Harrow School

Harrow School is a British public school, located in Harrow on the Hill, in North West London. It was founded in 1572 under a Royal Charter granted by Elizabeth I to John Lyon, a local yeoman, for the provision of education to local boys (Lyon was particular about keeping Harrow single-sex, a tradition that is still maintained). Harrow currently has approximately 850 pupils spread across 11 houses, all of whom board full-time at a cost of £23,625 per year. The majority of boarding houses were constructed in Victorian times, when the number of boys increased dramatically and the school began to resemble something similar to the current institution in terms of size and uniform.

Harrow Terminology

This differs from slang in that it describes official activities. It is divided into two main groups - timetabling and year groups.

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Timetabling

The everyday timetable at Harrow may at first seem illogical. From morning to evening, the lessons are denominated as follows:

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2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 3 4 5

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The reason for this is that originally there was early morning school (1A and 1B) before breakfast, and so morning lessons were '2'. 3, 4 and 5 were later additions to the timetable and are in the afternoon. Period 5 is also known as 'X' as only boys in the first two years at the school have it on the main timetable, though boys in upper years doing large numbers of subjects often have this period as well.

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Year Groups

The first year at Harrow is for 13-year-olds going on 14. It is called the Shell and is equivalent to Year 9 in the State system. After that there is the Remove and the Fifth Form, or V2s (five-two's). The two years after that are the Sixth Form, which is made up of the Lower Sixth or VI3s, and the Upper Sixth or VI2s. Once there were also VI1s and these were pupils who stayed on to study for Oxbridge. The names shell and remove come from the fact new boys used to eat under a shell in their first year in the dining hall. In the second year therefore they were "removed from the shell" and hence Remove.

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Sports teams are organised according to year. The Shells are known as Yearlings in both House and School competitions. The Removes are known as the Junior Colts in School competitions, and the Fifth Form are the Colts. For House matches these two years combine to form the Torpids, and the Torpids seconds team is the Shags. School matches in the Sixth Form are called the Sixth Form Game and in House, they are simply the House and House Seconders teams.

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