Hong Kong · History
Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong: a co-ed prep school in Aberdeen that added a senior school in 2025
Opened in Tin Wan in 2019 with around 50 pupils, the Hong Kong offshoot of the Buckinghamshire girls' school now runs two campuses from Year 1 to Year 13.
Wycombe Abbey opened on 5 September 2019 at 17 Tin Wan Street, Aberdeen, on Hong Kong Island, with around 50 children. By Christmas of that first term the roll had reached 80. Six years later the prep school added a senior school on a second campus in Kowloon City, taking pupils through to A Levels.
Origins
The parent institution, Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire, was founded on the day of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1896. Its international arm, Wycombe Abbey International, was established in 2015, and the Hong Kong campus was its second overseas opening, following Wycombe Abbey International School Changzhou, which launched in China in 2016.
The Hong Kong school was developed through a partnership between Wycombe Abbey International and British Education Limited (BE), a British-led education group. According to WhichSchoolAdvisor, the founding headmaster was Howard Tuckett, who came to Hong Kong after 13 years as head of prep at Caterham School in Croydon. He brought two decades of independent prep school leadership and had worked as an inspector for the Independent Schools Inspectorate. CTF Education Group, chaired by Adrian Cheng and with Jennifer Yu Cheng as Deputy Vice Chairwoman, is also listed among the school's backers and partners.
The opening was not straightforward. The Good Schools Guide described it as turbulent, noting that the school "limped" through its first term amid the social unrest of autumn 2019, and that three years of protests and then the COVID-19 pandemic tested it but did not sink it.
Campus and growth
The Tin Wan campus was purpose-built across four levels, with dedicated facilities for STEM, drama, music and art. A three-storey glass-roofed atrium sits at its centre, and the roof holds a 20,000-square-foot artificial turf sports field with an outdoor running track. A climbing wall reaches 15 metres. The school was co-educational from the outset, unlike the all-girls school in the UK.
In February 2025, headmaster Rob Fox confirmed that a senior school would open in August 2025 at a second campus, the Billionaire Royale building at 83 Sa Po Road, Kowloon City, subject to approval from the Hong Kong Education Bureau. That approval came through, and the Senior School opened on schedule, offering Year 9, Year 10 and Year 12 in its first intake.
Curriculum and identity
The prep school teaches the National Curriculum for England across 14 subjects, adapted for Hong Kong with a substantial Chinese language and culture programme and an emphasis on the Chinese approach to mathematics. English, Chinese (Mandarin) and mathematics get equal lesson time each week.
The Senior School follows the British route of IGCSEs, then A Levels in Years 12 and 13. It presents A Levels as a deliberate alternative to the International Baccalaureate, one of the few schools in Hong Kong to do so. Entrepreneurship, leadership and digital literacy are compulsory modules alongside the standard subjects, under the school's iSTEAM banner. The school has claimed to be the first in Hong Kong to use AI-powered learning tools for targeted academic intervention.
The prep school's main purpose is to send pupils on to leading secondary schools. The school reports more than 60 offers from UK boarding schools since opening, including Wycombe Abbey itself, Eton College, Cheltenham Ladies' College, Badminton, Benenden and Roedean. Most prep leavers, a majority of them girls, go on to boarding schools in the United Kingdom.
Present day
The school now runs across two campuses: the original Tin Wan site in Aberdeen for Years 1 to 8, and the Kowloon City campus for the Senior School, covering Years 9 to 13. Rob Fox is headmaster. The school is classed as a private school under Hong Kong regulations rather than an international school, so it is not bound by nationality quotas. It was recognised in the 2025 Greater Bay Area STEAM Education Awards for its interdisciplinary approach to science and technology, and is reviewed by the Good Schools Guide International. Six years after opening with around 50 children in Tin Wan, it serves around 250 pupils aged 5 to 18.