At the end of this semester, Harrow Zhuhai Speech Day took place on June 25 making the perfect ending to this academic year. Speech Day is the culmination of the academic endeavors of all our students as one of Harrow’s traditional celebrations. Our parents were invited to join us to witness the exciting moments.
To remember this remarkable moment, we invited each of the Harrow Zhuhai Founders to have their handprint on the wall with their signature. We ensured this handprint is a wonderful memory to remember these distinguished moments.
All of our students sang our school song ‘Forty Years On’ to open this event. It was the first time to demonstrate the school song in front of the parents. Parents were so excited to record this moment.
Our Head Master, Mr. Charlie Grayhurst, and Chinese Principal, Ms. Peng Liu, gave the opening speech. Mr. Grayhurst highlighted the Harrow School’s values and mark the occasion of our first Speech Day. He mentioned that he had been encouraged by seeing many of our students and staff demonstrate many of our Harrow leadership attributes, in facing challenges with determination and solving problems creatively and collaboratively. Opening a school is never an easy task, and it relies upon goodwill, resilience, and determination to succeed.
Head Master and Chinese Principal gave the opening speech
Influenced by our heritage, Harrow Zhuhai looks to the 450-year old Harrow UK for guiding principles, placing Harrow’s four long-held Values at the very heart of our own educational ethos. We believe the Values are central to the resounding success of our namesake UK school, having produced leaders and renowned thinkers. As such, Courage, Honour, Humility, and Fellowship anchor our holistic educational approach that focuses on individualised student care and support. All of us have come to demonstrate our commitment and drive to ensure “Educational excellence for life and leadership” as we strive forward in continuing our efforts to build up the honour of the Harrow name in Zhuhai.
To have courage, which is not simply about physical bravery, but is rather the courage 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.
To have honour, and in doing so, do 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.
To have humility, which asks us to recognise that we are all 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.
And finally, our belief in fellowship, where we strive to build binding, constructive relationships that help us all to make a positive contribution to our community. This is resonant with our belief that the strongest relationships of all are based on faith, hope and love.
The most exciting part of the event was the award ceremony. Ms. Peng Liu, the Chinese Principal of Harrow Zhuhai, delivered a speech and nominated the overall prize, which recognizes students who have demonstrated excellence in Music, Sports Innovation, Leadership and Service, Academics, and Holistic contributions and are a significant achievement.
Ms. Peng Liu, Chinese Principal of Harrow Zhuhai
Deputy Head, Mr. David Foster, and Mr. Jack Benstead, the Phase Head of Lower School, respectively made speeches and nominated the Subject Awards for the Upper School and Lower School.
Mr. David Foster, Deputy Head of Harrow Zhuhai
Our Head Master, Mr. Grayhurst, personally presented the certificates to the students, and each student gave the traditional capping to the Head Master.
Traditional capping to Head Master
In prolonged applause, the students proudly walked onto the podium to receive their honour, commemorating the outstanding achievements and progress they had made in various subjects in the past semester. Ms. Peng Liu during the speech mentioned that, “Over the past 450 years, our school at Harrow has worked very hard to prepare our young people for the best and to develop their personal qualities so that they are fully prepared for the future. I look forward with confidence to the future of Harrow Zhuhai and congratulate all for their efforts so far.”
The Speech Day ceremony provided a stage for a musical performance for students to demonstrate the leadership attributes. The upper school students played the piano, the violin, and the Jazz Drum. The lower school students played ‘Gospel Medley’ and ‘Do Re Mi’. During the preparation for these musical performances. We saw the courage from students to step on the stage for their first time to finish the performance in humility and fellowship. For the honour of Harrow Zhuhai, every student here is striving to do their best.
The most exciting part was the House Cup announcement.
The winning House was “ANDERSON”! Congratulations to the ANDERSON House students for earning 2,418 House Points!
All of the students were thrilled to celebrate this distinguished moment.
Finally, we prepared a video to review the wonderful activities and daily life on campus from the first day. Many students were excited by the beautiful moments of the 124 days in the past.
