Every boy in Year 12 is expected to commit 40 hours per year (or one hour per week) to voluntary service. Boys are expected to find their own placements. Often these are related to a pupil’s planned career pathway or they may instead be chosen because they make a contribution to the boy’s community.

Given the calibre of QE’s boys, the School believes that such service is usually valuable to the recipient organisations – a belief reinforced by positive feedback from the organisations themselves. For their part, the boys almost invariably derive considerable benefit from the programme. Some will develop interpersonal skills through their experience of dealing with colleagues and members of the public, while others will acquire new job-specific skills or hone their existing capabilities. For many, the programme fulfils the requirements of the Volunteering section Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. Experience of voluntary service is also a valuable attribute for boys’ CVs and university applications.

The range of placements is very wide. A number of boys offer assistance in primary schools, returning to their alma maters or visiting other schools with which QE either has sporting connections or has links through its status as a Music College. QE volunteers can be found in charity shops and community organisations across north London. Those with a career interest in medicine volunteer in hospitals and care homes – several are regulars at the Marie Foster Centre in Barnet. Some boys work in local libraries, while a number usually assist at the Learning Zone in Wembley Stadium and another recent placement involved helping to produce Newspapers for the Blind. Political groups, including the local Conservative and Labour party branches and the Harrow Youth Parliament have benefited from placements, as have faith groups including the Sri Vel Murugan Aalayam Hindu Temple and Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue.

A number of students undertake voluntary service within QE; coaching younger students in sport, acting as peer mentors, helping in subject clinics or working with younger students as part of music ensembles.

Here is the testimony of one recent volunteer, Gabriel Adler, who volunteered with Cancer Research UK and served as a tennis coach with young children: “Volunteering has introduced me to a totally different range of people, from very young children to adults whose financial circumstances are very challenging.”