Enjoy this short video snippet about Harrow International School APPI Japan from our 2025 Tokyo Expo.
Transcript
We spoke with Stephen Tong (Head Master).
ISTimes Global: (00:00) Hi. I’m here with Stephen at Harrow International School Appi Japan. Welcome Stephen.
Harrow International School APPI Japan (Stephen): (00:06) Thank you. Well, thanks for inviting us. Good to have a good to be here.
School History
ISTimes Global: (00:10) Our pleasure. Could you tell me a little bit about Harrow’s background and history?
Harrow International School APPI Japan (Stephen): (00:16) Okay, well it’s a long rich history. So I’ll cut to the chase actually. It goes on 452 years back to the original Harrow school, um, in North London. Um, uh in in Asia, um Harrow schools have been around for the last 27 years. But bringing things up to date, Appi is one of the very newest of those schools. We are yet to complete our third year. And unlike all of the other Harrow schools, and there are well over a dozen of those, we’re the only one in Japan. We’re the only one other than the original one, which is a full boarding school. And we are the only Harrow school that by design and plan is not located in a metropolitan center but located remotely halfway up a Japanese mountain.
Academic Life
ISTimes Global: (01:05) Wow, sounds great. Could you tell me a little bit about academics at the school? What is learning like there?
Harrow International School APPI Japan (Stephen): (01:12) Okay, so the academics are based on a British curriculum model. Um, fundamentally because that requires, well Harrow school of course. But fundamentally because it requires youngsters to be able to retain knowledge, understanding, develop skills, but also to be able to then apply those into context that they may not have thought of, apply their knowledge in order to show deep learning. Obviously, therefore, what goes on in the classroom is to make sure that the right questions are asked to make students think, that they’re given the right opportunities to work together to collaborate and think creatively so that they are properly prepared for the challenges that they’ll face in the adult world.
Extracurricular Activities
ISTimes Global: (01:53) Sounds great. Can you tell me a bit about how students get involved outside of the classroom? So, extracurricular things.
Harrow International School APPI Japan (Stephen): (02:02) Sure. Well, of course, none of the children go home at the end of the day. So they’re stuck with us for the evenings and the weekends um for up to eight weeks at a time. So they they’d quickly get bored um if we didn’t have plenty for them to do. So at the moment, um clubs run every day. Um there are in excess of 80 of those that students might choose from. Um some of those will be new things which we encourage them to try for the first time, breadth, and some of them will be things in which they’ve already got passions and interests where they’re trying to go deeper in their understanding or their competency. Um we would call those of course super curriculum activities. It’s the depth. Um uh students are encouraged to um uh join any of our leadership committees, but the school’s commitment is that we enter leadership through service. Um it’s kind of a Mahatma Gandhi approach that if you want to become a leader, immerse yourself in the service of others, they’ll start following you. Um and actually, I think as a community that lives together, not just studies together, um that’s really, really important and the opportunities are boundless. Um we’re located in in a rural environment. So the youngsters are involved in sports academies um three times a fortnight for up to half a day. Skiing and snowboarding in the winter, um tennis, golf, trail running, mountain biking in the green and the golden seasons. As the perfect learning of balance in busy lives. Yes, they study hard, that’s about the development of their mind, but we know that if we’re going to prepare them for the busy world that lies ahead of them, um we also need to think about their body, their hearts, their soul and their spirit as well.
Lasting Memories at Harrow International School APPI Japan
ISTimes Global: (03:49) Sounds wonderful. For students that graduate from your school, what are some of the memories you feel that they will walk away from your school having?
Harrow International School APPI Japan (Stephen): (03:59) Yeah, it’s a really good question. And actually the school is all fixed on that kind of departure point. Um if we were to granularly break it down, um it’s it it’s about that uh university application or that interview in which they have just a few seconds um in order to convince someone that they’re better than everybody else in a highly competitive market. That’s about having a narrative that’s different, that’s special, that makes them stand out on top of and beyond the academic achievements that they have. So that’s about how they bring the listener um alive with their their stories of things that they have learned, of things of challenges that they’ve overcome, their recognition of the hard work that it took or of the people that helped them along the way, the self-perception of the things they haven’t got to yet and the ambition to be able to articulate what they want to do next. Now, if we have young people that can do that in most cases in their second language, we have 33 nationalities next year at Harrow Appi, then they are going to be genuinely competitive, interesting and exciting global citizens of the future.
ISTimes Global: (05:15) All right, thank you so much for your time, Stephen. It was great talking to you.
Harrow International School APPI Japan (Stephen): (05:17) Hopefully that makes some sense.
About Harrow International School APPI Japan
- Part of the 452-year-old Harrow School network from the UK
- The only Harrow school in Japan, opened 3 years ago
- Full boarding school in a unique mountain location (Appi Kogen)
- British curriculum focused on deep learning and application
- Over 80 extracurricular clubs and activities
- Leadership through service philosophy
- Sports academies (skiing, snowboarding, tennis, golf, etc.)
- 33 nationalities represented in the student body
- Prepares students to be competitive global citizens
- Focus on developing well-rounded individuals (mind, body, spirit)
- Strong university preparation with unique student narratives
