Viewing archives for Alumni Newsletter

Former Headmaster Eamonn Harris, who is widely credited with saving Queen Elizabeth’s from closure and then overseeing its transformation into a successful grammar school, died last month. He was 76 and had been unwell for some time.

The School is planning to celebrate his life and contribution by hosting a commemorative event on Saturday 21st March 2020, to which all alumni are welcome. Further details will follow in the New Year, but if you are interested in attending, please click the button now to let us know by email – remembering to include your full name.

At the start of his headship in 1984, Mr Harris inherited an underfunded comprehensive school with falling rolls, poor academic results and demoralised staff. Over the next 15 years, he set about introducing change into almost every aspect of School life, often in the face of fierce political opposition.

By the time he retired in 1999, QE had become one of the finest state grammar schools in the country, providing a platform from which his successors were able to take the School to the position of pre-eminence it enjoys today.

Current Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It is no overstatement to say that without Eamonn’s unwavering commitment and redoubtable leadership, the School may have ceased to exist and would certainly not have flourished in the way that it has since.

“His tenure was characterised by the bold decisions and high expectations which are the foundations of the School’s present success.

“Of course, Eamonn had a considerable impact on the lives of so many Old Elizabethans – a fact that has been underlined by the many messages and tributes we have received in recent weeks from alumni living all around the world.” A private family funeral has already taken place.

Mr Harris was appointed in October 1983, having taught for ten years at a tough school in Croydon and then at Samuel Whitbread Community College in Bedfordshire, where he was deputy head.

It was only after his appointment – but before he took up his post in January 1984 – that he learned that the local authority had scheduled QE for closure in two years’ time.

The School at the time was badly undersubscribed, with a mere handful of parents actually requesting it as their first choice. In September 1984, only 133 places out of the 180 available were filled. Not only were academic results poor, with few boys going on to good universities, but behaviour also left a great deal to be desired, and QE pupils had acquired a reputation in Barnet town centre for being rowdy and noisy.

He set to work with his customary energy, and the transformation quickly began, with one of his first measures being to ensure boys stayed on site at lunchtime while the behavioural issues were tackled.

Within just two years, the School was effectively oversubscribed, as, in September 1986, the number of successful parental appeals against refused places meant that the intake exceeded the School’s official roll.

One major challenge that quickly emerged was the state of the School’s finances. The School was not getting its fair share of the Local Education Authority’s budget.

Mr Harris therefore pressed hard to take advantage of the new freedom schools were given in 1988 by the Conservative government to opt out of LEA control and become Grant-Maintained Schools, funded directly by a grant from central government. It was a controversial move, opposed by the local Conservative-run council.

Mr Harris, however, was tenacious and the School achieved Grant-Maintained status in 1989. He explained why to his successor as Headmaster, John Marincowitz, in an interview conducted in 2015 as part of Dr Marincowitz’s research for a forthcoming history of the School. “I believed that I was responsible for my patch, my school, and to do all I could to make it a successful place. If all heads did the same schools would improve and standards rise.”

He took a holistic approach to the transformation of the School, combining vision and drive with clarity of thought, a willingness to try new ideas and considerable attention to detail. While there was certainly a focus on teaching and monitoring of performance, ostensibly smaller matters were not neglected, either: uniform policy was, for example, properly enforced, and the School campus was better maintained, with shrubs and flowers planted.

The result was a cultural sea-change, with staff re-energised and motivated, and expectations raised. It was Mr Harris who reformulated the School’s mission: “to produce boys who are confident, able and responsible”.

Professional standards were introduced into areas such as staff development, IT and finance: the School acquired Investors in People status in 1996, while in 1998 QE was named Supreme Winner of the National Training Awards.

Extra-curricular provision received considerable attention, with notable successes achieved in national Young Enterprise competitions, rugby and water-polo.

In the early 1990s, taking advantage of another new freedom for schools, he drove the process which led to the Secretary of State granting the Governors’ petition to allow the School to apply a fully selective admissions policy once again in September 1994, thus reversing the move to comprehensive status some three decades earlier.

Following an Ofsted inspection in 1995, the Education Secretary, Gillian Shepherd, wrote to Mr Harris informing him that the inspectors had found QE to be “an outstandingly successful secondary school”.

The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s (FQE), which had remained loyal during the School’s decline, was reinvigorated, and fundraising reached hitherto unseen heights in the last years of his headship. Without recourse to either local or central government funding, an amount of nearly £3 million was spent on new buildings – a Sixth Form block (the Heard Building), five Science laboratories and a Music block.

By the time he retired in 1999, after suffering ill-health following a bout of pneumonia, the School had in very large measure been transformed, with examination results strongly in the ascendant and the School’s reputation fully restored.

At his retirement, a Governors’ tribute penned by Dr Marincowitz said this of Mr Harris: “He inherited a school which was struggling to fill 150 places. He leaves his School one of the most sought-after and outstanding boys’ schools in the country. It is so because of his leadership, courage and commitment.”

With an increased number of talks this year, and standing room only in many of them, the 2019 Year 11 Careers Convention has been hailed as a great success – thanks largely to the support of Old Elizabethans.

Representatives from 35 different companies and organisations, featuring a good mix of alumni and other visitors, met boys and their parents as Year 11 were starting to consider their future career paths.

Professions represented ranged from medicine to app development, and from chemical engineering to the law.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It was another tremendous evening and we are always very grateful to all those OEs who give up their time to come back and help out our current students. The boys benefit immeasurably from the advice that they receive, not least because seeing alumni thriving in their various careers is in itself a source of inspiration and confidence to them.

“At this stage in their education, it is as important for the boys to develop the soft skills they will need when planning for life after school – in order that they can actually achieve their desired outcomes – as it is to provide insight into the many different options available to them.”

The main Careers Convention was held in the Shearly Hall, while the nine talks – several of which were repeated three times during the course of the evening – were delivered in classrooms. The talks included popular career areas, such as Dr Nirmal Wilwaraarachchi (OE 1996-2002) on dentistry and Joseph Vinson (OE 2007-2013) on Getting a job in Tech.

There were, however, talks giving more general advice about topics such as studying abroad and about choosing and progressing a career, such as the presentation by Kam Taj (OE 2004–2011) on How to find your ideal career.

Alumni had a chance to catch up with each others at a reception hosted by the School before the event.

The evening also benefited from experts attending from organisations with which the School has strong partnerships, such as the National Citizen Service (whose summer programme is always popular with Year 11 boys), the STEM Ambassadors programme and the RAF.

• For more photos from this event, go to QE Connect.

Former pupils from across the generations came to the annual Old Elizabethans Association Dinner – with a strong turn-out from the ‘ten-year leavers’, the class of 2009-2010.

During an evening marked by much convivial chatter and by lively speeches, the diners also observed a silence in memory of former Headmaster Eamonn Harris, one of the great figures in the School’s recent history, who passed away only a few days before the dinner.

Current Headmaster Neil Enright welcomed Elizabethans of all ages – attendees included Brian Gilbert, returning to the School after a gap of 50 years – while reserving a special, if somewhat piquant, greeting for the ten-year leavers, pointing out that Assistant Head David Ryan had described the group “as his most challenging in all his years in the Sixth Form”!

“I’m not, though, surprised to see a good turnout, as they have actually proved to be one of the more actively engaged alumni cohorts and are doing lots of good work in support of the School. They were, and remain (on this evening’s evidence), a very sociable and enthusiastic group, and it is always a great pleasure to have them here at School events.

“We have a former teacher’s son (Adam Kuo), a governor’s son (Prashant Raval), former governor’s son (Josh Wagner), those who have spoken at school events (Matteo Yoon, Kane Evans, Tommy Peto and Prashant); Alex Goring’s brother is now teaching here, while Kunal Mistry is often in School auditing us (so I had better point out to Kunal that the School hasn’t paid for the wine because that wouldn’t be compliant with clause 1.22 on page 140 of the current Academies Accounts Direction).”

The event in the Main Hall was the first dinner to be hosted by the new President of the Old Elizabethans Association, Eric Houston, who taught at the School from 1976 until he retired, as Second Master, in 2010. Mr Houston is both a Governor and a Foundation Trustee of the School.

Another change this year was the reading at the dinner of the Queen Elizabeth’s School Prayer before grace was said.

In his speech, Mr Enright paid fulsome tribute to Mr Harris (HM 1984–1999): “Few can have had such a profound, transformational and lasting impact on Queen Elizabeth’s as Eamonn Harris, without whom we, quite simply, may well not be sitting here this evening.

“His bold decision-making, in making the School independent of the local education authority and then restoring academic selection, and the high expectations he had for all in the School community are the bedrocks of our present pre-eminence.

“We all owe him a debt of great respect and gratitude.”

Mr Enright reported on significant developments during the year, including “the exciting news that we have secured £2.2m of government funding…for our new Music School”.

To prepare the site, the Mayes Building was demolished during the summer. This facility was named in honour of Harry ‘Curly’ Mayes who “spent a full 60 years (from 1902 to 1962) as butler, porter, steward and then caretaker”.

Alluding both to Mr Harris and to Mr Mayes, the Headmaster said: “The present fortunes of the School have been built upon the foundations of the great service given by so many.”

He reported on the start of a project to digitise QE’s archives, beginning with photographs.

And, he said, with the School’s 450th anniversary in 2023 approaching, his predecessor as Headmaster, Dr John Marincowitz (1999–2011), was well on the way to completing his book on the School’s history.

“Recording and giving access to the School’s history is important so that the contributions of people such as Eamonn and Curly Mayes are remembered and so that generations of Elizabethans to come are able to learn about their place in the long and fascinating narrative.”

Mr Enright concluded his speech with a report on QE Connect, the School’s recently launched online community for alumni, which has gained more than 450 members in the space of just a few weeks.

“Whilst we want to help OEs connect to the past, we also have QE Connect to help enable connections in the present and the future,” he said.

• For more photos from this event, go to QE Connect.

Akash Gandhi, who is now working as a Junior Doctor, urged current boys not to forget the values and ethos of QE when he returned as guest speaker to this year’s Junior Awards. 

Akash (2005-2012) threw himself into life as a pupil, playing cricket, getting involved in debating, helping younger boys through peer mentoring, supporting the Sai School Appeal and serving as a Senior Lieutenant, then one of the leading positions within the prefect team.  

On leaving, he went up to Queens’ College, Cambridge, to read Medicine, taking a first-class degree with prize & honours. From there, he went to University College London, for his clinical training, again excelling in his studies. Akash is now a Junior Doctor in Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, but carves out time every year to support QE’s aspiring Sixth Form medics with their UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) preparations.     

In his speech to the assembled audience of younger boys, parents, staff and VIP guests Akash recalled the message instilled in him by his father: “It is not about what you do, but who you become by what you do.” It is, he said, more important to be concerned about what will be said in your eulogy than what is written in your CV. 

And Akash had three specific areas of advice. The first was to find and follow your passions. “During my time at QE, my passions were my culture, cricket, charity work and football. And so, at university I found myself as the Vice-President of Cambridge University’s India Society. I also captained my college’s cricket team all the way to the final of the cup tournament – despite only ever representing QE’s C team.” 

The second area was to find your mentors and to remember to thank them. “You are not alone, and you’d be a fool not to seek advice from those around you, especially in an establishment like this one. 

“Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, embrace the power of true friendships – trust me on this one,” Akash told the boys. “From my experience, boys of this School look out for each other long after they have stopped sporting its badge. Joining Stapylton House with Mr [Mark] Peplow at the helm, little did I realise the everlasting friendships that I would go on to make. With some of them, I have travelled across central America, Asia and Australia. With others, I have worked together to help provide treatment for patients attending emergency departments across London. 

“I can safely say that I am still surrounded by the values, ethos and ethic that I felt whilst studying at QE. I suppose that’s easy to say when I got to work last Friday to find that four out of the five doctors on my team were also QE boys. And as for the fifth? She’s a proud mother of a son who currently goes to QE! 

“Congratulations on your achievements, keep working hard, and the best of luck for the future,” Akash concluded. 

Civil engineer Karan Dewnani is relishing being part of one of Europe’s most high-profile projects, while also making time to contribute to society both through his career and through sport.

Karan (OE 2006–2013) first began working in the rail industry on internships while taking a Civil and Structural Engineering Master’s degree at Sheffield, which he completed in 2017. He works for the American civil engineering giant, Jacobs.

A project manager on the High Speed 2 railway, he says: “I have received great exposure to all the disciplines that are required to deliver the construction of a state-of-the-art railway. I look forward to seeing the day when the first passenger trains run between Euston and the West Midlands.”

His prior projects included a range of tube upgrades for Transport for London: “These have already been installed on the District line, improving the frequency of the service.

“In the medium term, I am working towards achieving Chartered Engineer status and Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). This is a process that has required me to demonstrate my competence as a civil engineer and is achieved by writing progress reports and having a professional career review day, typically achieved around five years after graduation.”

Karan gave early notice of his engineering prowess, winning the ICE QUEST Award in 2013, while in his final year at QE.

“I have fond memories of my time at QE and made some great friends in the seven years. I particularly enjoyed my time in the Sixth Form. I’m sure other alumni will say this too, but you realise how far ahead QE is, in terms of developing students into well-rounded and intelligent individuals, once you go to uni and compare your school life with other students.”

Karan tries to stay in touch both with the School and with fellow alumni. Last year, he gave a talk to current pupils; he recently attended Founder’s Day and the QE Careers Convention, and he is looking forward to the new University Mock Interview Evening later in the year. “Such events  provide a great opportunity to meet old friends and network.”

Other volunteering activities include his work as a STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] Ambassador through the national, Government-backed scheme. “I take part in some events encouraging younger students to take up STEM activities and careers – most recently, at this month’s open day at the London Transport Museum aimed at primary school children, taking questions about jobs and careers in transportation and engineering.”

He remains a keen graduate member of the ICE and has been in touch with the School recently about the possibility of pupils participating in the #ICanEngineer competition run by ICE’s London region, which is sponsored by his employer, Jacobs, and is this year themed around the creation of new flood defences for the capital.

“In my spare time, I play tag rugby,” he adds. “This started off as a corporate league and I have continued to play with work colleagues for over a year.” He also works for the organisation, Try Tag Rugby, as a referee in its Hyde Park leagues. “I’d like to think that playing rugby in QE helped massively in me taking this up as sport, which is upcoming in the UK.”

Hadleigh Rush’s career has taken him from local charity fund-raising to a key role with software giant VMware, from working in Watford to a new life in the deserts of Arizona.

Yet throughout his professional life, there is one common thread: “I have found a passion for giving back and serving.”

Today, he and his wife, Christa, work for several charitable organisations and he is heavily committed to Make-a-Wish, a non-profit organisation founded in the United States that fulfils life-changing wishes for children with a critical illness.

Had (OE 1985–1990), who recently paid a return visit to QE, says memories of his School days remain clear. Coupled with the appointment of Eamonn Harris as Headmaster in 1984, it was the arrival mid-term of a class from another county whose school was closing that played a key role in saving QE, which was itself slated for closure at the time. “That was my class!” says Had.

“I was a trumpet player with Mr Ellis’s band for most of the time I was at QE. We toured a fair amount to other schools, competitions, the opening of ToysRUs Brent Cross, and we even played on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall – I think we played twice that day.”

His parents were, he says devoted to QE, organising the first coach system (“…as the horrors of the 107 route from QE to Stanmore still haunt me today!”) They also donated Music stand covers for both the band and orchestra. “I was really thrilled to see Music is such a huge part of QE now: our Music room back in the late 80s was just the small area to the left of the main stage by the only computer lab we had at the time.”

Had was in the cast for the drama production, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, along with several of the classmates pictured in his class photo. A member of Pearce House, he recalls spending a great deal of time enjoying Drama and Music, as well as in the computer lab and in the library. “I attempted Latin. I received detention a few times in my day and was called into our Headmaster’s [Eamonn Harris] office once, but generally was a well-behaved pupil.”

On leaving, he studied at the University of Hertfordshire. After that, he embarked on his first career, working for a Watford-based charity with a mission to raise £1m, and then £1m every year, to turn a derelict hospital built in 1925 into what is now the Peace Hospice.

“I spent about six years working for the Hospice, managing a group of about 40 awesome volunteers who never seemed to tire as we raised money through charity shops and holding, or helping to organise, hundreds of public fundraising events. The hospice opened a temporary day care centre in mobile offices, until HRH Princess Michael of Kent opened the main facility in 1996.

“I also was an active member of the Radlett Round Table. During this period, I made so many friendships and relationships with volunteers, local mayors, doctors, celebrities, press, MPs, members of the clergy, JPs and an OBE, some of whom I still communicate with today.

“In 1999, I found myself uprooting my small village way of life and moving to the dry heat of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.” Unable at the time to afford the cost of transferring his UK qualifications to the US, he went to college there, while also starting a job as a critical accounts specialist for a small, family-run credit counseling agency.”

“This agency grew ten times larger by 2002. Within a year, I found myself passing five IT industry certifications and being hired in the IT department. The following year, I took an active role in designing the IT infrastructure in their new 40,000sq ft state-of-the-art call centre here in North Phoenix. This was my first exposure to some newfangled technology called ‘virtualisation’. I was hooked on VMware.”

[In computing, virtualisation refers to the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including virtual computer hardware platforms, storage devices, and computer network resources. VMware is a global company providing cloud computing and virtualisation software and services.]

“After spending ten years at this agency and working my way up the IT ladder, I had completed another degree and a series of updated IT certifications specialising in virtualisation and security.”

Although he had no thought of leaving the company, since he enjoyed the friendly work atmosphere, he applied to, and was interviewed for, all kinds of jobs in order to gain experience in application-writing and interviewing tactics (“Something I recommend if you have the time.”)

“I was contacted by an HR firm in New York who were looking for a Support person for a Phoenix-based company. On the phone, I found out the company, 10ZiG Technology, was across the street from the agency I was working at, so I took the interview with the CEO. The interview lasted an hour: we talked little about the company or position; we talked about life, England and moving to America. The owner of the company was originally from Leicester; the company had offices in the UK, Israel, Sydney and Italy, and was now headquartered in Phoenix. That evening the CEO sent me a rather nice job offer through email. I took two days to think about the offer and graciously wrote back and declined. The next day I received a substantially increased offer to take on the role of Support & Technical Manager of 10ZiG Technology – which I jumped at.

“I spent five years with this company, continuing my passion for virtualisation. I had the pleasure of travelling the US – and a few times back to England – for meetings, dealer presentations/conferences. During this time, I specialised in many different virtualisation solutions, but mainly focused my talents on those from VMware.

He had no intention of leaving “the 10ZiG family”, where the perks included paid visits back home to the UK, until he was contacted by a recruitment officer for the one company that he had dreamed of working for, VMware itself. “The gruelling interview process lasted four months of phone and of one-to-one and panel interviews, which included on-the-spot whiteboarding demonstrations.”

In December 2015, he was offered a position with VMware within its prestigious Technical Account Organization. Today he is a Senior VMware Technical Account Manager, engaged with a small set of VMware US’s large Enterprise customers. “I am my customers’ single point of contact for all their VMware-related questions, and I provide them with enablement, recommendations, coordinate projects, issue-management and problem-solving resolutions from my experience and skill sets. I am constantly building my knowledge and expertise on the latest and future technological solutions that transform traditional IT shops to the next generation of hybrid of on-premises and cloud-based datacentres.”

Three-and-a-half years ago, Had married Christa. They recently moved to an area outside the Phoenix metropolitan area “nestled in the mountains, away from the city life”. Had relishes this environment: “There is a beauty to the Arizona landscape, with the natural hardscaped desert, rock and abundant plant life and animals that survive here. We both enjoy hiking around the mountains in our area, but also enjoy taking a break from the heat by going just 100 miles up the road to the forests.”

That heat can be considerable: on the day he wrote to Alumni News, it hit 111F (44C). “It is something to get used to. Also something to get used to is that Arizona is still considered the wild, wild west, founded just 107 years ago. We have active cattle ranches, bull-riding, gold and silver mines, real cowboys and [the historic town of] Tombstone; gold-panning is still a thing here.

“In my spare time here in Arizona, my wife and I continue our shared passion for giving back and serving. We have spent 10 years volunteering with multiple charitable organisations, such as Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), who breed and train highly skilled service dogs, providing them free of charge. We get to spend time with our puppies in training and also to spend a day golfing with celebrity pro-golfers and even Alice Cooper (pictured with Had).

“Another big volunteering passion of ours is Make-A-Wish, founded in Arizona. My wife and I are on track to grant a total of over 70 wishes for our ‘Wish-Kids’ this year as volunteer ‘Wish-Granters’.”

There is even cross-over between his charity work and his professional career, thanks to VMware’s own ethos of service and its partnership with Make-A-Wish. “Since the beginning of 2019, I have been volunteering my VMware expertise with Make-A-Wish HQ here in Arizona under the guidance of Make-A-Wish’s CIO and Senior IT Director by providing pro bono VMware Team Account Management services. So now I get really get to combine my career and my passion for giving back.”

In addition, VMware takes an active interest in all his charity work, encouraging him to log his hours not only with Make-A-Wish, but also with CCI and church ministries with which he is involved. “Once I reach 40 hours a year (which doesn’t take me long), VMware awards me with $1000 to a send to a charity. This year I have selected The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s to receive the grant.”

On his recent trip back to QE, he enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with the Headmaster, Neil Enright, and to take a tour. “I thoroughly recommend to any OE to reach out and book time for a visit if you have not been back in the last 10-plus years. I think you will be amazed at the recent history and achievements of Neil, his team and the pupils.”

As the academic year closes, I look back on a term that has brought fresh renown to Queen Elizabeth’s School.

In April, I received a letter from Schools Minister Nick Gibb congratulating QE on being in the top 1 per cent of state schools in two separate areas. One was Progress 8 – a Government measure which tracks academic progress between the end of primary school and GCSEs – for which we ranked higher than any other selective school and in the top 15 of all schools nationwide. Our score of 1.22 means that QE boys achieve more than a whole GCSE grade higher in each subject than their primary school attainment would have suggested. The other area was for the proportion of pupils – in our case, 100 percent – entering the English Baccalaureate (not a qualification, but a combination of core GCSE subjects recommended by the Department for Education).

Confirmation that these high standards continue through the Sixth Form came later with the publication of Government analysis revealing that, over a three-year period, QE sent more pupils to Russell Group universities than any other school. A very significant contribution to this achievement is made by alumni. I was delighted to welcome some 60 of last year’s leavers back to contribute their first-hand knowledge of university life to the Year 12 Universities Convention. Our new University Mock Interview Evening being organised for October will further expand our University admissions Support Programme (or USP).

Old Elizabethans turned out in numbers for Founder’s Day, alongside current boys, their families and many other guests. Several of the visiting alumni participated in the afternoon’s cricket fixture, the Stanley Busby Memorial Match, taking on an OE XI. Changeable conditions made for a tricky wicket for the batsmen on both sides. After the old boys were bowled out relatively quickly, a straightforward win for the School seemed to be on the cards, but as the OE attack began toppling the School’s middle and lower order, the game suddenly looked in the balance. In the end, the School was, though, able to surpass the OEs’ total. As ever, a fun and friendly atmosphere pervaded this fixture. Indeed, the same may be said for the afternoon as a whole – the weather held and the atmosphere at the fete was tremendous.

Earlier in the day, we were pleased to welcome Tommy Peto (OE 2003–2010) as our guest speaker at the thanksgiving service. Tommy has recently begun a new role in management and strategy consulting after enjoying a stellar academic career at Oxford. After graduating in the top ten in Philosophy, Politics and Economics out of more than 230 in his year, he went on to take an MPhil in Politics and then his DPhil, which he completed last year. He has won accolades including Clarendon Scholarships, an Open Scholarship at Brasenose College, a Principal’s Commendation for his finals performance, together with Collection Prizes for his performance in college examinations in Statistics, Economics, Logic, Philosophy and Politics. In addition, he has wide experience as a debater and debating coach, having taught the subject to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the Oxford Union’s élite debating squad and, as a volunteer, to schoolchildren.

In his Founder’s Day speech, Tommy urged the boys in the congregation to discover what they enjoy and then to be both creative and hardworking in pursuing it as a career. The performing arts here are most important in this regard, since they give boys avenues in which to express themselves and develop their talents and interests. Besides that, they are good for the participants’ general wellbeing and are useful in terms of developing transferable skills such as self-confidence, teamwork and presentation. Music is flourishing at QE, so I was delighted this term to announce the immediate go-ahead for our new Music School. To make way for the new facility, which is the next major project in our long-term estates strategy, we will be demolishing the Mayes Building this summer. As some alumni will know, this building was named after Harry (‘Curly’) Mayes, who served the School for a remarkable 60 years as porter, steward and caretaker. Having been appointed in 1902 under our last Victorian-era headmaster, John Bond Lee, Mr Mayes continued working until a few weeks before his death on Remembrance Sunday, 1962. He is pictured here, standing on the left mulling over a problem with others, probably in the 1930s. Other recent work on-site here has included the creation of an airy atrium linking both sides of the Fern Building, as well as structural work in the Art department and Science corridor.

One person who has been at the heart of planning for long-term strategic development is Colin Price, our longest-serving member of staff and Second Master since 2001, who is retiring from the Senior Leadership Team. It has been my great pleasure to work alongside him for 17 of his 33 years, especially over the last eight since my appointment to the headship; I have benefited significantly from his counsel as the sole deputy head. Happily, Colin will still teach Mathematics, so many more boys will benefit from his experience. He will continue to serve as a governor and as a Trustee of the Friends.

There is a new senior team structure for September. Three long-serving Assistant Heads, Emi Aghdiran, Anne Macdonald and David Ryan, are promoted to Deputy Head. We will have three new Assistant Heads; Michael Feven and Sarah Westcott are familiar and well-established figures here, while we welcome Crispin Bonham-Carter, joining us from Alexandra Park School. The new team will be engaging with the School community as we formulate the next School Development Plan for 2020–2024.

I wish all our alumni and their families an enjoyable summer.

Neil Enright, Headmaster

Five veterans of QE’s past national and international successes in space design competitions returned to Barnet to help stage an inter-school Galactic Challenge.

Aadil Kara (OE 2010–2017), who has just completed the second year of a Physics degree at Imperial College, is currently Chair of the Galactic Challenge (GC) – a regional competition for younger pupils and a sister competition to the UK Space Design Competition (UKSDC). In his final year at QE, Aadil progressed from the UKSDC to the International Space Settlement Design Competition, hosted by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Aadil, worked with QE’s Head of Physics, Jonathan Brooke, to help the School host a Galactic Challenge for secondary schools in London.

“Old Elizabethans are currently playing a key role in the organisation of both the UKSDC and the GC,” said Mr Brooke. “I’m hugely impressed by their willingness to give up their time to support these competitions which give children from schools across the country experience of working in large teams under a tight deadline – a taste of the challenges associated with professional life that are difficult to replicate in the classroom.”

Helping Aadil and Mr Brooke were Aadil’s QE contemporaries and former UKSDC co-competitors, Neelesh Ravichandran, Harikesan Baskaran and Sam Bayney, as well as David Dubinksy, who attended QE from 2012–2016. Neelesh, Harikesan and Sam all served as Coordinators on the day, while David, who, like Aadil, reached the international stages of UKSDC in his year, was the volunteer CEO for one of the competing teams, or ‘companies’.

The Galactic Challenge is a space industry simulation challenge for students aged 10-14. Children design a settlement in space within just a few hours, competing against other teams, as well as the clock.

At QE, in addition to the School’s own Year 7 company, named Columbus Aviation, there were entries from: Dame Alice Owen’s School; The Charter School, North Dulwich; The Henrietta Barnett School and The Latymer School.

Aadil said: “We run GC competitions throughout the country firstly to stimulate students’ interests in STEM from the early ages of secondary education, and secondly to help them develop ‘soft skills’, including team-working and interpersonal skills. Having first participated in the process in the Sixth Form, it was a pleasure to be able to bring the competition back to the School.”

The ‘companies’ worked to complete a task set by the fictional Foundation Society. In the morning, they were given a Request for Proposal (RFP) co-written by Aadil that reflects a typical design brief in the space engineering industry; they then spent the day producing designs in response, assisted by a volunteer ‘CEO’ for each company.

The scenario involved them jumping forward to 2069, coinciding with the celebration of the centenary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Students produced designs for Armstrong, the first holiday resort on the moon, named in honour of Neil Armstrong, famously the first person to step on to its surface in 1969.

The Armstrong resort had to include a commemorative area around the Apollo 11 landing site and to host trips from tourists visiting from other settlements around Earth’s orbit. Competitors also had to find a way to make the lower half of the Apollo 11 Lunar Model (which remains on the moon’s surface) the centrepiece of a tourist attraction, whilst considering how to conserve the site.

The companies’ design proposals considered almost all aspects of the design of a futuristic space settlement, from the activities offered to tourists to the methods of power generation.

At the end of the day, the companies presented their work in ten minutes to an audience of parents, their peers, and a judging panel. In the presentations, students suggested ideas including: settlements made out of recycled materials; rearing rabbits on the moon, and Earthrise viewing platforms, with the home QE team suggesting lunar bungee-jumping. The winning team was a combined company – Astrodyne Delta – drawn from Dame Alice Owen’s School and The Charter School, North Dulwich.

Afterwards, Neelesh, who has come to the end of his second year at Imperial, where he is reading Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said: “Volunteering at UKSDC is a truly rewarding experience. The enthusiasm, curiosity and ingenuity of the participants is awe-inspiring and has served to remind me of why I study engineering. Both these competitions are a test of character and imagination, for volunteers and participants alike.”

Harikesan has finished the second year of a Mechanical Engineering/Computational Engineering and Design at Southampton. He starts a placement with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars this month. “Volunteering at the UKSDC and GC competitions provides an invaluable opportunity to encourage students to see STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics] in its true colours.”

David, who has just finished the third year of an Aeronautical Engineering degree at Durham University, still recalls the inspiration he drew from the UKSDC himself: “Taking part in the competition sparked a strong obsession with space; I was drawn by the utopian, fantastical designs of future space settlements and enjoyed imagining life in such a future. I opened a space society at QE, which some OEs may remember, and attended the annual Student Space Conference in Year 12, a fantastic event organised by the same parent organisation as the Galactic Challenge, the UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UK SEDS). At Durham, I’ve also joined the university’s SEDS branch where we had some great networking with brave local startups and have helped organise trips to the Student Space Conference. My first internship was in a small electronics company, as it was technically in the space sector.” Although the internship proved to be a disappointing experience, during his time there he was able to re-focus on what he really wanted – “to pursue unprecedented and utopian technology design” – which led him into the field he is currently targeting, namely “minimal-fuel, lighter-than-air travel, in other words engineering modern blimps and airships!” It is, reflects David, “all a long chain of events from saying ‘yes’ to my friend asking me if I wanted to fill an empty space in the first QE UKSDC team, which I turned down at first because I was nervous!”

Sam has finished the second year of a Medicine degree at Southampton. He said: “It’s good to see kids taking an interest in these types of projects at this age – it develops skills they will need to solve the global problems facing us in the near future.”

Ian Stern has risen to the very top of the legal profession, forging his reputation as a leading Queen’s Counsel in some of the country’s highest-profile court cases of the 21st century.

Ian (OE 1968–1975) returned to QE this term for a meeting with the Headmaster and, since he is keen to support the development of advocacy skills in schoolchildren, has agreed to host a visit to the crown court by the School’s entrants in this year’s Magistrates’ Court Mock Trial competition.
(In addition to his work as a barrister, he sits as a Recorder of the Crown Court, that is, a part-time judge.)

After leaving QE, Ian read Politics at Warwick and then went on to gain his Diploma in Law from City University. He was called to the Bar in 1983 and became a Recorder in 2000. He took silk (gained the award of Queen’s Counsel) in 2006.

His specialisms include professional discipline, judicial reviews, cases of murder & manslaughter and of fraud, coroners’ inquests and High Court appeals. Ian’s Chambers, 2 Bedford Row, are ranked in band 1 for professional discipline and band 2 for crime. He is a member both of the London Bar and the New South Wales Bar in Australia and is the Head of Chambers Regulatory team.

In 2014, Ian was named Professional Discipline Silk of the Year by the legal directory, Chambers & Partners. He has been involved in a large number of cases in this field, including conducting the Andrew Mitchell ‘Plebgate’ misconduct hearings on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. Recent cases include that of Dr Lyndsey Thomas, who faced an allegation of gross negligence manslaughter arising from the death of a patient. Mrs Justice Nicola Davies allowed the submission of ‘no case to answer’ put forward by the defence, which Ian led.

He also has been at the forefront of several high-profile inquests in which he represented armed police officers. These include:

• Mark Duggan: The 2013–2014 inquest followed the death which started the London riots. (Ian was also involved in the judicial review launched by Mr Duggan’s mother, Pamela, following the inquest’s verdict of lawful killing
• Jean Charles de Menezes: Ian represented the officers who fired the shots that killed Mr de Menezes on 22nd July 2005 at Stockwell Underground Station after he was wrongly identified as a fugitive terrorist involved in the previous day’s failed bombing attempts.
• Chandler’s Ford robbery: He represented the officers who fatally shot two men as they robbed a security guard outside a bank in the Hampshire town.

Among the murder cases he has been involved in is last year’s Old Bailey trial of retired specialist firearms officer Anthony Long, who was accused of the murder of Azelle Rodney, a 24-year-old suspected armed robber. Mr Long, whom Ian represented, was acquitted.

Chambers and Partners is fulsome in its praise, bestowing on him plaudits including:

• “A highly regarded silk who is consistently involved in the highest-profile and most complex regulatory cases. His expertise covers a breadth of areas, and he is particularly regarded for his knowledge on police and healthcare disciplinary matters.
• “Instructed by top solicitors and major prosecuting authorities alike” he is armed with “bags of common sense” and “excellent judgment” and has “the ability to handle the most complex of fraud trials”
• “Impressive advocate with a measured style and a delicate touch who always makes the right decisions”
• “Absolutely first class” and a silk “who will fight his corner for the client”
• He is noted for his advocacy, and for his ability to win over clients by “dealing with them with the necessary level of respect for their professionalism”.

Having graduated from Cambridge, Bilal Harry Khan (OE 2003 – 2010) is now back in Barnet forging a career focused on engaging young people with voluntary service in their own communities.

Bilal left QE to take up a place at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, to read Theology and Religious Studies. He then joined CommUNITY Barnet, previously Barnet’s Voluntary Service Council, where he is a Youth Engagement Officer.

At the age of just 22, he already has a track-record of initiating and promoting volunteering opportunities for young people in the Barnet area and is hoping his role will enable him to reconnect with the School and find volunteering opportunities for current pupils.

Notably, Bilal helped launch the recent Give & Get Given project, which successfully provided one-off opportunities for young people to undertake tasks such as gardening, painting and befriending in the communities in which they lived. ““The whole aim of the project was to show young people the benefits of volunteering and that it can be fun. It was great to see them recognising the value of their contribution to voluntary-sector organisations,” he says.

“We offered all the participants guidance through a briefing session into what voluntary work entailed and also gave them speakers or headphones and a special t-shirt as a reward for their efforts,” said Bilal.

Bilal oversees Youth Shield, Barnet’s safeguarding panel for those aged 14-25, which has won awards for its consultation work within the borough. The panel reports monthly to Barnet’s Safeguarding Children’s Board.

“We are currently working on the delivery of a peer-to-peer workshop on healthy relationships, which will cover topics such as recognising the signs of domestic abuse and violence in teenage relationships. We’re always looking for new members and the Youth Shield offers an exciting opportunity for young people to make a difference,” says Bilal.

Bilal’s responsibilities include working on the council’s Participation & Children’s Voice programme, which involves substantial consultation with primary, secondary and college-age children and young people. The aim is to develop child-centred services in the community; Bilal ensures that young people’s views are fed back to Barnet’s Youth Participation Strategy Group.

Following the award of funding from Public Health England (an executive agency of the Department of Health), Bilal is also now working to deliver a project looking at self-harm, including the role of social media in it.