Speech Day is a tradition at Harrow Schools. On this day, the Headmaster recognizes students who have excelled during the academic year. As Sophia Ho Tung, an outstanding Harrow alumna from AISL Harrow Hong Kong, says, “Speech Day is a celebration and the beginning of the next journey, allowing us to reflect on the year’s achievements, let go of the stress of exams for a while, have a fun summer holiday and return to school with confidence.”
Speech Day has a history of over 200 years at Harrow School. On this day, the entire school community gathers for this solemn ceremony. The Principal gives a speech and recognizes outstanding students, and the school orchestra and band perform during this ceremony.
This is the first time that Harrow Nanning has held a Speech Day, and the solemnity of Speech Day enhances the pride of Harrow students, whose values and spiritual heritage have been passed down through time and space and binds all Harrow people together. Harrow’s Speech Day in Nanning is both traditional and unique. All teachers are dressed in their academic robes, as if the school has become Gryffindor in Harry Potter. When their names were read out, the students who won the award came up to the stage and tapped the brim of their Harrow hats with their index fingers to give the Harrow “Capping” to the teachers.
Each award certificate testifies to the progress and achievements of Harrow students in the past year, and the efforts and sweat of each of them have been honored and proved here.
Li Qingzhao Award
China’s history is rich with masters of the Chinese language, and Li Qingzhao is one of the best. A woman who searched for inspiration by walking alone on the city walls during snowstorms, Li blossomed into a role model for women writers at a time when women commonly burned their poems rather than have them read in public. “In life be a hero among men, / In death be a champion among ghosts.” For many Chinese, Li Qingzhao was both.
Understanding our mother language also helps us develop our personal and cultural identity, helping us connect with friends, family, and society. As Harrovians, we are honoured to study our mother language.
These awards are given to honour students from all grades who have mastered, excelled, or made significant progress in Chinese language this year.
The Lord Byron Awards for Excellence in English
As Harrovians, we embrace the spirit of bilingualism. There are few places in the world where only one language is used. Becoming bilingual serves to sharpen (not confuse) our young minds allowing us to switch between languages to develop more flexible approaches to thinking about problems.
Harrow has a rich heritage of poets, writers, and speakers who conquered the English language. Lord Byron, who attended the school from 1801 to 1805, captivated the Western mind and heart as few writers have; Lord Byron has no superior in English poetry.
These awards are given to honour students from all grades whose drops of ink have made people think.
The Sir Ronald Fisher Awards for Excellence in Maths
As Harrovians, we recognise Mathematics is the foundation of science and rational thinking. No matter to which field or profession we grow up belonging to, its use is everywhere. Without mathematics, there’s nothing we can do. Everything around us is mathematics. Everything around us is numbers.
Mathematics is held in high regard at Harrow School. Sir Ronald Fisher enrolled in the school age 14 and quickly won the school’s prestigious Harrow Medal in mathematics. He won a scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge University in 1909 and for his work in statistics, he has been described as “a genius” and “the single most important figure in 20th century statistics”.
These awards are given to honour students from all grades who hopefully will go onto to be described in the same way as Sir Ronald Fisher.
The Malcolm Noakes Awards for Excellence in Science
A basic human motivator is to try to understand why. Why did something happen? How does something work? Harrovians understand that curiosity about the world around us, about what makes it and us tick is at the foundation of invention and creativity.
Malcolm Cuthbert Nokes MC was a British soldier, a civil servant, a research scientist, and an Olympic athlete winning a bronze medal in 1924 games; most importantly though, he was a Harrow schoolteacher. An Oxford graduate, his experiments, often involving explosions, were popular and famous among his students.
These awards are given to honour students from all grades who, even after the explosions, never stop questioning.
The Sir Cecil Beaton Awards for excellence in the Arts
As Harrovians, we recognise that the arts matter. Almost anyone can create something that conveys a message on a personal or public level, whether it is political, social, cultural, historical, religious, or completely void of any message or purpose. Art becomes a universal language for all of us to tell our stories.
The artistic talents of Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton quickly grew during his time at Harrow School. A photographer known primarily for his portraits of celebrities, Sir Cecil also worked as an illustrator, a writer, and an Academy Award-winning costume and set designer, winning Oscars for his costume design in Gigi (1958) and for both his costume design and his art direction in My Fair Lady (1964).
Creativity takes courage. This award is given to honour students who have shown the courage to be creative in either art or music.
The Spencer Gore Awards for Excellence in Sport
As good sportsmen and women, we develop discipline by following rules, obeying coaches, and practicing restraint. We develop into strong leaders by learning that unless everyone on the team works together and plays to each other’s abilities, the team will not win. As Harrovians, fellowship is key to our success on the “battlefield”.
Spencer Gore understood the value of fellowship in sports. Educated at Harrow school, he excelled at all games, especially football and cricket, and was the captain of the school cricket team in 1869. As well as becoming a professional cricketer, in 1877 he won the first ever Wimbledon lawn tennis championship whilst also competing in the annual Eton v Harrow cricket match!
This award is given to honour students who display outstanding sporting leadership qualities within the school environment and beyond.
The Jawaharlal Nehru Awards for Excellence in Leadership and Service
Understanding our mother language also helps us develop our personal and cultural identity, helping us connect with friends, family, and society. As Harrovians, we are honoured to study our mother language.
This award is given to honor those who have demonstrated emerging leadership in the school, and who are making significant contributions to their community through their time, actions, talents and dedication. Recipients of this award go above and beyond in a selfless and meaningful manner, demonstrating deep care, compassion and support for others.
Harrow Merit Point Awards
Harrow Merit Points are awarded for Academic Excellence; making significant improvements in attainment; for Excellent Attitude; finding new ways for a solution or asking for additional support; for Excellent behaviour; being an excellent role model and helping others, for Outstanding Effort; giving maximum effort and showing resilience in the face of adversity.
Harrow Scholarship Awards
Harrow Nanning Scholarship are dedicated to rewarding Harrow students who have attained academic, scientific and artistic achievements and who continue to challenge and excel, thus realizing the educational vision of “educating for excellence and leading with excellence”. The Harrow Nanning Scholarship Program for 2022-2023 is divided into 100% full scholarship, 50% half scholarship and talent scholarship. The scholarships are open to all enrolled and prospective students, and recipients will receive a tuition fee waiver.
House Excellence Awards
As with Harry Potter, there are characters that stand out in each House. We would like to celebrate those students who particularly encapsulate the House spirit. Each of the Heads of Houses has nominated two students that they believe go above and beyond, demonstrating immense Honor for the House and fellowship among all students and staff.
House Cup
The very first Harrow House Cup is awarded to the House whose points highest.The House points add together the points from competitions and the House Points gained through out the year.
Bright Future Ahead 13--G4 Moving Up
In Harrow Nanning, students moving up to Grade 5 will leave their traditional classes and will be in a “walking class” and “mentorship” system, where they will have more academic challenges and become more independent. They will also take on the role of senior students in the school, taking care of their younger schoolmates. To this end, Ms Smith and Ms Huang, the fourth grade’s homeroom teachers, sent their sincerest wishes and hopes to the students on this day.
With applause and laughter, the first Speech Day at Harrow Nanning drew to a close as we looked back and forward to the future. Courage makes people fearless, humility tells people progress, fellowship is to recognize and build bingding and constructive relathionship, and honour is to do right things. We believe that effort deserves accolades and that every effort and contribution will be seen. As Mr Neil Clayton said in his spring semester opening speech, “At Harrow Nanning, you don’t need to compare yourself to others, that’s not why you’re here for, what you need is to make yourself the best you can be, better today than you were yesterday”. We congratulate the winners and we hope that all students will not be arrogant or discouraged, and will persist in climbing the path of excellence to reap even greater progress.
Heads' Addresses
“Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time. “
“A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, typifies life here at Harrow Nanning. All our students, both old and new, are striving to leave their footprints behind in the Harrow sands. Whether that be through competing in House competitions, supporting local primary schools, leading in assemblies, or excelling in an elite sport. Students have an abundance of opportunities to discover a talent and a passion that allows them to succeed and leave an indelible mark on their time here.
The journey towards success for both an individual student and for the school is a long and tough one. Together we come to the end of the first year of our journey and do so with vigour, enthusiasm, and excitement. Our experiences and achievements this year have given us all a fantastic springboard to build on and improve on.
In over 450 years of history, many Harrovians have tasted success and glory. Today, we seek to honour the achievements of our prestigious alumni, whilst creating history and stories of our own.
As a symbol of our students’ successes this year, awards for excellence will be presented during this today’s ceremony. Awards that symbolise our courage, our fellowship, our humility, and our honour; what it truly means to be a Harrovian. Our successful recipients should feel a sense of pride, identity, and community in winning these awards. Visible recognition that encourages their peers to follow suit in seeking success, striving for excellence, and creating a sense of togetherness.
I’m very pleased to say that nomination for each award has been an extremely difficult process, with a number of students being nominated multiple times and across multiple categories. This goes to show what a wonderful group of students we have and just how much impact they’ve had on the lives of all connected with the school.
Without further ado, remember that no matter who wins, happiness comes from harmony, honour and humility. Support one another to do your best, and be a little better than you are.
Mr Neil Clayton
Head of AISL Harrow Nanning
Good morning Harrow Community:
Before I start, I would like to thank all the teachers and parents for coming through for us this year and therefore I ask all the students to stand up and join me in giving all the teachers and parents a round of applause.
I was lucky enough to be the founding Chinese principal in this school and I can’t be more grateful to speak before all of you and reflect on our collective journey in this school, and if I were to think of one word to describe this journey, it would be: Unprecedented.
At this special moment, I want to congratulate our Harrow community for our achievements in the first year. In a relentlessly changing environment, the complexity of problems is increasing faster than our ability to solve them. The dynamics in our lives create unexpected undercurrents, but also pose unforeseen opportunities — that’s the beauty of life. To thrive, we must embrace its perpetually changing, uncertain nature. In this founding year of Harrow Nanning, our staff, students, and parents have been working together offering support, trust, and encouragement to each other and have been through so many firsts.
In China, we say that “Wan shi Kai tou Nan”. In English, we say: Rome doesn’t build in one day. The story of Harrow Nanning has just started, and the journey continues. With our hardworking students, the most dedicated team and the supportive community members, I know that the future of Harrow Nanning will be something that I would like to call: Unprecedented.
40 years on is our school song, I hope we can keep this moment in a time capsule and look back this very moment in 40 years’ time with tears and joy. When you look back, and forgetfully wonder, what you will like in your work and your play.
Ms Luna Cao
CP of AISL Harrow Nanning
