Shanghai · History
Harrow Shanghai: the fourth overseas campus, planted in Pudong
Opened in August 2016 in the Waigaoqiao free-trade zone, Harrow International School Shanghai brought a British independent-school tradition to mainland China's most internationally connected city.
Harrow International School Shanghai opened in August 2016 on Gaoxi Road in the Pudong district, becoming, as Pudong's English-language government portal reported, the fourth school in the international Harrow family, after Bangkok (1998), Beijing (2005), and Hong Kong (2012).
The parent body is Asia International School Limited (AISL), founded by Daniel Chiu, who serves as its Chairman and CEO. Chiu cited Shanghai's role as a junction of eastern and western culture as the reason for the city's selection. The school is operated under licence from Harrow School in London, which was itself founded in 1572 under a Royal Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I and counts Winston Churchill and Lord Byron among its alumni.
Opening and early years
The school began recruiting students from pre-nursery to Year 10 in 2016. A year later it opened admissions to Year 12, bringing A Level study to the campus for the first time. By the second school year the roll had doubled, and the Sixth Form was formally established. The school operates as a co-educational day school for pupils aged 18 months to 18 years.
An early cultural marker came in October 2017, when the school named its library after the British Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, who visited to open the space and run workshops with students. The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award programme was introduced in the school's early years; in 2018 the first cohort of seven pupils completed the Bronze Award.
Campus and location
The school sits at No. 588 Gaoxi Road in the Pudong New Area, east of the Huangpu River. Pudong is home to a large concentration of foreign companies and expatriate families; according to the Pudong Education Bureau, there were nearly 12,000 foreign students at the basic education level in the district in recent years, with more than 7,000 enrolled in international schools.
Curriculum and identity
The school delivers the English National Curriculum from Early Years through to Sixth Form, with IGCSE at Key Stage 4 and A Levels post-16. It carries the Harrow house system and pastoral framework used across the AISL network.
In January 2025 the school announced a significant curriculum addition: Advanced Placement (AP) courses, making it, according to AISL, the first international school in Shanghai to adopt a combined British-American curriculum model. The programme pairs IGCSE and A Level study with AP courses and SAT preparation, targeting students who wish to apply to universities in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
In April 2024, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) carried out the school's first British Schools Overseas (BSO) inspection. The school met all BSO Standards, with any exceptions arising solely from the requirements of Chinese host-country legislation rather than from shortcomings in provision.
Present day
The school currently enrols around 800 pupils. Alexander B. Reed serves as Headmaster. The school is listed on the UK Department for Education's BSO register (URN 151238). It sits within the wider AISL Harrow network, which by 2025 spanned schools in Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Haikou, and several other mainland China cities, as well as a campus in Appi, Japan.
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