Hong Kong · History
From 44 Students in Wan Chai to a Three-Campus School at 50
Kellett School began with a letter to the South China Morning Post and two classrooms in Wan Chai. Fifty years on, it is Hong Kong's oldest British independent school, with around 1,550 students and a new sixth-form campus.
In September 1976, a parent named Joanne Elliott could not find a school place for her daughter. Her solution was to write a letter to the editor of the South China Morning Post. The letter drew a group of like-minded parents together, and the result was a tiny school: two classrooms, 44 mainly expatriate children, and a founding head teacher, Vivienne Steer. The year was the Chinese Year of the Fire Dragon. The school that grew from that gathering is now one of Hong Kong's most established international institutions.
Origins
Kellett School was founded in 1976 as a not-for-profit association by parent volunteers seeking a British-style education rich in the arts and sport. It has remained parent-governed and not-for-profit ever since, a point of distinction in a city where most international schools sit inside commercial or government-backed structures. The school opened in Wan Chai with those two classrooms. Within a year it had tripled in size to 122 students and relocated to leased premises in Tai Koo Shing.
The name Kellett came later, once the school secured a permanent site. The plot awarded to the school in Pok Fu Lam overlooks Kellett Bay, itself named after Irish Royal Navy Captain Sir Henry Kellett, whose name also attaches to Kellett Island and Mount Kellett nearby. The Pok Fu Lam campus opened in 1980 and has been the school's home base ever since. Its two main buildings are known as the Mountain Wing and the Ocean Wing, oriented towards the hill and the bay respectively.
Growth and Expansion
Vivienne Steer led the school from its founding until her retirement in 1996, a tenure of two decades across which Kellett moved from rented classrooms to its permanent campus and grew into an established preparatory school. Ann McDonald succeeded her as principal and remained in post for 23 years, the longest-serving principal in the school's history. During McDonald's tenure, Kellett grew from a small prep school to an all-through school with more than 1,300 students across two campuses. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2019 in recognition of her contribution to education in Hong Kong, and the Ann McDonald Fund for bursaries was established in her name.
The move into senior education came in 2005, when a growing shortage of local senior school places prompted the board to extend the Pok Fu Lam school to age thirteen. In August 2007, the school completed the sixth phase of its campus development at Pok Fu Lam, achieving what it described as the original founders' vision for the site. Kellett Senior School formally opened that year at Pok Fu Lam before moving to a temporary space in Shau Kei Wan for four years while a permanent home was built across the harbour. The Kowloon Bay campus opened in 2013. It houses a two-form preparatory school with capacity for 300 students and a four-form senior school with a capacity of 600.
The Kowloon Bay campus won a merit award at the Quality Building Awards and the International Property Award for Best Public Service Architecture in Hong Kong. It is purpose-built, with a fully operational theatre, CrossFit gym, dance hall, swimming pool, and a sky pitch with a running track on its roof.
Mark Steed joined Kellett as Principal and CEO in July 2019, the school's third principal, arriving from roles that included leading the Berkhamsted School Group and the Jumeirah English Speaking School in Dubai. Wikipedia's current listing for the school names Paul Tough as the incumbent principal, placing Steed's departure at some point after 2023.
Curriculum and Identity
The school follows the English National Curriculum from Reception through to Year 13, with students sitting IGCSEs and then A Levels. Mandarin is taught from Reception to Year 9. The school operates under the Early Years Foundation Stage framework in its youngest classes and adapts the national curriculum at the margins to reflect its Hong Kong context. It is co-educational, taking students aged four to eighteen.
Accreditation has accumulated steadily. Both preparatory schools gained membership of the Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS) in 2018, the first schools in Hong Kong to do so. The senior school joined the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) in 2019. In late 2021, Kellett became the only school in Hong Kong to achieve Patron's Accredited Member status with COBIS (the Council of British International Schools), joining just six other schools across Asia at that level. A BSO inspection in 2023 rated the school outstanding across every category. Kellett also became a member of the Council of International Schools (CIS) in 2026. It is a founding member of FOBISIA, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia.
Present Day
Kellett turned fifty in 2026, marking the anniversary with events across Hong Kong, London, New York, and Sydney, and commissioning a collective tapestry stitched together by students and staff. The school's own description of the journey, from two classes in Wan Chai to a two-campus, soon three-campus school with around 1,600 students, captures both the scale of the growth and the continuity of purpose.
The third campus, a dedicated Sixth Form Centre at The Bay Hub on Kai Cheung Road in Kowloon Bay, opened in August 2026. The two-floor, 3,716 square metre facility is connected to the existing Kowloon Bay campus by a footbridge and has capacity for 240 sixth-form students. Its design draws on university-campus models, with a small lecture theatre, Harkness room, dedicated higher-education counselling spaces, and group and independent study areas. Simultaneously, the school announced a phased refurbishment of the original Pok Fu Lam campus, with work beginning in summer 2026 and scheduled across several years, concentrated in school holidays.
The school's current roll stands at around 1,550. Its house system honours four former governors of Hong Kong: Bowen, Clementi, MacLehose, and Youde. It remains, as it was when Joanne Elliott put pen to paper in 1976, a not-for-profit institution governed by parents.