THE HARROVIAN
Student Newspaper
Issue 12
Farewell Interview with the Head Master
Leadership for a better world
by Emma Carter (Y13, Wu) and Michael Reid (Y13, Peel)
It is almost five years since the founding Head Master, Mr Mel Mrowiec, oversaw the opening of Harrow International School Hong Kong in 2012 with 750 students. The School has now grown to over 1175 students. The Harrovian Hong Kong asked Mr Mrowiec for his insights about the School and to reflect on his experiences during this exciting and formative period before he steps down from his post at the end of the Summer Term.
What are some of your happiest memories from your time here? The big events such as Speech Day, inter-House singing and drama, concerts, and Long Ducker, all of which have led to a feel good factor in the community, have certainly been highlights. But most of the happy memories are to do with people. When I wander around the School everyday, I never quite know what I am going to see, who I am going to talk to, what comments I might receive, but I have really enjoyed seeing what is going on around the School. Are there any lessons that you have learned in your time as Head Master here? If a school is anything, it is a place of learning, and so every single day I reflect on what I do; decisions that I make, interactions I have with people, what I say in public. Like many people here, I suppose I have perfectionist tendencies and each day I always consider what I might have done a bit better. I learnt from my experiences as a House Master and as Deputy Head Master at Harrow to expect the unexpected, but that has been taken to another level here - there have been an extraordinary range of issues to deal with! I would be surprised if any of my core beliefs have changed significantly, because I don’t think you can come into a job like this and not be clear about what you think is important. I suspect you will not be surprised, however, to hear me stress the importance of respectful relationships in the School community. If you have an environment in which people feel happy, secure and
June 2017
valued, high levels of achievement will come and we have certainly seen plenty of that. The most important thing I do, therefore, is to appoint the teachers. If you have really high quality teachers, who are dedicated to their role, everything tends to fall into place. Education can sometimes appear to be very complicated, but one thing that has never changed is the lifelong impact that an inspirational teacher can have on a student. I remember sitting in a Russian language lesson in what today is called Year 7 and my teacher, Mr Smith (teaching Russian?!) was absolutely brilliant. I can even remember the layout of the classroom and where I used to sit, but most importantly I remember thinking how much he was really enjoying what he was doing - and so was I! I never seriously considered doing anything other than teaching as a career. Once you have appointed teachers, you have to nurture them, support them and sometimes challenge them, but we have an amazing collection of teachers here and that is the most important reason why the School is where it is five years on. It has been challenging at times, and I think a less resilient and less talented group of teachers would have found it very difficult. What was the most challenging aspect of setting up the school back in 2012? To be quite honest, it is actually a bit of a blur. Until the very last moment before we flew out here, I was doing the transition to my replacement as Deputy Head Master at Harrow. My wife and I got on the plane - and came into a building site! US302 will live in my memory forever, because it was the only habitable room in the School. It had a portable air conditioner and a Wi-Fi hotspot, and was the only place I could do any work; it was extraordinary. My wife and I actually had to live in the Gold Coast Hotel for two months until our apartment was ready and the novelty of that wore off pretty quickly. I certainly got used to the walk down the hill each day late at night, covered in mosquito repellent, and got to know every part of that pavement. It was an incredible challenge getting the building ready for 750 students to arrive and also 80 teachers to come and live here in about three weeks. At the start, I was nothing more than the building inspector, because I felt I had to go around trying to do everything to ensure the building would be completed on time. To this day, I am still amazed at how many parents decided to send their children here and yet had never seen the School. We had to do tours for about two months after the School opened for our current parents before we even started thinking about tours for prospective parents. Another challenge was rats! I remember giving my first ever speech to the parents of boarders the night before the Autumn Term began. At one points, I thought they were laughing at one of my jokes, but the real reason was there was a rat running behind me! Another challenge for the PE department was starting the extra-curricular programme without an astro or a swimming pool. And on the second night, the City Motors’