Season’s greetings!

Check out our special Christmas video, showing all 12 pianos for the new Music School arrayed in The Friends’ Recital Hall – the centrepiece of the new facility. We chose 12 of our best and most committed pianists to be the first to play them. See them performing The Twelve Pianos of Christmas, a version of The Twelve Days of Christmas specially arranged for a dozen pianos by Year 13 musician Raphael Herberg. Raphael is shown, right, playing the School’s magnificent new Yamaha CF6 grand. Seven of the uprights are also new, while the remaining four instruments, brought over from the original Friends’ Music Rooms, have been refurbished.

The news that Queen Elizabeth’s School has been named the Sunday Times Schools Guide’s State Secondary School of the Year brought a welcome boost to the end of term.

It is a significant accolade that deserves to be celebrated, since it recognises all aspects of School life, from academic success to clubs & societies and pastoral care. In short, it demonstrates that QE is doing very well indeed and making an impact at a national level.

If we are to continue to do so in the future, we need help – and that is where you come in! Philanthropy and wider forms of alumni support are the key to us creating opportunities for our boys and young men. I am therefore deeply grateful for the offers of support arising from this term’s alumni survey. It was also very useful to have your feedback as we build upon our work to date.

Happily, despite the pandemic, it has been a busy term. Whilst some adaptations were still required to certain programmes – our careers guidance and mock interviews were still largely online, for example – it has been good to see OEs in person on a number of occasions. I enjoyed meeting many of you at the Old Elizabethans Association Dinner, at rugby matches and when some of you came in to contribute to assemblies and activities, or on individual visits arranged by Sharla Worrall, our Development Officer. We held our first large concert in two years last week; boys have played rugby at Saracens’ StoneX Stadium (where there were thumping victories for our Year 8 teams and an agonising one-score defeat for the First XV, who had led 10-0 at half-time), and we were finally able to stage the twice-postponed School Play.

We have also been progressing work on a number of key developmental areas, as we ensure that our mission and activities really are preparing the boys for life in the 2020s. We are:

Enhancing partnerships with girls’ schools and outreach in the local community (taking 3D printing into nearby primaries, for instance);

Focussing our attention on societal issues, such as sexual harassment, which has become such a prominent topic nationally;

Looking at opportunities to enhance our environmental sustainability. We are considering what we can do around the site, while one of our Year 12 Eco-Ambassadors, Toma Gelsinov, represented us at COP26 in Glasgow, and we held our own internal mock summit, too.

There is good progress on our building projects. As you will hopefully have seen from our video above, the pianos for which funds were raised during the summer have been moved into the new facility, and we are looking forward to the opening festival scheduled for early February 2022, Covid-permitting. As promised, those who are 450 Club members will receive their invitation in the New Year.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed and who continues to stay in touch with the School.

My best wishes to you and your families for the festive season and for a happy, healthy and fulfilling year ahead.

Neil Enright

Headmaster

Remembering a great evening – in pictures

Alumni who were at the 125th Old Elizabethans Association Annual Dinner can savour the memory of a super evening by looking through our full gallery of photos – and those who weren’t can see what they missed! Seventy-six old boys of every decade from the 1940s to the 2020s came along, among them 30 ten-year leavers (2004–2011 pupils).

Joining our 450 Club is currently a favourite way to support your School as we approach the 450th anniversary celebrations in 2023.

Just commit to donating £450 before September 2022 (in instalments if you wish). Benefits include a free copy of the new history of the School (see below) – and you can have your name listed on its donors’ page, too. Existing 450 Club members will receive their invitation to attend the opening concert for our new Music School as special guests of the Headmaster and Chairman of Governors early in the New Year.

Dr Marincowitz’s history of QE: order your copy now

A new book by former Headmaster John Marincowitz (1999–2011) will tell the 450-year story of the School, charting its evolution from a small, market-town grammar founded by Elizabeth I in 1573 to its position as one of the country’s leading schools today. The book relates the School’s history to a wider story of national economic, political and cultural shifts. It will be published for the School’s 450th anniversary in March 2023, but you can pre-order now from the FQE Shop at the discounted price of £35.

Ten years on from Fukushima – depicting the legacy of the disaster in photography and prose

Academic Makoto Takahashi, who has earned an international reputation for his research into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan, has curated an exhibition on the disaster, which is being shown at the Royal Geographical Society.

Anantha champions the ability to adapt

Anantha Anilkumar had a reassuring message for Year 9 boys when he visited the School to give a careers talk this term: “Nothing will happen exactly as you expect it to – and that is ok.” He detailed the twists and turns of his life before he settled into his career as a Civil Service analyst.

He’s built a successful IT company. Now Warren is planning a new venture to satisfy his passions for coffee, art and music, too.

After an early career switch from advertising to IT, Warren Lipman has never looked back, building and adapting a company that now employs more than 20 people and supports thousands of customers across the globe.

And finally…

We trust you have enjoyed reading this edition of the QE Connect e-magazine produced by QE for all our old boys. What next? Well, if you haven’t already discovered QE Connect, our online social and business network, why not take a look.