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Society and the mass media are the source of stereotypes that lead to prejudice and discrimination, an LGBT activist told QE’s senior pupils.

Jessica Amery, from Haringey-based charity Wise Thoughts presented an assembly on LGBT issues to Years 11-13 in the Shearly Hall.

She told the boys that although she had a transgender parent, she nevertheless faced homophobia when coming out as a lesbian.

And she pointed out the ways in which LGBT people’s mental health is at risk. According to research, she stated, schoolchildren hear ‘that’s so gay’ every 14 minutes: “Every time it’s said, it’s like a little stab to the LGBT community.”

Wise Thoughts’ website says that it “creates dynamic local, national and international arts initiatives and delivers services that help address social justice issues for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex (LGBTQI+) and black, Asian & minority-ethnic (BAME) communities”. The charity runs the GFEST (Gaywise FESTival), which starts next month on the theme of #QueerQueeries.

Jessica began her talk by asking the boys to take 10 seconds to think about how comfortable it is to talk about LGBT. Then she asked them to take another 10 seconds to discuss stereotypes, explaining that stereotypes are defined by ‘putting someone in a box’ – for example, ‘you are gay if…’

Such phrases create fear, making people feel it is unacceptable to hold hands or touch those who are gay, she stated, adding that stereotypes result in segregation. Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination are thus all part of the same picture, she said.

Some 50% of LGBT people experience bullying, which Jessica defined as including texts, social media messages, people ignoring you or making comments. LGBT students have the highest rate of truancy and homelessness, and their education also suffers disproportionately, she said.

Headmaster, Neil Enright said: “This was an important assembly on tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic language. There will be some pupils for whom this is deeply personal, whilst for others it is about understanding the lives of those with different experiences to them and being tolerant, supportive members of the School community and wider society.”

A campaigner addressed sixth-formers about his own mental health journey and told how it inspired him to start a socially conscious fashion business.

George Hodgson, founder of the successful Maison de Choup* brand, visited the School just a few days before World Mental Health Day.

“I’m using fashion as a vehicle to raise awareness of mental health,” he told the Year 12 and 13 boys, adding that his was “a positive message, but a sensitive one”.

In the talk, he recounted the many ups and downs he experienced over a three-year period. “I kept asking myself when I would be better. The biggest word is time.”

He started his talk with a breathing exercise, talking to the boys about mindfulness, paying attention to one’s breath and letting one’s thoughts pass. He asked them to join in by trying the exercise themselves for a few minutes.

George, who comes from near Winchester in Hampshire, explained that he had been hyperactive from a young age. His mental health problems began when, at a festival in 2012, he experimented with drugs – ecstasy and MDMA – aged 16. He did not enjoy the experience and started to feel paranoid afterwards, so quickly decided it wasn’t for him.

A week later whilst clearing out the horses at his parents’ house, he had his first attack: he felt hot, could not breathe and started to panic. These attacks continued every day for a week. He was diagnosed with panic disorder and anxiety, and was referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) for counselling.

George then developed OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and began washing his hands 50 – 100 times daily. He experienced suicidal thoughts that increased over a two-week period.

He saw a reassuring therapist who listened to his story. He was told there was a 40-week waiting list to start treatment and was lucky enough to be treated privately as his parents were able to support him. This treatment included hypnotherapy to put him through the sensations of panic in a safe environment. George was prescribed beta blockers and SSRIs (a class of drugs typically used as anti-depressants).

When he was feeling better, George and his friends travelled to Thorpe Park, where they all decided to go on the Stealth roller-coaster. He realised that the medication he was on had made him numb – he felt nothing, no adrenaline or excitement from any of the rides.

George’s story continued with a referral for cognitive behavioural therapy to learn coping mechanisms. He learnt to challenge his anxiety by breaking down thoughts and trying to rationalise them.

Not long after this, George was at his grandmother’s house where he kept imagining there was cocaine on the table. One-and-a-half years into treatment, he opened up to family and found that talking helped.

In all, it took him three years to get better. During his recovery, he used diaries and drawings to express himself. While unable to go to college or work, George went to his father’s office and started experimenting with designs.

Eventually, he decided to start his own t-shirt business, with the help of a friend. In 2017 he launched his Warrior collection, which includes clothing with words such as ‘don’t feed the fears’, ‘sometimes I’m okay, sometimes I’m not’ and ‘warrior, not worrier’.

His aim, he explained, was not to label people with ‘I have anxiety’, but to encourage them to open up about their stories if asked about the t-shirts, thereby starting a conversation about mental health.

His collection made it to London Fashion Week, with celebrities and TV reality-show stars wearing it.

He started selling his story to newspapers and magazines to raise awareness, and the brand’s success grew very rapidly as it featured in publications including Vanity Fair, The Observer and the Evening Standard’s Style magazine, and was a winner in the British Fashion Startup Awards.

Twenty-five per cent of the proceeds of certain of his designs go to YoungMinds, the UK’s leading charity committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people.

After his success with Maison de Choup, George went back to a festival – “the biggest place for drugs” – and found that he had no problem in being there. Indeed, he is now able to speak to a roomful of people, he pointed out to the boys.

Among his messages to the audience were: “It’s ok not to be ok” and “If you’re suffering or a friend is suffering, you are not alone.”

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “George spoke very frankly about his personal experience and in doing so exemplified the way in which talking about mental health can prove an important step in helping deal with the issues that you may be encountering. Through such assemblies we want to raise awareness among our boys of the sorts of challenges that people can go through with their mental health and to underline that there is an understanding and supportive community around them should they find themselves in a similar situation, now or in the future.”

* ‘Choup’ was George’s childhood nickname for his sister, Charlotte, who supported him throughout his mental health problems.

With more than 100 prizes presented, the Junior Awards Ceremony in the final week of the academic year gave public recognition to the high achievement and outstanding commitment of QE’s youngest pupils.

The formal ceremony in the School Hall took its traditional form, with the audience of prize-winners, their parents, VIP guests and staff treated to classical music interludes during the prize-giving.

Yet in his speech, Headmaster Neil Enright reminded the young high-fliers that theirs is a changing world: “If rapid progress is a feature of our School, it most certainly is in aspects of the wider world. Whilst much focus this month is on the 50th anniversary of the moon landings, it is also the 100th anniversary of the first two-way crossing of the Atlantic by airship. That only fifty years should separate those landmark events, itself would seem to emphasise the point. The rate of technological and human progress has never been so great.”

This, said Mr Enright, provided the boys both with wonderful opportunities and new challenges. “Try new things and broaden your base of skills and knowledge, as your generation will need to adapt in an economy and a society disrupted by technology and associated structural change.”

Technological change was also making the globe “smaller, more connected and more accessible,” he added. “In the last year boys here have been variously to Canada (for rugby and skiing), Beijing (for astrophysics), Russia (for History and Politics), France and Germany (on language exchange programmes), Sicily (for Geography), Kentucky (for robotics) and New York (for an international mock trial competition), among other destinations.

“But” the Headmaster said, “we may have reached a moment when progress is not all about faster, further and bigger – at least in the non-digital world. Climate change, for example, means grappling with new imperatives, of doing things smarter, cleaner and more sustainably.”

The implications of this for QE’s pupils were clear: “It is through a rounded combination of academic, technical, creative and social skills that progress on the biggest issues facing us in the future will rely. This is a roundedness we try to prepare you for…You are in a privileged position to be well set to face that future with confidence and optimism, building on your prior success to progress further and further, to thrive in a changing world, and to change it.”

Among the VIP guests at the afternoon ceremony were Councillor Lachhya Gurung, Deputy Mayor of the Borough of Barnet, as well as governors and representatives of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s. In his welcome to the Deputy Mayor, the Headmaster pointed to his 18 years of service with the Brigade of Gurkhas and his longstanding chairmanship of the Burnt Oak Nepalese Community.

The Headmaster also welcomed the Guest of Honour, Old Elizabethan Akash Gandhi (2005–2012), who, he told the audience, had himself picked up no fewer than five Junior Awards when he was in Year 7, for Geography, Mathematics, Science, Stapylton House and the overall Charles Fitch Memorial Award for Outstanding Commitment.

In his speech, Akash, who is currently working as a Junior Doctor, urged current boys not to forget the values and ethos of QE.

Akash threw himself into life as a pupil, playing cricket (he was described by the Headmaster as an “excellent all-rounder”), 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.

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.

During the afternoon, the School’s young musicians performed works by Handel, Bach, Chopin and the Bohemia-born Josef Fiala, who died in 1816. A Recessional piece was composed by Year 12’s Ifeatu Obiora and Federico Rocco.

The vote of thanks was delivered by Saim Khan, winner of the Year 7 award for public speaking.

The awards presented covered a full range of academic subjects and extra-curricular activities, with some also recognising service to the School.

After the ceremony, boys and their parents enjoyed refreshments with staff and other guests.

From how to support people who are coming out to understanding transgender transitioning, the School’s new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Ambassadors covered key themes during activities marking Pride month.

The trio of ambassadors, all drawn from Year 12, used a spectrum of material to communicate with fellow pupils in an age-appropriate and accessible way.

Josh Osman, Vithusan Kuganathan and Leo Kucera promoted better understanding of LGBTQ during Personal Development Time sessions, using PowerPoint presentations and encouraging questions in Q&As. As well as updating the dedicated equality, diversity & inclusion noticeboard, they put up posters around the School, while a rainbow flag was hung in Café 1573. They also sold Pride ribbons at the Founder’s Day fête.

For Year 7 & 8 boys, in addition to a discussion session exploring how young LGBT people might feel, the ambassadors ran a poster competition. The entrants could choose as their theme any of the Equality Act-protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation). Josh said: “We were very pleased with both the level of participation and the quality of the submissions. There were many excellent entries.” The best entries are being displayed on the noticeboard.

For the older boys, there were lessons on challenging stereotypes and understanding the different ways gender is thought about around the world (Year 9), on promoting a better understanding of the transgender aspect of LGBTQ and, particularly, of transitioning (Year 10), and on the ‘dos and don’ts’ of what to say if someone were to come out to you (Year 12).

Since being appointed earlier this year, the three ambassadors have celebrated International Women’s Day at the School and launched the noticeboard. Their next big event is planned for Black History Month in October.

Speaking about their roles, and their work overall to date, Vithusan said: “We are looking to make these issues clearer to younger years – to teach these values.” Leo added: “This is part of the School’s ‘confident, able and responsible’ mission. It is about changes in society and reflecting that. Others in Year 12 have helped, which is great, as these things shouldn’t just be left to the School’s hierarchy. As students we are more relatable to the younger students – we’ve been in their shoes not long ago.”

All three boys stressed the importance and value of student leadership. Josh said: “It is such an important role. We are a very traditional School in many ways, but we’re here to prove the School is progressive. We are setting a foundation for the future of diversity at QE. We are still finding what we can do; our job is to create the mould for ambassadors to build upon in future years.”

Existing pupils and staff gave the incoming cohort of boys for September 2019 the warmest of welcomes as part of QE’s programme to facilitate the transition to senior school.

The new boys were afforded the opportunity to meet some of their future peers, to get to know their form tutors and to gain an insight into the practicalities of the School day – but also to learn just how exciting life as a young Elizabethan can be.

The boys and their parents, who are all considered to be joining the QE family, were welcomed by Headmaster Neil Enright. He congratulated the boys on their very considerable achievement in winning a place in the face of formidable competition: the School last year had more applicants than ever before.

“We are aware that this transition to secondary school is a milestone which is a substantial change and can present challenges,” said Mr Enright. “We recognise the importance of a well-planned programme of support and guidance, and are confident that this cohort of boys will be very successful and will make a strong contribution to the School throughout their time here.”

Three current Year 7 boys were part of the welcoming team and all made short speeches to the newcomers to reassure them about the QE experience and to introduce the Houses that form an important part of life at the School.

Broughton House’s Saim Khan greeted the visitors by saying: “Last year we were sitting exactly where you are now!” He recalled being excited, but also nervous. “I have made lots of new friends; there are House competitions which help each form become good teams. I was the first student in this year’s Year 7 to reach 100 merits and was awarded this silver badge I am wearing today,” he said.

The support offered for homework was the theme of the address given by Haris Shahid from Pearce House. “It took me a little while to get used to the homework, but the teachers here give lots of help and there are clinics in every subject. I’ve found the work really rewarding, as you have the chance to gain merits.” Among Haris’s achievements was taking first place in the Year 7 Photography Competition.

Andreas Angelopoulos, who is in Leicester House, talked about the extra-curricular activities on offer. “I was really pleased to be selected for the School’s chess team and am hoping to qualify for the English national team. I also play water polo, am learning clarinet and I am in the School’s concert band.” He said that whether the new boys were musical or sporting, there were many opportunities to make new friends while doing an activity they liked.

The incoming boys also heard from the current School Captain, Year 12’s Bhiramah Rammanohar, who urged them: “Above all else, get stuck in across all areas of School life!”

The visiting boys were then split into their form groups and met their tutors and senior prefects from their Houses. They enjoyed a tour of QE’s facilities and took part in some ‘ice-breakers’ to help them begin to get to know each other. The tours were led by prefects, who offered helpful advice and answered questions about life at the School.

Meanwhile, parents listened to presentations from: David Ryan, who will be Deputy Head, Pastoral, in September; Tom Harrison, who will be Head of Year 7, and Emi Aghdiran, who will be Deputy Head, Operations. The Headmaster rounded off the session: “We believe our School offers an experience like no other state school. It is very important, even before they arrive as pupils, that our boys feel part of this community and are alive to the many opportunities they will encounter here.”

Mr Enright went on to talk about the centrality of the support that parents give the School through the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s (FQE), in terms of achieving QE’s ambitious development plans.

The boys, parents, prefects and staff then came together to chat informally over coffee and soft drinks. Also in the diary for the new families before the start of term in September are uniform fittings, as well as bowling evening socials, organised by FQE.

• For pupils who may be interested in joining the School in September 2020, there is an Open Evening on Thursday 4th July, starting at 3pm, with the last entry at 7.30pm.

Medal-winning Paralaympian Amy Marren inspired Year 7 boys when she visited to give a guest assembly – but also stressed the hard work, planning and discipline needed to combine her swimming with a legal career.

Amy, who is 20, was invited to the School because she is close friends with QE Technology Assistant Stephanie Tomlinson.

At London 2012 she made her Paralympics debut as one of the youngest GB athletes. The following year she won four titles at the IPC Swimming World Championships in Montreal, as well as four gold and two silver medals. She won bronze in the Individual Medley at Rio in 2016.

Alongside her swimming training, Amy is a paralegal apprentice. Combining the two activities requires a 5.30am start five days a week in order to squeeze in 24 hours a week in the pool and gym and 40 hours of work and studying.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a very positive and inspiring assembly, promoting pride in difference and emphasising what can be achieved with character, dedication and ambition.”

Amy, who was born with disability (a missing hand), not only competed at Rio but has won a World Championships and met the Queen. She feels “lucky and privileged to compete” and undertakes work to support others, such as being patron of a charity that teaches disabled children to swim.

Speaking about the challenges of coping and adapting with one hand, she said: “I used to be shy, but am proud of who I am… You should always be you, that’s very important.

“People do treat you a bit differently, and in some ways you are different – I was 13 before I could tie my own shoe laces – but I am proud to be different now. There are no limits to what you can achieve.”

In the past, she used to “hide” her arm within a prosthetic limb to look “normal”.

Amy stressed the value of turning to family and friends to help – “you are not alone” – and she urged the boys to be kind to one another, treating those who are different in some way just the same as anybody else.

In a question-and-answer session, she spoke further about her sporting and personal achievements, her experience of disability and of any discrimination she had encountered.