If a dinner is remembered long afterwards, it is usually not for the menu — but for the few words that made the room fall quiet.
On the evening of 11 September, Harrow Shanghai’s Founders’ Dinner took place as promised. On this day, we reached the milestone of our tenth anniversary — 10 Years, 10 Voices.
How many ways can ten years be told? As numbers, as a wall of photographs, as a long list of names. But we chose a simpler way: to let those who truly walked these ten years speak for themselves.
And so that evening, two of the most moving voices — one from a founding family, one from our founding staff — spoke. Without flourish, they moved the entire room.
From a Construction Site, to a Second Home
Ten years ago, Winnie’s mother first set foot on Harrow Shanghai’s campus. What she saw then was still a construction site.
Wearing a hard hat, she walked with Mr. Tong, Andrew’s father, past the unfinished sports hall, the swimming pool, and the kindergarten’s classrooms and corridors. Back then, the school was, in her words, “like a newborn baby — full of hope and promise, yet with no track record to its name.”
A few weeks later, two-year-old Winnie came for her interview. The interviewer said something she has remembered for ten whole years:
“It’s the teachers who are Harrow’s most valuable asset.”
Ten years on, that little girl who could barely speak has grown into a twelve-year-old.
“We grew up here together,” she said. “What Winnie has learned from her teachers and classmates goes far beyond the pages of any book — a bigger view of the world, character, and warmth.”
The most touching moment came when she shared a simple calculation:
1,800 days, divided by ten years, equals 41 percent.
“Forty-one percent of her time, and one hundred percent of her heart.”
She said Harrow is her daughter’s second home. No matter how far the children may go, an invisible thread will always pull them back. And wherever in the world they meet a Harrow teacher or a fellow student, they will greet them like family, and say —
“We are all Harrovians.”
The room fell silent for a second, then broke into applause.
The Ship of Theseus, and an Unchanged Heart
If Winnie’s mother told the story of one family, Thea’s words spoke for the ten years of a whole community.
She began with an ancient paradox: the Ship of Theseus. When every plank of a ship has been replaced, one by one, is it still the same ship?
“For us, the answer is yes,” she said.“Harrow Shanghai has changed beyond recognition, yet our original heart has never changed. From the very first days, every Head Master has said the same thing to teachers and students on the first day of school — strive to become a better person.”
Through those ten years, they treated the school as home, standing by one another.
On behalf of all, she also offered a deep word of thanks to the founding families: “Your tolerance, trust and companionship are our greatest strength.”
She said visitors to the school are often amazed: “The teachers here know every student by name. This warmth, this sense of belonging — it simply cannot be replicated.”
She raised her glass: “A toast — to ten years, side by side, through it all, growing together. Cheers!”
Fellow Witnesses
In addition to the founding families and teachers, many familiar faces were also seated among us that evening. Dr. Rosanna Wong, Chairman of AISL Group; Mr. Andrew Wan, CEO of AISL Group; current Headmaster Chris McAllister; former Headmaster Charles Ellison; and partners who have accompanied us along the way were also among those present, witnessing this ten-year moment together.
And what had the whole room bursting into laughter was the “Guess Who” segment: faded childhood photos were projected onto the big screen, while the parents in the audience scrambled to call out their guesses.
But the most amusing part was that those who shouted out the answer first were often not the children’s parents—they would stare at the photo, shake their heads, and laugh, saying, “Is this really ours?” For ten years, everyone has been growing up together in the same Community, so familiar with other families’ children that they remember their faces even better than the kids’ own moms and dads do.
The raffle surprises—from a one-night stay at The St. Regis Shanghai Jing’an to a two-night stay in a river-view room at Mandarin Oriental, Geneva—sent the atmosphere to a fever pitch again and again.
But everyone knew that the biggest “prize” of the evening was that, ten years on, everyone could still be sitting here together.
The Next Ten Years
“Thank you for being part of our first ten years!”
Thank you all for being part of Harrow Shanghai’s first ten years.
Ten years, ten voices.
Each voice, an uninterrupted life; each voice, in the end, converging into the same sentence—
“We are all Harrovians.”
For the next ten years, we continue—from strength to greater strength.
