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Saturday, 24th March, was significant for Queen Elizabeth’s School for two reasons. First, it marked the 445th anniversary of the founding of the School in 1573. And second, it was the date of our annual Elizabethan Union Dinner Debate, a formal occasion now in its 53rd year that brings together the School’s present with its past through the involvement of current Year 12 pupils alongside Old Elizabethans.

We will be reporting back to you in due course on the events of that evening and of this term’s QE Rugby Sevens. The continuity provided by the annual running of such events not only celebrates the School’s rich heritage, but also points to its future, as the Sixth Form debaters of today become the alumni of tomorrow and they, in turn, interact with their successors at the School.

Within our history, we have a long record of excellence. We continue our regular celebrations of commitment and achievement in School, such as our recent Senior Awards Ceremony. The excellence achieved at QE is, in its many forms, in part a result of the high standards and aspirations maintained by the School, the parents and the boys themselves. But, of course, there can be a tension between striving for excellence and falling into the trap of perfectionism. For their own wellbeing, it is most important that boys retain a sense of perspective and that they are supported at School and at home to ensure this.

We place considerable emphasis on the characteristics – specifically the skills and habits – required for successful learning. This year, staff are reviewing and fine-tuning the School’s own assessment strategies to provide a foundation for the development, assessment and rewarding of these skills and habits (as well as the identification of strategies to support those students who are not effective at developing them). I have been suggesting to parents that they can play their part by encouraging their sons to participate in our very wide range of enrichment activities – including sports, the arts and volunteering – to ensure boys at QE are well-rounded and broadly accomplished, thus reducing the risk of their becoming narrow or obsessive.

We now very regularly invite expert speakers, many of them alumni, to speak to the boys through our lecture programmes and on other occasions. Their often-sage advice is another invaluable help in combatting perfectionism. It is striking how frequently highly accomplished speakers refer to the setbacks they have suffered, or describe situations in which a failure became serendipitous for a future success. Entrepreneurs are always talking about the importance of failing as a means of learning. And one recent Old Elizabethan speaker, Jake Green (1992–1997) explained that he was rejected by a particular law firm after university, but has since become a partner there, following experience elsewhere.

Other OE visitors to the School this term have included 2017 leaver Ché Applewhaite – who took a break from his first year at Harvard to speak to Year 12 boys interested in applying to Ivy League universities – and entrepreneur Akshay Ruparelia (2009-2016), reportedly the country’s youngest self-made millionaire at 19 through the success of his online estate agency, Doorsteps.co.uk.

A new development in the Sixth Form this year has been the QE-USP enrichment option, a modular course designed to allow Year 12 pupils to enhance their skills in putting together the best possible university application – which means one in which the laudable quality of academic ambition is nonetheless tempered by realism and pitched according to each boy’s abilities. (The ‘USP’ aspect stands both for University admissions Support Programme and for Unique Selling Point.) Then there is the continuing development of QE Connect, our initiative that matches current pupils with alumni who can provide them with specific help in setting and then pursuing their university and career aspirations.

Excellence abounds at this School. I am pleased to be able to state that this year, our sixth-formers have received 28 Oxbridge offers, including 12 from Oxford, which is now closing in on Cambridge, for which there are 16 offers. The Oxford figure is a record, certainly in recent years, and a feat that was happily timed for the visit of Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, as Guest of Honour at our 2018 Senior Awards. Other examples of excellence this term include our success in the Mathematics and Physics Olympiads, our robotics teams qualifying for the World Championship in the US and those boys who delighted audiences in this term’s Music performances and in the School Play, The 39 Steps.

My warmest wishes go to all Old Elizabethans.

Neil Enright

Jamie Binstock has established a successful career in real estate with highlights that include working on the sale of London’s famous ‘Gherkin’. Now he is establishing a network of OEs interested or involved in real estate and is appealing for alumni to get in touch.

After initially publicising the nascent network through LinkedIn, he gained a list of some 40-50 names, but would like to hear from more QE old boys ahead of the network’s first meeting.

“The purpose is twofold,” says Jamie, (OE 1993–2000). “Firstly, it’s just putting people in touch with each other and doing some business. But it’s also getting people to give something back to the School by visiting and explaining to the boys what real estate is all about – for example, that it’s more about who you know than what you know.”

Jamie works for global real estate giant Savills, where he is an Associate Director – Central London & International Investment. “I buy and sell office buildings in London for clients,” he says.

After leaving QE, he graduated in Commerce from the University of Birmingham. He then took an MA in Property Valuation & Law from Cass Business School, before becoming a Qualified Chartered Surveyor with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 2006.

After two posts as a real estate investment analyst, he joined Deloitte in 2009, working initially on distressed real estate for a number of banking and principal clients.

In June 2014, he became Assistant Director: Central London Investment for Deloitte and it was while in this post that he was involved in the deal to sell the ‘Gherkin’ – or 30 St Mary Axe, as it is officially known. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

He joined Savills in 2016.

Jamie, who is married with two sons, aged five and one, keeps up-to-date with events at QE, where his father, Tony Binstock, is a Governor. And he adds: “My best friends are still those I made at School and they are all very successful.” They include his contemporaries, Simon Walton, Daniel Travers and Adam Sprei.

Jamie would welcome contact from OEs interested in the new network via LinkedIn.

At our recent Dinner Debate, guest speaker and old boy Kane Evans rightly reminded us of the importance of friendship – and especially of friendships forged at this School.

With some 180 attending, including Kane (OE 2003–2010) and many other OEs from across the generations, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening at which several old friendships were rekindled – a formal occasion, yes, but one on which we don’t take ourselves too seriously. There were many laughs and the debate was certainly lively: at one point, the chairman became so excited that he dropped his gavel!

An invitation

Founder’s Day presents an even bigger opportunity than the Dinner Debate to catch up with old friends in a relaxed atmosphere. I see the Founder’s Day Fête as a chance to bring the whole QE community together to celebrate and support the School – and Old Elizabethans are a key part of that.

The afternoon begins with a buffet lunch open to all Old Elizabethans at approximately 1pm, immediately after the reading of the Chronicle. Since its re-launch a few years ago, our Founder’s Day Past XI v Present XI match (the Stanley Busby Memorial Cricket Match) on the Third Field has proved quite a draw for the many cricket fans among our alumni. And there are countless other attractions at the Fete on Stapylton Field. It will be possible to seat a small number of Old Elizabethans at the Founder’s Day service, which begins in St John the Baptist Church at 11am.

If there are any old boys who would like to make contact with particular members of staff, both current and former, at Founder’s Day, do please email my office and we will do our best to make it happen. In fact, it would be helpful to us in planning our welcome if any former pupils who expect to be at Founder’s Day could let me know by email in advance, especially if you would like to attend the service or lunch.

Dinner Debate report

This year’s event was the 52nd Elizabethan Union Annual Dinner Debate, which is attended by all Year 12 boys. Kane was the special guest, who proposed the toast to the Queen, to our Founder and to the Elizabethan Union, the School’s debating society.

Year 12 pupils Rahul Kanwar and Ravi Karia proposed the motion: ‘This house believes that experts are overrated’. Two OEs, Adam Hilsenrath and Alex Chinweze (both 2008–15), opposed the motion.

In his after-dinner address (which was not part of the debate), Kane, who now works as a Senior Commercial Analyst at Manchester United FC, acknowledged the importance of expertise: some boys present were likely to become genuine experts in their field, whether as doctors, lawyers or engineers, for example. But he spoke of its limitations, too, and highlighted the important role that friendship has to play in life: “Being an expert doesn’t make you a good friend, it doesn’t make you a loving boyfriend, husband, father. As I looked around the table at an OE’s stag-do I was on last weekend, it dawned on me that many of these friendships were now over 14 years old, forged in this very room, on Stapylton Field or the back of Mr Enright’s Geography class.

“These relationships give me as much personal fulfilment and pride as any professional or academic achievement, and are as important to me as any future objective or aspiration.”

Appropriately enough, Kane was joined on the evening by his friend and QE contemporary, Nik Ward (OE 2003–2010).

Kane urged a certain humility on the boys: “Don’t neglect or underestimate your craft and the choices that lie before you – but don’t congratulate yourself too much either if the end result is bigger and better than your neighbour’s: remember that it was only partly your doing.”

They should study what they want and not follow anyone else’s preconceived ideas, he said, adding in conclusion: “Don’t be afraid to take the road less travelled, and when you do, don’t forget to take your friends with you on the journey.”

Kane’s professional role involves looking at where Manchester United’s next deals should be. He expressed his enjoyment at working for the globally recognised club and brand – despite secretly being a Chelsea fan!

Nik will soon qualify as an architect. He is coming into the School in the summer to help with Enrichment Week.

The many other OEs in attendance included Ross Lima (1995–2002), who has worked hard over the years to provide opportunities for current pupils. Ross, who works for Shell, encouraged the School to enter a Shell competition, in which the boys were regional winners, and he also provides a Sixth Form work placement annually – several boys have drawn on their experience in shadowing him in the company’s legal department in their law applications to Oxbridge.

According to the final tally of votes, the OE team, Adam and Alex (a former School Captain and Senior Vice-Captain respectively), won the debate convincingly. They turned a slender majority against the motion in the indicative vote at the outset into an overwhelming one.

The pair were ably supported by numerous contributions from boys and guest in the floor debate, including one from my predecessor as Headmaster, Dr John Marincowitz, who reminded all of his oratorical powers with a typically wise and convincing contribution. The event was also attended by Eamonn Harris (former Headmaster) and Eric Houston (former Second Master), as well as present staff and governors.

Aspects touched upon during the debate included:

• The definition of experts and the distinction with advisers;
• Whether experts have merely been misused, including in essentially emotional arguments, such as over Brexit;
• The failures of those with past experience and success to predict future performance.

Perhaps most contentious of all was the question of whether Michael Owen should be considered an expert pundit and, if so, whether this helped the proposition or the opposition case!

I was pleased to see how readily and intelligently the current Year 12s engaged with the debate – although whether the enormous slice of chocolate cake they had for dessert or the supply of wine had anything to do with that, I could not possibly comment. The School Shop’s bottom-line certainly saw a boost – with half of Year 12 having beat a path to shop’s door on the preceding Friday afternoon to buy their bow ties.

After such a memorable evening, I look forward to meeting more OEs at other such occasions in the future. In the meantime, I welcome contact from all Old Elizabethans via my LinkedIn profile.

Neil Enright

Aaron Tan trains people in public speaking – and he traces his success squarely back to QE.

Aaron (OE 1996–2003) has followed a varied path since university and is currently enjoying a portfolio career which includes running two businesses as well as lecturing at Greenwich University.

But it is in passing on his own abilities in public speaking that he has found the greatest satisfaction. “Having worked in companies of all sizes and also been self-employed, I discovered that what I really found rewarding was helping others,” he says. “After finding out that public speaking is the number one fear amongst adults, I knew that if I could tackle this, I would be helping the highest number of people possible.”

Aaron has learned from world-class speakers who have shared the stage with the likes of Lord Alan Sugar, James Caan and Sir Richard Branson, and has himself spoken to audiences of up to 200 both in this country and abroad. And, he says: “It all started by taking public speaking classes during my time at QE, which took place after School hours.”

Aaron, who lives in Dollis Hill, went from QE to UMIST (now part of the University of Manchester), where he read Management with a Marketing Specialism.

He has since worked for diverse businesses including a company specialising in reinstating roads after work has been done, and an aerospace & defence company. In 2013, he took over management duties at his father’s restaurant in Clacton-on-Sea and has since doubled its revenue.

In his business as a speaker trainer, which he launched in October 2016 on returning from a public-speaking trip to Vietnam, he focuses on both technical and mental processes. “I help people overcome their fears and deliver presentations at the highest level, through webinars, workshops and seminars.

Public speaking is, he points out, a useful skill for “anyone who deals with people on a daily basis”, from those in the corporate world to people in education: he has already worked with clients including YouTube personalities, sales people and personal development coaches.

Since the start of 2017, Aaron has also been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Greenwich, where he teaches both undergraduates and postgraduates from different countries. He draws on his experience of working in companies of different sizes to teach the students about business concepts, offering a practical perspective on the theories taught in textbooks.

Nicholas Millet put his career plans on hold to help with the refugee crisis in Greece.

Nicholas (OE 2001–2008) had been pursuing a steady career as a successful management consultant – but all that changed when he went on a visit to the Jungle refugee camp at Calais. He only planned to help for the weekend, but was so struck by the plight of the refugees that the very next day he flew to Chios. This Greek island was the arrival point for the highest number of refugees after Lesbos, with up to 1,500 making the journey across the Aegean Sea every night.

He told the Jewish Chronicle: “I was seeing people make these dangerous and perilous journeys on the news, and I just felt I had to be on the right side of history. I couldn't help looking at the refugees in Calais and thinking this was my family 70 years ago when we were fleeing the Nazis.”

Having negotiated a leave of absence from his employer, he went on to lead a group of some 60 volunteers on Chios helping to ensure the safety of the desperate people crossing the sea in dinghies and rubber boats. With babies, women, children, the disabled and the sick all crammed together on their journey, it was, said Nicholas “impossible to see them coming off the boats soaking wet and not feel compelled to help them. With my managerial experience, I knew I had a strong skill set that could help."

The European Union-Turkey deal in March 2016 brought a halt to such border crossings into the EU, but many of the refugees remained stranded on the island, where the Greek government refused to integrate the refugee children into the state school system.

Deeply shocked by this infringement of their rights and by the wider failure of Europe to resettle refugees, Nicholas gave up his job with multinational consulting company, Capgemini, and in the same month, May 2016, he and other volunteers working with a Switzerland-based organisation called Be Aware and Share (BAAS) set up Refugee Education Chios. This non-profit organisation has since established two schools – a primary and a secondary – and a youth centre, run by a team of 30 volunteers. The schools have helped educate more than 800 children and young people aged 6-22.

Nicholas, of Stanmore, has a history of involvement in humanitarian projects. Shortly after leaving QE, he spent time at the Sri Sathya Sai School – a village school in Kerala, India, which QE has supported since 2002. And, while he was a student at Cambridge, he did some work as a researcher for the Grameen Bank, the Nobel Prize-winning microfinance organisation based in Bangladesh which works to help the poor.

At Cambridge, Nicholas read for the Politics, Psychology and Sociology Tripos. He co-founded and became president of the Cambridge Global Zero Chapter – Global Zero is an international campaign group working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. He was also a guest liaison officer for the Cambridge Union and was elected social steward of Fitzwilliam College Junior Members’ Association (the student body).

After graduating, he took a number of short-term roles, before in September 2013 he became an Associate Consultant for Capgemini, one of the world’s leading providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, with more than 180,000 employees in over 40 countries. In September 2015, Nicholas was promoted to become a Consultant; he worked with clients including Government departments and a British multinational retailer.

In March 2017, Nicholas visited QE to talk to boys about his humanitarian work. The talk was organised by Year 13 pupil Ché Applewhaite under the auspices of the School’s Forward Thinking Society.

Often, he explained, as a result of the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, children entering the schools on Chios have received little formal education. The schools therefore use a unique, innovative curriculum that pays special attention to refugee children’s needs. There are English, mathematics and arts lessons, together with vocational courses, including business and public speaking.

At the schools and youth centre, the children can talk openly about their experiences. Prejudices about different nationalities and races are actively challenged, as the schools aim to provide a supportive environment where all children can retain dignity and hope. The schools are also now the largest provider of child protection services on the island. The youth centre offers a kitchen so that the young people can cook their native cuisine: before it was established, there were no cooking facilities in the refugee camps.

While established NGOs would have taken six or seven months to set up a similar project, the schools and youth centre were set up very quickly indeed – for this, Nicholas credits the crucial problem-solving and leadership skills that he gained from his experience in management consultancy. However, he also emphasised that a committed attitude was the greatest asset among the volunteers on the island.

The Chios schools have attracted coverage from major news websites and Nicholas has spoken at universities, to the European Commission and with senior EU officials on panels dealing with refugee policy.

He currently plans to stay in Chios for an indefinite period to run the schools.

Lawyer Peter Petrou is rapidly building a reputation for his international expertise – and especially for his work in Africa.

Peter (OE 1994–2000) launched his own firm, Aspen Morris, in 2012, when, at the age of 28, he became one of the UK’s youngest managing partners. Since then, he has been described by Forbes magazine as the ‘go-to person’ for deals in Africa. And in March 2017, he was appointed to the board of trustees of the African Internship Academy, a social enterprise which aims to connect Africa’s leading employers with the continent’s young talent.

After leaving QE, Pani Peter Petrou took a first in Law at King’s College London and then gained a distinction on the BPP Law School’s Legal Practice Course in 2005–2006.

Peter began his legal career by working for two of the largest law firms in the world. Firstly, he joined US-based Dewey & LeBoeuf, working in its capital markets department, where he was involved in several multi-million and billion-dollar transactions for blue-chip clients. In 2007, he moved to London-based Trowers & Hamlins, which is consistently ranked as one of the leading law firms for its work in the Middle East. During his time there, Peter worked with clients in Africa, Russia, India and the Middle East on corporate, real estate and project finance transactions, as well as in litigation.

Since its 2012 launch, Aspen Morris Solicitors, a full-service firm with offices in Mayfair and Enfield has gained considerable recognition: it was named UK Law Firm of the Year for International Law at the Corporate LiveWire Global Awards in both 2016 and 2015 and was included in The European magazine’s New Europe FAST50 Companies 2015.

Peter has also enjoyed personal success and has won a string of awards. He won Property Investor Africa’s 2014 award for Outstanding Contribution to Real Estate in Africa. He is Vice-President of the American International Commercial Arbitration Court, which contains some of the leading arbitrators from around the world. In 2014, he was appointed Global Legal Counsel to the World Leaders’ Forum in Dubai. He was named in the influential Global Law Expert Guide 2016.

In the 2014 Forbes magazine interview, he was described as having “formidable high level political and business contacts throughout Europe, the US, the Middle East and Africa and [is] seen as the go-to person when doing deals in Africa”.

Peter explained to the interviewer how he first became involved in doing business there after an intriguing meeting with a UAE-based real estate firm in 2007 during which he noticed that Africa was the focus of their five-year business plan. “This conversation interested me greatly as many of my clients’ business plans tended to centre around Europe, the Middle East, the Far East or the US. I sounded out my clients about investing in Africa and was initially met with surprising feedback that, despite Africa's abundance of natural resources and opportunities, the continent was being overlooked by them.”

His interest was deepened further after a period of investigation, including several trips to the continent. “My substantial due diligence told me that I had stumbled across a hidden gem,” he said.

He then began promoting the idea of doing business in Africa to his clients, recognising that he would first have to change their perceptions. “It is important that companies and investors realise that Africa is not a continent to be feared but a continent where they can grow their business and make high returns.”

Peter remembers his time at QE with considerable fondness and gratitude: “I had a great time at QE. At the time, I found the School strict, however, looking back, I think it was perfect and that is why so many people have done so well; it gave me the drive and desire to achieve in life and work hard. I made some great friends who I still speak to today and a lot of what I have achieved to date is due to the education I received from QE Boys.”

He has two young daughters, Isabella and Sophia.

Founder’s Day is in many ways the highlight of the year for the entire Queen Elizabeth’s School community – which emphatically includes our old boys, as well as current QE families. I was so pleased to see and meet so many Old Elizabethans at this year’s celebration, with the numbers swelled particularly by past pupils from recent generations.

I hope to see equally large numbers of past pupils at our next major alumni event, The Old Elizabethans’ Association Dinner on Friday 17th November. It is always an enjoyable occasion and I do hope that many reading this will accept this invitation to come along and hear our guest speaker, Robert ‘Judge’ Rinder (1989–1994).

The preceding day, Thursday 16th November, sees another occasion with heavy involvement from our old boys, our annual Careers Convention for Year 11 boys and their parents. We are always interested to hear from old boys who would be prepared to share their professional experience and expertise: if you are interested, do, please, contact my office.

Founder’s Day 2017 marked 444 years of the School’s history. The day began as usual with our Thanksgiving Service at Chipping Barnet Parish Church, followed by the procession back to the School and the Roll Call and Reading of the Chronicle in front of the Main Building.

Our guest speaker at the service was an old boy, guest speaker Ashley-James Turner (OE 2001–2008), who is today Director of Business Development at CoreAzure, a leading Microsoft UK Partner specialising in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

After his A-levels, Ashley-James went up to Oxford to read Geography. Upon graduating in 2011, he began work in the field of sustainability and environmental science, before making the transition into IT. But he cheerfully admitted to the congregation: “As anyone who knows me will be able to attest, I am not the most obvious candidate when it comes to technology. As my IT team tell me, the biggest threat to my laptop isn’t malware – it’s me! I still cannot figure out how to connect my iPhone with the car’s handsfree, and heaven forbid should I try to navigate through satellite television…”

He reflected on how technology had moved on in the brief period since he was at QE – “we had white boards that were on rollers…and I can remember when I thought Snake on the Nokia 3310 was surely the greatest technological triumph of the 21st century”. Today, Ashley-James counts the support he is able to provide to educational institutions such as QE in dispersing the latest advances in technology as one of the privileges of his job.

The service featured anthems from composers including Vaughan Williams, Tavener and Rutter performed by School musicians and the School and Chamber choirs. Bible readings were given by current School Captain Oliver Robinson, and his predecessor, Varun Vassanth, while the Headmaster led the prayer of remembrance for old boys who had died recently.

Once the formalities were concluded, the Founder’s Day Fete and the annual Stanley Busby Memorial Cricket Match took place. As is now the custom, the match featured a team of alumni taking on the present School First XI on the Third Field.

This year, it was present pupils who won, but by the narrowest of margins. Batting first, the old boys set 165 for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs. The innings highlight was the 91 from 57 balls from Kushal Patel (OE 2009–2016). Director of Sport Jonathan Hart said: “It shows that spending a year out in Australia playing Grade cricket has put him in good touch.”

The First XI lost a couple of early wickets, but a 46 from the in-form Kevin Van der Geest and a 59 from Ayush Shah had the game looking safe.  However, once they were both out, things became very close, Mr Hart reported. “With the game tied and two balls remaining, a sharp piece of fielding from Ram Sivarajah gained a run-out. So it was down to the last ball, and it was the First XI who claimed victory, managing to secure the one run required to win.“

On the Stapylton Field, the fete presented a colourful spectacle at which OEs and all our other guests had ample opportunity to relax and have some fun on an unusually hot early summer’s day. Performances by School musicians contributed to the vibrant, festive atmosphere, as did the stalls selling a wide variety of international cuisines. The fete, which is the culmination of many months of planning by the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s, raised an impressive total of almost £20,000 for the School this year.

Neil Enright

FUTURE EVENTS

Careers Convention

• Autumn 2017: Thursday 16th November 2017
• To include pre-event reception for participating OE volunteers
• Email Matthew Rose (OE) in the Headmaster's Office to volunteer

OE Association Dinner

• Friday 17th November 2017
• Guest speaker: Robert Rinder (OE 1989–1994)
• Tickets will be available from the online shop in September

For more information about alumni events, please contact the Headmaster's office

Old Elizabethan Aidan Radnedge is Chief Reporter at Metro, which last month overtook The Sun to become the UK’s biggest weekday newspaper by circulation.

Aidan (OE 1988-1995) reports on major national and international events and has worked as a war correspondent and an international undercover journalist. He has also written books on world football and about the Olympics.

He follows in the footsteps of his father, Keir Radnedge, a noted football journalist who has written for World Soccer magazine for around half-a-century and is the author of 33 books. One brother, Noel (OE 1993-2000), is an IT expert, while another, Lyndon, is a senior diplomat with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who was Deputy Head of Mission in Montenegro and is currently stationed in Nigeria.

“I have very fond memories of QE,” says Aidan, who recalls, in particular, “trips to Germany to appreciate and enrich our understanding of friendly counterparts”.  He won QE prizes and commendations for Music, History and Politics and was a Form Captain. School records show that he gained some early journalistic experience by working on the Underne House magazine.

After QE, Aidan went to Birmingham University, where he read English.

He happily recalls attending a QE Dinner Debate ten years after leaving School: “Six of us went as a gang and found former classmates surprised to find so many of us were still friends as adults – as we remain: the best of friends, a good gang.”

Aidan is modest about his career – “apologies to QE for squandering such good grounding and potential” – yet his newspaper has a circulation of close to 1.5 million and is also widely read online.  And he routinely writes front-page leads on the biggest news stories of the day, from the death of three-year-old Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, who drowned while trying to enter Europe with his family in 2015, to last year’s Brexit referendum.

“In attempts at boasting mode, I would point towards times as a foreign correspondent in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan; working undercover in crisis-ridden Zimbabwe at a time when foreign journalists were officially banned; and to working in earthquake-hit Nepal, famine-ridden Ethiopia and reporting child-soldier stories in Sierra Leone and Cambodia.”

His sports books have been for major publishers, such as Carlton Books and Dorling Kindersley.

Recruitment expert Santino Boffa is now the global chief head-hunter for a fast-expanding international technology company.

His role as Global Talent Acquisition Manager for Qubit is the latest post in what has already been a highly-varied career.

After reading Law at Sheffield, Santino (OE 1996–2003) first became a professional football coach. He later moved into recruitment, taking a number of posts before a secondment in 2014 saw him helping to launch a global banking programme – Santander’s My Rewards – to over 3 million account holders.

Santino began working for Qubit, a Software as a Service (SaaS) start-up company specialising in personalisation, in March 2016. Qubit, which has received more than $76m in venture capital funding, helps more than 300 of the world’s top consumer brands to understand and influence how people interact with them across multiple digital channels, including web, mobile and email. Customers include John Lewis, TOPSHOP and Hilton Hotels.

His London-based job involves recruiting engineers globally, with a specific focus on software engineers and product managers. He is also responsible for shaping and executing global recruitment strategies and building world-class teams.

Earlier this month, Santino visited the School to help out as part of a careers event. “It was great being back at QE. The School Hall seems a lot smaller these days – and I was really impressed with the new facilities,” he said.

“My memories of the School include early-morning games lessons in the old swimming pool in the middle of winter, with the roof leaking. The students today don’t know how good they have it!”

He said: “I like to spend my time outside work travelling to new countries and watching my beloved Arsenal home and away.”

Santino this month celebrates the first anniversary of his wedding to Carmela Vitale, who works in advertising.

While life at Queen Elizabeth’s School has continued calmly this term, the country at large has been beset by a string of terrible episodes, including terrorist outrages and the fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington. On a number of occasions, we have joined the rest of the nation in honouring the dead and remembering the injured and the bereaved through the observance of a minute’s silence. Such events inevitably leave their mark on young and old alike.

Against this backdrop, I am acutely conscious that young people today face many challenges to their mental and emotional wellbeing in a world that has changed considerably since their own parents were children. The curtailment of outdoor play and the prevalence of family breakdown have been cited by commentators as ‘dehumanising’ factors deleterious to a child’s ability to form loving relationships and to trust people. And while technology has undoubtedly brought benefits, an addiction to smartphones, to social media and to computer games is too often replacing the normal human interaction that previous generations took for granted, reducing young people’s capacity for empathy and leaving them socially isolated. Moreover, research is still uncovering the factors which account for the tendency of some older male adolescents to adopt unhelpful, and even risky, behaviours; the key is likely to lie in understanding how a combination of genes, childhood experience and the environment a boy had in early adolescence affect his behaviour at a time when the brain is undergoing physiological change.

Now, more than ever, it is important that teachers, parents and the boys themselves pay due regard to the mental and emotional health of our pupils. To this end, we already have pastoral strategies in place and are also currently developing a new mental wellbeing policy for the School. Pupils are encouraged to engage with political and social issues, as demonstrated by this term’s mock General Election and by tutor-time discussions that have focused on the recent tragedies. Form tutors have been working on developing in pupils the seven ‘learnable skills of resilience’. Alongside such collective approaches, more intensive support is available for individuals, whether to deal with an existing problem or to intervene pre-emptively at an early stage.

Interestingly, several of our alumni have touched on such themes recently. At our recent Junior Awards Ceremony, the guest of honour, Prashant Raval (OE 2003-2010), spoke about the lessons he had learned from both successes and failures. He underlined the importance of hard work and preparation and of savouring achievements when they come. But, recalling that he had been “quite the perfectionist” while a pupil himself, he had some further wise counsel for our young award-winners: “What I’ve realised, alas, is that in the real world, it is nigh-on impossible to achieve 100% in everything, all of the time, and you will make mistakes along the way. Don’t be afraid of these mistakes – instead, embrace them as opportunities to learn.” Prashant took a First in Economics at University College London and then worked initially as an analyst with UBS Investment Bank. After that, he became a Senior Commercial Manager for Aston Villa Football Club, before taking up his present senior post in Operations for Uber. “At the age of 24, it’s perhaps slightly unusual that I’m already in my third full-time job. But this professional diversity has enabled me to begin to truly understand what makes a job more fulfilling, rewarding and enjoyable than another – and that is the scope for learning,” he said.

Our guest speaker at the Thanksgiving Service on the morning of Founder’s Day, Ashley-James Turner (OE 2001–2008), rightly reminded us that the commitment, sacrifice and diligence of QE parents are core not only to the success of their own sons but of the School in toto. After welcoming many Old Elizabethans on Founder’s Day, I look forward to seeing even greater numbers during the Autumn Term at the OE Association dinner – where our speaker is Robert ‘Judge’ Rinder (1989–1994) – at the Careers Convention and at the Carol Service. It has also been great to connect with many old boys on LinkedIn recently: if you haven’t found me there yet, do please feel free to look me up – I will be happy to hear from you.

More than any other event in our calendar, Founder’s Day represents an opportunity for our whole School community – past, present and even future – to come together. It thus seemed entirely appropriate that this year’s event coincided with The Great Get Together, a weekend of community events around the country inspired by Brendan Cox, the husband of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was murdered last year by a political extremist.

In these troubled times, I have been heartened by the poetic endeavours of Old Elizabethan George ‘the Poet’ Mpanga (OE 2002–2009), who put his mastery of language to service in producing a poem to encourage people to report hate crime, which ends with the words “you can’t fight violence with silence”. The poem, which was commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to coincide with the anniversary of Jo Cox’s death, reminds us of the need to be vigilant against all forms of hatred. Like many of our old boys, by giving his time to causes greater than himself, George is fulfilling the tenet of the QE mission statement that Elizabethans should seek to “make a contribution to society rather than pursuing only personal gain”.

I wish all Old Elizabethans a peaceful and enjoyable summer.

Neil Enright