborative programme labelled “HarrowNet”- a community of teachers from Harrow and across the Harrow network of schools sharing pedagogy and best teaching practices.

Our students will also also have the opportunity to engage globally and build on their Harrow connections. We shall link Harrow Bengaluru students with Harrow students across the globe on a regular basis, as they engage in international discussion and contribute for example, to globally published creative writing magazines But, of course, yes, we also want to have physical engagement and there will be opportunities for our students to visit and spend time at Harrow UK during their holiday time, when they're not learning here, and within exchange programmes. We will encourage our teachers and our students, then, to be engaged across the globe as a result of our connectedness.

Careers360 | What kind of infrastructure is Harrow School planning to set up in Bengaluru?

Andrew | When we talk about the infrastructure of the school, it's important again to reflect on the multifaceted nature of our school. As well as academic education, boarding and holistic education are crucial elements of Harrow life.

Let's start with the academic part. Our main academic building will be four storeys high, offering over 1,200 square metres of learning space. It will have a dedicated STEAM wing, and state of the art facilities for each of our academic departments. Our students will learn every day in brand-new state-of-the-art facilities. The top floor is going to be devoted to that creative aspect of academic education with outstanding facilities for fine art, music, drama and dance. We're going to have a large, superbly stocked library and multiple areas for collaborative learning, which is such an important part of 21st century education. We’ve then got an 800-seat auditorium for musical and drama performances in a separate new building.

Our boarding houses will also be equipped with the very best facilities. All of our resident students will be accommodated in either single or twin rooms and every boarding house will have its own dining room, library and multiple common rooms.

And then, finally, we have our sports facilities. There’s a 50-metre swimming pool—an Olympic-sized swimming pool, squash courts, tennis courts, athletics track, a full sized 4G astroturf football pitch, basketball courts, a large indoor sports hall and cricket nets. The opportunities for our students will be endless!