Kellett School Turns 50 and Launches a Decade of Campus Reinvestment
Hong Kong's principal not-for-profit British International School has published a six-pillar strategic plan pairing a new Sixth Form Centre with a multi-year primary campus overhaul.
Kellett School has marked its 50th year by publishing its most ambitious long-term road map to date. According to the South China Morning Post, "Kellett Vision: 2035" is a 10-year, six-pronged strategy led by principal and CEO Paul Tough, who joined the school in 2024, centred on curriculum quality, inclusivity, and what the school describes as pushing the boundaries of learning for its 1,600-plus students across three Hong Kong campuses.
The plan's most visible early commitment opened in August: a dedicated Sixth Form Centre at The Bay Hub, Kai Cheung Road, Kowloon Bay, connected to the main secondary campus by footbridge. The two-floor facility covers 3,716 square metres and can accommodate 240 sixth-formers. It includes more than a dozen classrooms, a small lecture theatre, a Harkness discussion room for seminar-style teaching, and a PE theory room with fitness monitoring equipment — a layout designed to replicate a university environment while keeping pupils within the Kellett community.
Pok Fu Lam refurbishment begins
Running alongside the new sixth-form facility is a multi-year overhaul of the Pok Fu Lam primary campus, which started this summer. The upgrade spans classrooms, early years spaces, soundproofed music practice rooms, a new library, learning support facilities, a gymnasium, a dining hall, and a central multi-use learning space. Phased across school holidays to limit disruption, the refurbishment will run for several years as Kellett brings the campus up to the standard of its newer Kowloon Bay buildings.
Together, the two capital projects support a target to grow enrolment to 1,620 students by 2027. Founded in 1976 by a parent group seeking a British-style education in Hong Kong, Kellett has operated ever since as a parent-led, not-for-profit trust — a structure that sets it apart from the city's fee-charging commercial operators and shapes how it funds and sequences capital investment.
A mid-market position with strategic intent
Families have long regarded Kellett as Hong Kong's most accessible premium British school, sitting below the top-band fee tier occupied by the city's major branded operators while competing on academic results and community. Vision 2035 signals that the school's next principal era will be as much about physical infrastructure as curriculum, a shift that could alter its competitive position in a market where several new entrants opened in September. How the board sequences the remaining five pillars of the plan — beyond the capital commitments already announced — will be the story to watch over the next enrolment cycle.