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The long Autumn Term began with the School still in celebratory mood following August’s excellent public examination results.

Our 2013 leavers matched the very considerable achievements of the previous year’s record-breaking cohort, with the proportion of A*-B grades at A-level remaining above 98% this year. The GCSE results were equally impressive: the proportion of A* grades (66%) set a new QE record for the second consecutive year.

As the term has unfolded, QE has reaped the rewards of this repeated high academic achievement in the form of national media acclaim and several new accolades. The School topped league tables in the Daily Telegraph and the Times, as well as taking first place in the Sunday Times Parent Power academic results league table of the top 500 State Secondary Schools. In the latter, QE matched the A-level results of St Paul’s Girls’ School, which headed the separate table for the top 425 Independent Secondary Schools. I recently had the honour of being presented with QE’s Evening Standard Award for Academic Excellence, based on our 2012 results, by Michael Gove.

The Education Secretary was also present at City Hall for the first London Education Conference, during which our School was appointed an inaugural member of Mayor Boris Johnson’s London Schools Gold Club. Member schools are those adjudged to have been exceptionally successful, taking into account the backgrounds of their pupils.

At the conference I attended a number of stimulating debates, seminars and workshops, including one looking at social mobility in relation to access to leading universities. At QE, we pride ourselves on being an entirely meritocratic School: boys may rise as high as their ability and application will take them, regardless of their social or ethnic background. Importantly, we seek to apply this principle not only to the time that boys are at the School; we also encourage them to aim high after they leave us, both in terms of their choice of university and of their eventual career.

To this end, we have a number of programmes and initiatives that seek to prepare boys fully for their future. We recognise that there is an inevitable gulf between the somewhat cloistered day-to-day lives of pupils and students on the one hand, and the world of business on the other. Last year’s Education and Employers Taskforce report identified a clear link between work experience at school and job prospects. To be most effective, work experience should not simply rely on parents’ connections, which may of course be limited in the case of those from modest backgounds; instead, participants should be directed towards diverse employers, the report found. That is exactly what we do at QE – through our work experience programme, to which we attach great importance, through encouraging boys to participate in programmes run by organisations such as the Sutton Trust, and through our annual Careers Convention for Year 11. I am happy to report that this event was well supported again this year, with many parents, friends of the School and OEs acting as advisers.

Similarly, our Sixth Form mock interview programme introduced earlier this year gives boys experience of a formal interview conducted by OEs and friends with significant professional expertise. It is available to all who receive invitations to interview from any university, although this relates mainly to those applying to study Medicine and Dentistry, as well as those looking to Oxford and Cambridge.

Prospective employers value attributes such as: critical thinking; adaptability to different ways of working; an aptitude for technology and, perhaps above all, the ability to continue to learn. Resting on the laurels of past academic achievement, whether at School or university, is not enough. Our School Priorities reflect these requirements. Of course, this should not be understood to imply any dichotomy between knowledge and skills: it is not all about the latter. I regard it as essential that we keep the curriculum under review, making sure that the subject content remains suited to our boys.

While it was gratifying to see a strong first set of results following the introduction of the more rigorous IGCSE Science qualification, the real importance of this change is that our new cohort of Advanced Level scientists in Year 12 now have a stronger foundation. The current Year 11 are preparing to take IGCSEs in Geography and Mathematics.

The Autumn Term concluded with a busy festive musical season, including charity performances at Barnet’s Spires shopping centre and our carol service at the parish church.

May I wish all our alumni a happy Christmas and a prosperous 2014.

Neil Enright

Jerome Singh (OE 2004-2011) has been appointed President of Cambridge University Karate Club for 2013-2014.

His appointment follows a highly successful term of office as Men’s Captain in 2012-13, during which he led the men’s team as it triumphed in the varsity fixture for the seventh consecutive year.

Jerome has been an enthusiastic member of the club since first going up to Cambridge in 2011. After a brief period of recuperation from an ankle injury, he soon began to compete in earnest for the club and was a member’s of that year’s men’s team in the varsity match.

Jerome started karate at the age of seven at his local Shotokan club. (Shotokan is a style of karate founded in Japan by Gichin Funakoshi.) He has won three bronze, one silver and one gold medal at regional championships, as well as taking bronze at the Student Nationals in 2011.

He is reading Archaeology and Anthropology at Caius College, specialising in social anthropology. He plans to complete a Master’s degree at Harvard and then enrol in the Teach First programme, a UK social enterprise with a mission ‘to end inequality in UK education by building a community of exceptional leaders’. Jerome, whose interests also include art, eventually aspires to work in higher education or become a national education policy-maker.

The opening of the new Dining Hall and Café 1573 close to the end of the Autumn Term represents a milestone in the implementation of the School’s estates strategy. These openings mark the completion of the second phase of this major building project at the rear of the Main School Hall.

Both facilities feature interior design with graphics that reflect the history of the School. Café 1573, which opens on to Red Square, provides a coffee shop-style social environment in which senior pupils can relax. It is also being used by the School to provide hospitality for guests and parents on special occasions, starting with this year’s Christmas Concert.

The first phase of the project, a Food Technology area, opened last year. Work on the final phase, the new Queen’s Library, is nearing completion. Once the furniture arrives next month, the process of installing the necessary IT infrastructure and filling the shelves with 13,000 books will begin.  The Library will open later in the academic year, offering 100 computer terminals and 40-50 additional study desks so that Sixth-Formers can undertake independent study, while pupils from the lower years are also accommodated.

Work is also now well underway on a separate project: a £800,000 new roof for the Fern Building. Replacing the previous faulty roof, this structure will safeguard of this very large building. “We have a 10-15 year estates strategy, and, thanks to the increased height that the new roof provides, one of the strategy’s objectives will be to create a new sports hall at one end,” said the Headmaster.

The Old Elizabethans Association Dinner saw a return to the School by former Headmaster Dr John Marincowitz, who spoke of the remarkable changes he oversaw during his 26 years at QE.

Firstly, there was the transformation of QE from an undersubscribed comprehensive to an outstanding one. The next phase he recounted was the reintroduction of academic selection and QE’s development into a leading grammar school. Finally came the progression to become one of the leading academic schools nationally, across both the state and independent sectors.

The dinner was well supported, with strong attendance from the ten-year leavers (the class of 2003-04), for whom this annual gathering now serves as a reunion. John stressed the importance of strong ties between the School and its Old Boys.

He also spoke of how much he is enjoying life, recommending retirement to his audience! He explained that retirement provides opportunities to spend time with those who mean most to you (his retirement almost perfectly coincided with the birth of his granddaughter, Amelia) and to spend time on those pursuits which most interest you.  He gave the example of his latest sailing adventure, in which he took his boat to Corfu after four weeks’ sailing from Totnes, taking in Brittany, La Coruna, Porto, Gibraltar, Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily and the Straits of Messina along the way.

In his speech, the current Headmaster, Neil Enright, updated the dinner guests on progress at the School, including the opening of new buildings.

He looked at School life in 1573, when the School day ran from 6am to 5pm, only Latin was allowed to be spoken and boys frequently made a mess when cutting their quill pens. Today, he said, QE remains one of the few state schools where Latin is still taught.  Spilt ink is no longer such a problem: “In 2013, the major source of stress seems to be iPad batteries running flat – much less messy, but equally as frustrating.”

“OEs are becoming more frequent and I enjoy giving tours of the site and catching up over coffee on these occasions,” the Headmaster said.

“This term many of our younger OEs have been assisting with careers advice and mock university entrance interviews. I would encourage anyone interested in participating in this in the future to get in touch with my office.

“It is always nice to see OEs at the dinner debate which is organised by the Association in the Spring Term and I also enjoy my hearty lunches with the Forty Society.”

“Founder’s Day, is of course, when we hope to see all OEs back at the School, whether it is for the church service, roll call, fete or the past v present boys’ cricket fixture,” he said.

OE Peter Sumpter’s successful career with the BBC has resulted in the School getting involved in an award-winning national project aimed at developing journalistic skills among 11-16 year-olds.

Peter (1968-74), who is the Craft Lead of the Technical Managers for BBC TV news, has worked alongside a huge number of famous people, including Nelson Mandela, top musicians and various American presidents. Pictured here is Peter’s pass from the 1997 General Election campaign, during which he followed soon-to-be Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has most recently been heavily involved in the BBC coverage surrounding Nelson Mandela’s death.

“I wasn’t the most academic of pupils, although the ethos of the School has served me well,” he says. “Over the years, I have designed lighting for several programmes and lit several music items for TV. I have worked on BBC events around the UK involving local communities. During the last seven years, I have helped to develop the award-winning BBC School Report project, which won the 2013 European Diversity Award for journalism.

In addition to his own history as a QE alumnus, Peter also has a work colleague of many years’ standing who is the father of the School’s Senior Year Head, Alexandra Pearson. Through this connection, he suggested that QE become involved in the School Report project, visiting the School recently to explain it in person.

As a result, QE will be a School Report participant in 2014. Using lesson plans and materials from a dedicated section of the BBC website, and with support from BBC staff and partners, Head of English Susannah Sweetman and English teacher Tom Quinn will help QE boys develop their skills to become ‘School Reporters’. In March, schools take part in an annual News Day, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school website, to which the BBC aims to link.

“With real-time deadlines to deliver an end product, the experience the pupils get out of this is fantastic and it gives a different dimension to the traditional learning process,” says Peter. “I am looking forward to working with the teachers and students at QE to ensure that this is a great success.”

Tom Quinn reports that the project has got off to an encouraging start, with no fewer than 30 Year 9 boys coming along to an initial meeting involving BBC News presenter and former teacher Huw Edwards, who works on School Report.

“We discussed the project after I gave an initial presentation on what it entails, and the boys were very enthusiastic and receptive; they came up with possible general focuses for a report, ranging from the effects of video gaming, drugs in sport and environmental challenges, to the developments of technology for young people, changes in British education and the impact of celebrity culture,” Tom said.

“We also discussed the diversity of roles and responsibilities to be fulfilled from Peter’s suggestion list.” This includes not only student correspondents, but also editors (a senior editor, news editor and sports editor), researchers, a director, cameramen, picture editors, lighting operatives, a soundman and those with the skills to build a QE-branded backdrop and design the graphics. After a further meeting at the end of term, the boys will be working on their ideas over the Christmas break.

After stellar success in his studies at School and at Cambridge, Daniel Isenberg is already shining in his new chosen career.

Daniel (OE 1999-2006), who is working towards becoming a barrister after a brief spell as a civil servant, has won a string of law prizes and scholarships. They include first place in a competition run jointly by the Guardian and the influential UK Supreme Court Blog for his essay entitled Do we need more or fewer dissenting voices in the UK Supreme Court?

“So far, so good with the career change (perhaps chiefly because I’m yet to start properly!) – and it’s always reassuring bumping into another OE around the Inns of Court,” he says. These legal alumni include Daniel’s QE contemporary, Peter Morcos, as well as barrister Tom Cleaver.

While at QE, Daniel achieved 12 straight A* grades at GCSE (including being in the top five in the country for German and in the top ten for History and Mathematics) and then earned a distinction in his English Advanced Extension Award before going on to gain straight As in his A-levels.

Daniel’s legal interest was stimulated during his 2006-2007 gap year, when he studied Jewish Law at the Yeshivat Har Etzion, a seminary in Israel.

He went up to Pembroke College in 2007, where he took a double first in History, focusing on the history of political thought. He gained a number of accolades at Cambridge, including being elected as a Scholar. (He was twice awarded a Foundation Scholarship.)

Daniel then spent two years as a fast-stream graduate Civil Servant at the Ministry of Defence, before deciding to switch careers to go into Law.

He excelled at City University London, coming first in his year studying for the Graduate Diploma in Law, then going on to the Bar Professional Training Course, also at City. During this period, he has again stood out among his peers: his prizes and awards include the City Law School Prize for Excellence (Highest Mark for an Intending Barrister) and the City GDL Mooting Competition, in which he beat 100 other entrants in the mock judicial proceedings, with the final judged by Lord Mance, a justice of the Supreme Court.

Currently a member and scholar of Middle Temple (Inn of Court), after some further post-graduate academic legal studies, he will be starting his pupillage in September 2015 at Brick Court Chambers, which specialises in commercial, EU/competition and public/human rights law.

Daniel has offered to get involved in helping QE Sixth-Formers with university applications and with careers events – an offer which the School will certainly be taking up.

In a letter to the School, he said he was glad to hear of the School’s continued academic success – with high numbers of Oxbridge candidates – and to see the plans for the new Queen’s Library coming to fruition: “I have fond memories of being a ‘senior librarian’ in Year 10, and it’s great to hear that there’ll be a bigger space and more facilities to take advantage of.”

Award-winning sport psychology specialist Mustafa Sarkar is helping leading athletes step up to become champions.

He is forging an academic career that includes equipping talented sportsmen and women with the psychological attributes necessary to succeed at the highest level.

Mustafa (1997–2004) has won a string of awards, attracted national press interest for his research and gained his PhD. He has a permanent post at Nottingham Trent University, where he teaches across the undergraduate and post-graduate degree programmes.

In 2016, he gained international recognition, winning the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP)’s Doctoral Dissertation Award. He travelled to Phoenix, Arizona, to be presented with the award in front of more than 1,000 conference delegates – one of very few British psychologists to have gained such recognition from the AASP, which is dominated by Americans and Canadians. He received his award from 2015–2016 AASP President Brent Walker.

After taking A-levels at QE in Economics, Chemistry and Mathematics, Mustafa spent a gap year working for PricewaterhouseCoopers as an assistant tax consultant for eight months and travelled in South America for three months.

He went to Loughborough University, from where he graduated in July 2008 with a first-class honours degree in Sport and Exercise Science. He then went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology (with distinction) from Middlesex University.

In 2009, he was named Xcel Sports Student of the Year, with the judges praising him both for his academic work and for coaching cricket with Loughborough school children. He has climbed five UK mountains for charity and run the London Marathon, also for charity, raising £2,350.

He was awarded the British Psychological Society (BPS) Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) PhD award for 2015.

Other accolades he has won include Loughborough’s Sir Robert Martin Faculty Prize for academic and non-academic achievements and the Head of School's Postgraduate Prize for Academic Excellence, awarded annually to the student with the highest overall mark in a Masters Programme. He also received the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) Conference’s Masters Dissertation of the Year Award for 2011.

At the time of the London 2012 Olympics, he made headlines in the mainstream press with a piece of in-depth research – conducted jointly with a Loughborough colleague – which looked into the minds of 12 Olympic Gold Medal winners, exploring how qualities such as resilience helped them achieve success.

He later had a two-year role as a Research Fellow at the University of Gloucestershire, which involved working within the School of Sport and Exercise, across the Faculty of Applied Sciences (psychological sciences subject group), and with external partners to develop the faculty's research profile in related areas.

At Nottingham Trent, Mustafa is Module Leader for Advanced Topics in Sport and Exercise Psychology as well as contributing to several other modules across the undergraduate curriculum. He is also Leader for the postgraduate module, Current Issues in Sport and Exercise Psychology.

Mustafa is married to Tasnim, who is a qualified speech therapist. His younger brother, Mustali (OE 2000–2007) got married in 2013, just a few months after Mustafa’s wedding.

Mustafa was awarded his PhD in Sport Psychology from Loughborough University in July 2015.

Old Elizabethan Peter Wells competed in the high jump at two Olympics – Helsinki in 1952 and Melbourne four years later.

Born at Friern Barnet in May 1929, he first attended Byng Road Council School and then joined QE in 1939. Having initially begun competitive athletics as a runner, Peter became interested in the high jump while still at QE. He practised at the School high jumping pit, which was equipped with a bamboo bar and sand.

To learn his craft, he perused a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings from the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the School library. His efforts to emulate the styles pictured were, however, somewhat hampered by the fact that the photos did not show which was the take-off foot – a deficiency which led to him developing an unusual style.

Nevertheless, he soon began picking up trophies, including one at the London Public Schools vs Paris athletics fixture in 1946. At the same fixture a year later, he became the first English schoolboy to clear 6ft (pictured top), setting a new public schools record and helping QE to its fourth-consecutive victory in the Public Schools Challenge Cup.

After leaving QE in 1947, he began his two years’ compulsory National Service in the Army. In 1949, his jump of 6′ 6¼” in Bristol broke the English Native High Jump record – a record which stood for ten years.

After first touring New Zealand when competing for England at the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland, Peter decided to emigrate. He was New Zealand champion for seven years from 1950/51 to 1957/58 and broke the New Zealand high jump record twice – his December 1954 jump of 6ft 4½in stood for 14 years. He came 12th in Helsinki, 16th in Melbourne, fifth at the 1950 Empire Games and fourth at the 1954 Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver.

Peter still lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is married with five children and ten grandchildren. More than half a century after becoming an Olympian for the second time, he still keeps fit, cycling 100 miles every week.

Sunil Tailor (OE 1999-2006) is making his mark in the sport of Fives after first playing the game at QE.

After leaving the School, Sunil read Economics at UCL. In his second year there, he got in touch with QE Fives coach Ian Hutchinson to ask for advice on playing the game as an adult. Since Mr Hutchinson is a teacher at Mill Hill School, he urged Sunil to join the Old Millhillians Fives Club, which has been enjoying considerable success in recent years.

Having thus taken up Fives again after a gap of a couple of years in which he did not play, Sunil became the first-ever QE old boy to reach the quarter-finals of the sport’s national championship, the Kinnaird Cup, playing alongside Old Millhillian Joe Coakley. He was also nominated for the Eton Fives Player of the Year award.

Sunil, who works for accountancy firm MHA MacIntyre Hudson LLP, harbours hopes that he can one day be instrumental in establishing a Fives club for old boys from QE, where the first Fives court was opened as long ago as 1880. “It is a great sport to continue playing after school and I do recommend it fully to QE leavers,” he says.

Guest speaker Claude Francois Muhuza (OE 2001-08) urged boys at QE’s Junior Awards Ceremony to make the most of their opportunities – and he has certainly practised what he preaches.

Having escaped from war-torn Rwanda as a small child, he did not begin primary school until he was six and later spent seven highly successful years at QE, before making his mark at Cambridge University and beginning a career in law.

Born in Kigali, Rwanda, in 1990, Claude spent the first four years of his life there before being forced to flee the country with his mother. During the next two years spent with his mother in Tanzania and Kenya, he had no formal education. Arriving in London, he started to learn English when his mother enrolled him at Harlesden Primary.

Claude quickly established himself as a model pupil upon joining QE in 2001: he was Deputy Form Captain in Year 7, started Year 8 as Form Captain and was chosen to greet visitors at open evenings and School events. He also studied hard, gaining many commendations in the Lower School.

In Year 10, he was appointed as a Colt Prefect and later, when in the Sixth Form, became a Senior Prefect. As a Sixth-Former, he became a skilled debater and was jointly responsible for organising and leading the School’s entry to the European Youth Parliament. The team’s success saw them ultimately being invited to represent the UK in events in Turkey and Greece, which was a first for the School.

His significant contribution to the life of QE was recognised when he was awarded the Chairman of Governors’ prize in his final year. His Year Head’s report praised him as “One of the outstanding students in his year group, or indeed any other, Claude is all that one would wish for in a Year 13 student; he balances academic drive with good humour, while giving of his time freely and openly.”

Claude gained A grades in Economics, English Literature, French and History A-levels, together with an A in the AS Critical Thinking qualification.

Having secured a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read Law, he was elected President of the college’s Student Union. He was presented with the Crowden Award for making such a distinguished contribution to the life of his college.

Claude has consistently lent his time and abilities to the support of good causes. At Cambridge, he served as treasurer to a committee charged with putting on a Law conference for more than 300 Sixth-Formers from around the country and also sat on the 1347 Development Committee, which raises money for causes including an African Scholarship scheme and student support. He was the Publicity Officer for the Black and Ethnic Minorities Students’ Campaign, helping to organise careers events and a diversity week.

Claude (OE 2001-08) is beginning his career at the London offices of international law firm Baker & McKenzie.

He was the guest of honour at QE’s 2012 Junior Awards Ceremony.