For well over four hundred years, successive generations of boys have benefited from an education at Queen Elizabeth’s School.

Our rich heritage is reflected in the School Chronicle, which is read annually on Founder’s Day and which records the Governors’ requirement that the education we provide should be as much in “good manners as in nurture for learning”. Similarly, our mission has long been “to produce young men who are confident, able and responsible”. In our strategic vision plan, Building on Distinction, we have re-defined what that means for the 2020s, gleaning the best from our historic traditions and from our experience as one of the country’s leading academic schools, and then combining that with the qualities which a new generation of Elizabethans will need to flourish in an inter-connected and fast-changing world.

To this end, we are committed firstly to the pursuit of academic development at the highest level. We lay good foundations such as hard work and perseverance, and, as a meritocracy, we regularly celebrate intellectual accomplishment. The School seeks to nurture broad, analytical thinkers who will thrive at university and beyond. The fruit of this approach is seen in our public examination results: QE is consistently placed at or very near the top of national league tables.

Secondly, we aim to inculcate in our boys attributes such as resilience and the ability to act appropriately in any situation, helping them to become principled young men secure in their own identity. This is achieved partly through our bespoke tutoring system and carefully structured pastoral arrangements, and partly through our expectation that all boys participate fully in the life of the School. We have an exciting, diverse range of extra-curricular activities through which every boy can pursue his interests and stretch himself as he learns new skills and talents.

Finally, through an emphasis on service within the School and through initiatives such as our Sixth Form external volunteering programme, we promote generosity of spirit and civic engagement, with boys learning to devote time and energy to the greater good. We emphasise kindness, consideration and compassion, encouraging boys to play their part in fostering our happy, inclusive School community.

Queen Elizabeth’s School, then, offers a meticulous and richly faceted holistic approach to the education of the boys in our charge. It is this approach, combined with our excellent facilities and a proud history dating back to 1573, that make the QE experience truly a state school experience like no other.

Neil Enright, Headmaster