Seiritsu Gakuen High School

What is Seiritsu?

Seiritsu is a private, co-educational high school located in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. Seiritsu was founded in 1925 as a boy's commerce school and involved into a comprehensive high school. In 2004 we opened our doors to female students and thus became co-educational.

Seiritsu is a progressive school and we are always open to trying new things that are educational and beneficial for our students. The latest Seiritsu project is our international education department.

Currently parts of the world are dealing with the circumstances of conflict and misunderstanding between nations. We believe that many international troubles may be resolved peacefully if people had the opportunity to know each other through mutual interchange. Therefore our international education department's programs enable our students to become aware of the value of other cultures through international exchanges, foreign school visits and hosting international students at our school.

Through our international programs we'd like to get to know you and we'd like to give you the chance to know our Japan.

Director
Yohei Fukuda


Seiritsu High School General Introduction

Seiritsu is a private, co-educational high school located in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. It was founded in 1925.

The school offers a comprehensive range of course programs and currently the Tokyo campus population is approximately 1100 students and over 100 staff. There are three grades at the school; the first grade (ages 15-16), the second grade (ages 16-17) and the third year graduating grade (ages 17-18).

Seiritsu is situated in northern part of the city, near the major Akabane train station, making the school's location quite convenient. While many students live close enough to bike or ride a city bus to school, most students arrive by using one or more of the many train and subway lines that crisscross the city, plus outer city areas. 30 minutes to an hour is considered a normal commute time for most people in the city going to school or work.

The School's mottos are:

  • Be Considerate
    Take care of others with consideration and respect.
  • Be Efficient
    Learn to be efficient while always doing your very best.
  • Be Constructive
    Make a constant effort to achieve your goals all the time.

While the school was founded as a boy's only commerce school, female students were introduced into the school from 2004. Over the years, the school has consistently improved its course offerings and facilities, with currently over 70% of our students going onto post-secondary education.

Seiritsu offers honors and regular academic course programs, plus a student athlete academic course for students wishing to become professional athletes after graduation. In addition, the school has an international education program to integrate foreign students from different countries into the main school courses.

From 2007, Seiritsu offers ‘The Japan Experience! immersion cultural homestay program for 2 weeks in the summer for foreign junior high and high school students.

The school has accepted long-term international students from Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and China. Some students are enrolled in the regular academic programs, while others are enrolled in the student athlete course focusing on soccer (these foreign students normally can only practice 2 to 3 days a week in the home country, but with Seiritsu, then can practice 5 to 6 days a week with professional coaches, plus compete almost every weekend in practice or official matches).

In addition to the main Tokyo campus, Seiritsu has a world class soccer, baseball and tennis training ground, plus dormitory, located in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. While Seiritsu runs sports programs for hundreds of elementary to high school aged students at the training ground, its main purpose is to be used by the high school student athletes in the soccer and baseball clubs. These students attend academic lessons in the morning at the main campus, and then commute by train to the training ground for afternoon practices. Many of these students live in the dormitory located beside the fields.

In conjunction with developing the academic success of the students, the school has many sports and culture clubs with long histories. For example, the tennis club started in 1936, the karate club started in 1963 and the soccer club started in 1967.

Club life in a Japanese high school is very important, allowing the students to learn new skills, develop leadership capabilities, encourage teamwork and have the opportunity to participate as a representative of the school in a number of sporting and cultural contests or events. Many of the life-long friendships Japanese people have are made in the school club they participated in during their high school years, and Seiritsu is no different. Seiritsu prides itself on offering an extremely wide range of clubs, both in sports and culture.

To recognize the important value of club life for the students, the school employs professional full-time coaches for the major clubs. Many of the coaches are former national team and/or professional athletes in their respective sports. Throughout the years the school has produced many regional and national champions, under the guidance of professional coaching staff.

Clubs meet almost everyday and competitions are held frequently. Also, each club has a summer training camp outside of Tokyo somewhere else in Japan for one week, where coaches, club members and sometimes club alumni meet to practice everyday at a training center while also staying together in a dormitory. The summer camp is a big highlight in the year for most students.

Seiritsu's Japanese martial arts clubs may be of interest to many foreign students. Seiritsu's judo, kendo and karate clubs are very active. Compared to foreign high schools that have normally do not have a ‘budo' (martial arts) club, Seiritsu's ‘budo' clubs meet almost everyday to practice in specific training facilities designed for each the martial art, and compete frequently at a variety of tournaments. Students without no experience, and those with some any previous experience from any branch of these martial arts, are welcome to participate in any of the clubs to build up their own abilities, create team spirit and achieve tournament results.

Due to the sheer size of Tokyo, there are far more opportunities to compete in most sports then some foreign countries can offer all together. This has tended to produce many national and world champion athletes at the high school level.

In addition to the international students at the school, foreign student groups visit Seiritsu several times a year. Through this interaction for either cultural reasons or to train with one of the school's sports clubs, Seiritsu has a growing network of international relationships with foreign schools.

Seiritsu also sends groups of students several times a year to home stays in several foreign countries, which in recent years has included New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

The Japanese school calendar year runs from April to March. The main Seiritsu calendar of events for the school is as follows;

  • April
    • School starts the first week. Students wear winter school uniform.
    • Incoming first year students go to a 4-day Orientation retreat outside Tokyo.
  • May
    • Golden Week, a one week break due to several national holidays back to back.
    • Test Week 1
  • June
    • Change to summer school uniform.
    • School Sport's Day for all grades, held at the Seiritsu training ground in Washimiya, Saitama prefecture.
    • New Zealand one week ‘farm stay’ for select first and second year students.
    • The Japan Experience!, a 2-week immersion cultural homestay program for foreign students.
  • July
    • Test Week 2.
    • Summer break begins mid-July.
    • Club's hold their annual summer training camps outside Tokyo.
    • Australia 2-week homestay for select students.
  • August
    • The all-Japan national ‘Interhigh’, a mini Olympics for high school sports, is held in a different city every year, and the major events are broadcast on television. Each region of Japan has qualification tournaments, with the winning teams of each sport for the region representing their region and school at the Interhigh. For example, recent years the Seiritsu karate club has qualified for karate tournament at this event.
    • Summer academic study courses.
    • Club practices and meetings continue.
    • Obon: this is the 3rd week of August when there are holidays for the purpose of showing respect to one's family's ancestors. Many people leave Tokyo to visit relatives in other parts of Japan.
  • September
    • School resumes.
    • Third year students prepare for university entrance exams.
    • School Fair on the last Saturday.
  • October
    • Short Autumn break.
    • Change to winter school uniform.
    • Test Week 3.
  • November
    • Second year students and their parents begin meetings with homeroom teachers to discuss post-secondary plans after graduating from third year.
  • December
    • Test Week 4.
    • New Year's break begins for 2 weeks.
  • January
    • School resumes.
    • Junior high school students take school entrance tests.
  • February
    • Test Week 5.
    • School 4-day Ski Trip.
  • March
    • Third year graduation.
    • Spring break begins.