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After a humble beginning, Christopher Sandamas’s career has taken him to a senior role in the Royal Household – and he has now received a personal award from the Queen herself.

Christopher (OE 1978-1983), who is Chief Clerk in the Private Secretary’s Office, was made an MVO (Member of the Victorian Order) in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Founded in 1896 by Queen Victoria, the Royal Victorian Order is given to people who have served her or the Monarchy in a personal way. It is entirely within the Sovereign's personal gift.

Christopher attended QE under the headmastership of Timothy Edwards. He left at 16 and took various jobs, including work in retail and as a warehouse operative, before deciding in his late twenties to return to education. He then completed a degree in Music and a Master’s in Historical Musicology, both awarded by the University of London.

On completing his studies, he joined the Royal Household as a part-time records clerk and has since enjoyed a successful career that has seen him rise to become Chief Clerk. From his base in Buckingham Palace, Christopher fulfils a varied role that includes outreach work on behalf of the Royal Household.

He re-established links with the School in 2014 when he was in touch with the School in his capacity as one of the judges for the Achievement Awards run by international children’s charity, Wings of Hope. In 2015, he was again among the judges, serving alongside actor Sir David Jason, the former British High Commissioner to India, Mike Nithavriankis, and leading figures from the business world. QE’s team Be The Change, won the charity’s 2015 Community Action Award and were presented with their prize in a ceremony at the Royal College of Surgeons.

As part of the outreach work, in the 2015 Summer Term he arranged for three current QE pupils to have a rare behind-the-scenes tour. The School chose the three by holding an essay competition on the subject of What it means to be British.

After clearing security checks at the palace gates, the winning trio, Year 8 boys Hector Cooper and Zakariya Shah, and Ivin Jose, of Year 7, enjoyed tea in Christopher’s office and went on an extensive tour of the Palace. This included State rooms and some areas not usually open to visitors.

The tour concluded with lunch in the staff canteen, where Christopher was keen to hear about the boys’ current experiences at QE, and to share his own memories.

David Taylor is combining his demanding career as a corporate lawyer with the sea-and-sunshine lifestyle of Sydney in Australia.

David (OE 1991-1998) read Social & Political Sciences at Cambridge after leaving the School, before going on to spend two years at Nottingham Law School. He then undertook his solicitor training in international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

“Having been in London for all of my life and worked at a large City firm, it was time to try something different,” he says. “Australia was not the original plan – I just knew I needed a change from London.

“The opportunity arose to work at what was then Freehills (now Herbert Smith Freehills) in Sydney and to bring my (now) wife with me, so we jumped at it. I did not have any idea as to how long we would go for, and certainly not that we would settle down here, but, almost nine years later, we are still here, own a house, have Australian citizenship, and have a son, born in Sydney.”

“One of the benefits of Sydney over London is that you have many more months in the year for outdoor activities. Me, I like to go diving and can pretty much go year-round. I don’t have to travel far and can often walk: I have about six or seven golden-sand beaches within less than 30 minutes’ drive from my house, and some much closer. As the weather is warm-to-hot nine months of the year, even when you do not have an outdoor activity planned, you can head to a beach, go for a walk around the harbour, or simply relax outside with friends and have a barbecue – a great Australian pastime.”

David is a Senior Associate in his firm’s Dispute Resolution group, specialising in shareholder class actions and product liability matters.

“The class action landscape has grown tremendously in Australia in the last decade. It is a relatively new system, having been introduced in 1992. Although, compared with the US, Australia is a far less litigious environment, it is now considered the second-most active class action jurisdiction in the world,” he says.

His cases are typically shareholder class actions, focusing on alleged breaches of stock exchange rules by listed companies. Aggrieved shareholders (including institutions and individuals) are able to bring a collective action under specific rules against the company.

“This is much more cost-effective than having to commence separate actions and so provides Australians with greater access to justice than jurisdictions which do not have this mechanism available. My firm regularly represents some of the largest Australian (and global) ‘corporates’ in the world in class actions.”

Understanding what it means to be a corporate lawyer without actually ‘living it’ is difficult, he says, but he does have some words of advice for anyone interested: “Although it goes without saying, I will say it anyway: you should forget what you see on TV. Being a lawyer at a top firm anywhere in the world requires a lot of hard work, long hours and sacrifice. I remember when I was doing my A-Levels and thought that I would never be able to work harder. Then I thought the same when I was doing my finals. Well, I can honestly say I feel the same all the time at work.

“Anyone who goes into corporate law thinking it will be easy, frankly needs their head checked! That being said, the work is wonderfully challenging and interesting, my colleagues are incredibly talented, clever and great fun, and my office is a fabulous place to work. As a lawyer, you are part of a privileged profession where people (generally) treat each other with mutual respect and push each other intellectually. I am very lucky to have chosen a career in the law.”

Dominic Roberts has devoted his professional life to service, working since 2004 as an increasingly influential GP in a socially disadvantaged part of London.

After continuing to study throughout his career, Dominic (OE 1989–1994) now has a long string of letters after his name and is Clinical Director for Islington Clinical Commissioning Group as well as a columnist for Innovait, the Royal College of General Practitioners' journal for trainees.

I enjoy the teamwork in caring for a socially deprived and cosmopolitan area with all its challenges," he says. "I have an interest in teaching and I am an educational supervisor, GP trainer and Programme Director for GP trainees in Hackney."

While at QE, Dominic was a Form Captain and Prefect and achieved grade 8 in flute and grade 3 in piano.

After a gap year, which included four months on safari in Africa, he studied Medicine at Leeds University from 1995 to 2000. Dominic spent the summer of 1996 as a volunteer carer and teacher at a Romanian orphanage.

Whilst at Leeds, he nurtured a passion for sailing, competing in the sport for the university. Today he holds the International Certificate of Competence, qualifying him to skipper a yacht.

He began his medical career with spells as a houseman in hospitals in Scarborough and Bradford, before returning to London for a hospital medical training post. He then switched to GP training in Hackney, where he worked in a practice for 13 years.

Over the years, he has gained a number of further medical qualifications, including diplomas in child health, obstetrics and gynaecology, primary care ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) and, most recently, a postgraduate certificate in medical education from the University of Westminster.

In his spare time, as well as sailing, he enjoys walking, camping, travelling and cycling. He rides to work from his home in London’s Docklands and also takes part in charity bike rides.

Dominic continues to work as a sessional GP and works as a Quality Improvement coach for GP surgeries in Tower Hamlets.

Lewis Crabtree began a new career, got married and called in at QE as part of a team of visiting experts – all in the space of a year.

Lewis (OE 1996–2003) retrained in 2013-2014 as an acoustic engineer, having previously worked in accountancy. He took up a job in the field in October 2014 and then came to QE eight months later as a designated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Ambassador.

After leaving the School in 2003, Lewis went to Edinburgh University to study Physics with Music (which, as it happens, is a perfect fit with his new career).

Following graduation, he worked for five years at KPMG’s London office, where he was a Business Intelligence Consultant. He next worked for Ernst & Young, another of the 'Big Four' accountancy firms, for two years.

Having decided on his career switch, he studied for a one-year diploma in his spare time with the Institute of Acoustics and then began his current job with building services engineers, Max Fordham. The firm's work encompasses everything that impacts on the internal environment of a building and its performance, thus including acoustics, as well as fields such as sustainability and the physics of buildings.

Lewis's role revolves around the enhancement of sound quality inside buildings, noise and vibration control and environmental noise modelling. He is brought on board projects at an early stage and becomes part of the design team, working with the architect and other engineers and designers. They take a whole-project approach and have an emphasis on sustainability. He has worked in private and public spaces, such as galleries, museums, theatres, cinemas and schools.

Max Fordham encourages its employees to engage in outreach work, hence Lewis's involvement with STEM. He came to the School under the auspices of the STEM Network, which was established to encourage pupils to consider a future in technical fields. During his visit, he took Year 8 boys through the complexities of designing and building schools and concert halls. This linked to part of the curriculum they had recently been studying.

In the same month, he married Winnie in a small family ceremony in Wandsworth, London.

Peter Morcos won a string of awards as he followed a path through higher education towards his career as a barrister.

Peter (OE 1999-2006) left QE to take up his place at Oxford having gained straight A grades in A-levels in Chemistry, English Literature, French and Mathematics.

The awards began with a Lincoln College award in 2009 for his performance in Finals in his Jurisprudence degree. As an undergraduate there, he was Junior Common Room President and also an Academic Disciplinary Committee Representative.

He was back at the college from 2010–2011 and gained a similar award for his performance on his BCL graduate law course. He then won the Oxford Pro Bono Publico Scholarship to fund his work as a caseworker at the AIRE Centre (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe), a charity where he worked for a few months at the end of 2009 and then again in the summer of 2011.

In the same year, he was awarded an Exhibition by Inner Temple to study the Bar Professional Training Course, which he completed at the BPP College of Law, London, being graded outstanding. While he studied for an LLM Master of Laws degree in Pennsylvania, in which he graduated with distinction, Peter was awarded both the Withers LLP Scholarship and the Dean's Scholarship by the university's Law School.

Called to the Bar by Inner Temple in 2012, he now works as a barrister at New Square Chambers in London, with a practice specialising in commercial and public law. Recent cases have included appearing as junior counsel for a Jordanian company in relation to an $80m dispute concerning the construction of a power station in Iraq and as part of a counsel team in a multi-million pound public procurement arbitration relating to a UK defence project. He was also sole counsel successfully representing a Member of Parliament in a civil claim arising out of the discharge of her official duties.

In 2015, Peter was invited back to QE as Guest of Honour at the 2015 Junior Awards Ceremony.

In his speech, Peter, who now lives in Holloway, related one particularly vivid memory of his own time in Year 9 to prize-winners, who were from Years 7–9.

"It was a cold February afternoon. The Year 9 QE Rugby C Team, for which I played centre, was lining up for an away game against Merchant Taylor's.

"All 15 of us were bright young men, I like to think. Which is why it took us approximately five seconds to realise we were shorter, smaller and scrawnier than the other side. Still, we battled gamely for the opening 20 minutes, keeping the score at 0-0. Finally, however, our staunch defence was breached and the other side scored a try.

"Our captain, Simon, … gave a rousing speech; real blood and thunder stuff. Each and every one of us thought the same thing, I think: ‘We may be the underdogs here, but we can turn this around’. We lined up underneath the posts, scraped and muddy, but ready to bellow our defiance. The conversion came in, and our eyes lit up. It was going just low, and our comeback was set to start.

"Alas, Simon had already leapt to intercept the conversion. He stretched out, pushing the ball with his fingertips. And in so doing he managed to alter the ball’s trajectory; a ball that would have missed by centimetres instead tipped inches over. The conversion was good, and our resistance was broken. We were walloped 37-0."

And the moral he drew from this "embarrassing defeat" for the benefit of the prize-winners? “True failure only comes once you admit defeat. Until that time, you are still in the game and with enough hard work success is still possible.

His second piece of advice for the boys was: "When you decide to do something, do it with energy. Do not do it half-heartedly or begrudgingly. Do it happily; do it with ambition."

During the ceremony, Peter presented more than 100 prizes to the boys, covering not only academic subjects, but also house awards, prizes for commitment and a number of endowed prizes and special awards.

Other high-flying legal alumni who have left the School since the start of the new millennium include Peter’s contemporary, Daniel Isenberg (1999-2006) who went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 2007 and took a double first in History, following in the footsteps of barrister Tom Cleaver, who was at Cambridge from 2004 to 2007 and took a starred first, also in History.

The term began with Queen Elizabeth’s School still in celebratory mood after our public examination results in August. We have become accustomed to attaining academic success at the very highest level here, but it is important that we should not take such results for granted, nor play down the achievement of our boys. I therefore make no apology for celebrating those results again.

It is truly remarkable both that 98.4% of A-levels taken at QE in 2015 were graded at A*–B and that the figure for this benchmark measure has now exceeded 98% in three of the last four years. The results are, in fact, a little better even than the figures announced in August, since a number of boys subsequently had their individual results upgraded following re-marks.

The exceptional nature of our boys’ achievement quickly became clear in the summer, as QE topped the national league table of state schools in the Daily Telegraph and was the leading English school across both the state and independent sectors in The Times. More recently, the influential The Sunday Times Parent Power survey named QE as the country’s top state school for the third consecutive year. It has become a commonplace to remark that nationally girls now outperform boys at every level in education. Happily, at QE we are bucking that trend, beating two girls’ schools into second and third places in the Parent Power survey. What is more important still is that our examination results are achieved in a context in which our pupils remain grounded and go on to university as ‘confident, able and responsible’ young men, as our School mission statement has it. This was recognised in the latest report on QE from the Good Schools Guide, who visited us this term. At the end of a highly favourable review, the GSG assessor concluded that QE “offers the top 10% of learners from a diversity of backgrounds an exceptional and rounded education that even private schools struggle to compete with”.

I have had the pleasure of welcoming a number of illustrious guests, including the scientist, Lord Winston, and Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers, who is Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Lord Winston gave an engaging lecture and I was particularly interested to hear him speak on the necessity of failure for the learning process. I wholeheartedly endorse this: through our pastoral system, we aim to work through the setbacks that pupils inevitably encounter, thus fostering resilience to help them cope with the stresses they face during their School careers and later in life. Our emphasis at QE on the pursuit of broader interests – whether academically or in extra-curricular activities unrelated to their studies – helps boys achieve a positive state of mental health. In this regard, I should particularly like to highlight the benefits of sport. Again in contradistinction to the national picture in which today’s young people are less likely than previous generations to get involved in organised sports, participation in team games and individual sports at QE remains very high. The physical benefits are obvious, not least in the light of the findings of Public Health England that a third of children are now overweight or obese when they leave primary school. Participation in sport has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, while generally tending to increase happiness. Furthermore, the emphasis on perseverance, application and, for team games, on effective collaboration helps boys develop as rounded individuals.

Senior boys have spent much of the term engaged in the university application process. I have been pleased to meet Old Elizabethans who have come to the School to assist current pupils in planning their futures, whether they have been conducting mock interviews, taking part in our Careers Convention or making special visits at the invitation of our academic departments. (I also enjoyed this term’s Old Elizabethans’ Association Dinner, at which it was lovely to meet up with those alumni whose last year at School was 2005-2006.)

Among these senior boys’ immediate predecessors, namely our 2015 leavers, the University of Cambridge is once again numerically the leading destination. The Complete University Guide, published by The Sunday Times, places Cambridge at the top of its table of UK universities, followed by other universities at which Elizabethans frequently gain places in large numbers, including Oxford, Imperial and Warwick.

If such success is to continue, we must move forward as a School. We are now in the last year of our current School Development Plan. Progress has been very rapid and we are on track to achieve its objectives. In a speech on the future of the BBC, the corporation’s Director-General, Lord Hall, set out his determination to “continue excellence in a time of change”. We must do something similar here, establishing a vision in our new four-year plan that builds on our strengths while also moving with the times.

I should like to thank our alumni for their ongoing contribution of books to The Queen’s Library through the Amazon wishlists facility. The Library is now very well used. Many boys have discovered or developed a love of reading, while all our pupils are taking advantage of the facilities to augment their learning.

Finally, may I wish all our old boys an enjoyable Christmas break and a peaceful New Year.

Neil Enright

Jason Breslaw (OE 1994-2001) is enjoying a high-flying career as a BP commodities trader.

Jason, who was School Captain in 2000, developed an interest in science whilst at QE and went on to read Natural Sciences at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Graduating with a First he joined the BP Trader Development Programme in 2005.

"I hadn't really though that a career in natural science could include commodities trading until I found out at a Careers Fair and then applied to join BP's Graduate Scheme," says Jason. Initially he worked on three, one-year, rotations; firstly as a Freight Derivatives Trading Analyst, then on an upgrade project for a blending terminal in southern Turkey and finally as a jet fuel operator in NW Europe.

He then passed the BP Assessed Traders Course and was offered a role as a Distillate Trader and Component Blender covering Europe and Africa – a role he has held since 2008. Since 2012 he has run the portfolio.

His work involves buying products such as gas oil, diesel, heating oil and jet fuel from refineries, as cargo or in storage tanks.

In 2014, Jason was interviewed and photographed for a Daily Mail recruitment feature looking at the breadth of careers available in the oil and gas industries, and talked about his nine years' working on BP’s Oil Trading Floor in London.

"Information comes in to me constantly to help me make decisions about future prices, and I buy and sell accordingly. It's fast-paced, intellectually stimulating and based on reality – I've seen ships that carry the fuels I deal in, and what I do helps provide people with heat, light and mobility."

Alex Davis, who is now breaking stories at national level, took his first journalistic steps whilst still at School.

Alex (OE 2006-2013) completed internships at flagship news outlets Sky News and ITN, before working for First News (the UK's leading children's weekly newspaper) and The Tab Cambridge (an online newspaper for university students).

But it was at QE that he had his first opportunity to pursue his interest in journalism. He pulled together the content for a feature on student volunteering in the spring 2012 edition of the School's newsletter, The Elizabethan, and edited a pupil newspaper.

It was while he was reading History at Downing College, Cambridge, that Alex had his first success with national news outlets: his story on a controversial English Finals Question was picked up by national news outlets, including the BBC. The examination question included a poem comprising only punctuation, with no words at all.

He has also written for the international online news site The Huffington Post. His piece The Power of Popular History was 'Editor's Pick'.

Whilst at QE Alex received the United Jewish Israel Appeal's Young Leaders Award. The UJIA is an organisation which works to foster links between Israel and the UK. It presents an annual award to the most inspiring person delivering Jewish education in an informal setting. Alex received the prestigious award for his work in leading QE’s Jewish Society.

He went on to become President of the Cambridge University Society and was the official Team GB Blogger for the 2013 Maccabiah Games. At those same games he represented Great Britain at rugby, a sport at which he also represented his university, his college and his School.

Old Elizabethans were well represented at Captain Charles Russell’s country wedding to Rebecca Johnston.

“It was a cracking day. I was very lucky to have two of my closest friends from Underne and QE days, Devesh Parekh and Andrew Bershadski, to celebrate with us,” said Charlie, who, like Devesh and Andrew, attended QE from 1997 to 2004. “Richard Morrison, who often plays the organ at the Founder’s Day Service, also played the organ for us,” he added.

Charlie is currently on the permanent staff at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Surrey, where he is due to remain until June 2015.

The happy couple’s Guard of Honour was made up of friends and colleagues from his battalion, The First Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles (1RGR).

They were married at St Mary the Virgin Church in Becky’s home village of Elmley Castle in Worcestershire.  The reception was held in the gardens, with the wedding breakfast followed by dancing in the Tithe Barn at Stanway House, just across the border in Gloucestershire.

Last year, Charlie welcomed the School’s Combined Cadet Force when they called in at the Officers’ Mess on a visit to Sandhurst.

In July 2010, Charlie was quoted in a Ministry of Defence announcement, which pointed to the rapid improvements brought about by joint patrols between 1RGR and Afghan National Army (ANA) troops in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The patrols had “seen the pernicious influence of insurgents in the village of Piand Kalay diminish and a new level of normality return for the local people”, the announcement stated.

Charlie, who was then a Second Lieutenant, explained at the time: “Four weeks ago when I used to patrol through the village on a daily basis I’d be lucky if I spoke to three or four people. It was an empty village, the locals were intimidated, they were scared to come to talk to us because they’d be seen interacting with ISAF [the International Security Assistance Force] and ANA.

“Now, when we walk through the village from checkpoint to checkpoint and push out into the Green Zone, they welcome us – they want to speak to us. They are a little intimidated but the overall impression is that they are happy with us in the village and they want to see more progress.”

Charlie was injured in Afghanistan in 2010. In summer 2011, he attended a reception for wounded servicemen and women hosted by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall in the grounds of Highgrove, their Gloucestershire home. The Prince of Wales is Colonel in Chief of the Royal Gurkha Rifles.

Poet and performer Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994-99) this month completed an Australian tour and has just published a volume of short stories.

His antipodean tour took in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra, and featured a number of sell-out workshops. He was also interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Anthony has increasingly been making a name for himself as a poet, prose writer, playwright, performer and educator.

The School welcomed him back this term to speak to a number of Year 10 classes about his work as both a writer and teacher.

Anthony started writing poetry in his teens. At 17, he won the prestigious Mayor of London’s Poetry Slam with his poem, Anthropos. He was initially inclined towards a career in music and studied Music Production at the University of Westminster. Quickly realising that this was not for him – and after a short period supporting himself with odd jobs including warehouse work – he committed himself to working full-time as a poet.

In 2009 he published his first book, Card Not Accepted – a collection of essays, short stories and poetry, all reflecting moments from his life and providing a commentary on western living. In May of that year the MOBO award-winning hip hop artist Akala chose Anthony’s short poem Himself, from the Card Not Accepted collection, to be read out on the BBC Newsnight programme by the actor Damian Lewis:

A man stands inside the noise of the world,
But all he hears is peace,

A man stands inside the stillness of a virgin field,
But all he hears is noise,

All a man ever hears is himself

“We were delighted to receive a visit from Anthony,” said Assistant Head and English teacher, David Ryan. “Much of his work has a social and political edge to it and some is far better than anything we are studying in the GCSE anthology!”

Anthony’s work frequently looks at the spiritual search for inner peace. It also encompasses themes that deal with politics, racism, history and philosophy. His work has attracted increasing admiration and attention and drawn testimonials such as this from The Sunday Times: “Look out for Anthony Anaxagorou … a near-spiritual experience.” and The Evening Standard: “One of the most powerful stage performances I’ve seen.”

Anthony runs creative-writing workshops in schools for the First Story educational trust. The organisation focuses on schools in which more than 50% of pupils are considered deprived, according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Over the course of an academic year, each writer-in-residence leads weekly after-school workshops for a group of up to 21 pupils. The pupils’ writing is then published in a professionally produced anthology for each school; the schools host book launch events at which the students read their stories to their peers, friends, families and teachers.

He now has eight collections of poetry and short story collections in print. His poetry has appeared on BBC Youth Nation, BBC Newsnight, the British Urban Film Awards, BBC 6 Music and has been performed by Cirque du Soleil. His work has been studied in universities across the USA, the UK and Australia and has been translated into Spanish, Japanese and French.

His new book, a collection of short stories, is entitled The Blink that Killed the Eye.