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A charitable trust set up by the family of Guy Joseph (OE 1997-2002) has raised £106,000 this year through a wide range of fund-raising events. Guy was killed in a paragliding accident in the Pyrenees in October 2011, aged 25.

The trust was established to support two causes that Guy was particularly passionate about, namely disadvantaged children and conservation. Members of his family and friends will be travelling to Nepal in the spring to start building work on an Early Childhood Development Centre in his memory.

Guy graduated from Newcastle University with a first-class degree in Marine Biology. From autumn 2009 until the summer of 2011, he lived and taught scuba diving in Labuan Bajo, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Whilst there, he helped set up MantaWatch, an organisation dedicated to protecting the endangered manta ray through tracking, research, management and conservation.

Guy’s Trust honours Guy’s commitment to MantaWatch by funding two annual internships for deserving and academically gifted students to spend a month working with the organisation in Flores. The recipients of the first two Guy Joseph MantaWatch awards, announced earlier in 2012, were Anindita Rustandi and Muhammad Ichsan, described on the Guy’s Trust website as “enthusiastic, motivated and passionate young marine scientists”. Both are students at the Faculty of Fishery and Marine Science at Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. The cost of the two internships for 2012 was £1,765.

Guy lived in Pokhara in Nepal for several months during the winter of 2010-11. He loved the country and its people, especially the children, and had planned to return there. The trust, in partnership with the international Non-Governmental Organisation, ActionAid, is building two Guy Joseph Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDCs), one in Dhikurpokhari and one in Dansingh.

Guy’s parents, sisters and 26 friends are due to fly out to Nepal in March to spend a week starting to build the Early Childhood Development Centre.

“These ECDCs will promote the right to pre-school education for children in this impoverished region of Nepal and help hundreds of children get the start in life they deserve,” said Guy’s mother, Vikki. “The ECDCs will not only provide learning and recreational materials but will also run a wider programme including teacher training, parental education on nutrition, and health and hygiene.”

The School adopted the trust as one of its charities for 2012-13. “We were greatly saddened to hear of Guy’s death,” said Headmaster Neil Enright. “The School supports a number of charities each year and we felt that Guy’s adventurous spirit and commitment to the causes he espoused were very much in keeping with the ethos of the School.”

• The Guy’s Trust website may be reached at www.guystrust.org

When Aaron Tang (2006-2012) was offered a place to read Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) while he was still in Year 12, it presented him with a serious dilemma.  Should he leave QE a year early to take up this prestigious offer, or stay in the Sixth Form and complete his A-levels?

After a term of study in Hong Kong he finds the course excellent, but says only time will tell if he has made the correct choice. Either way he acknowledges his debt to the School.

Aaron, who was a School Lieutenant in Year 12, ultimately wants to practice Law in Hong Kong, but is finding it quite strange as the majority of his friends and peers are applying to UK universities.

“The idea of going to CUHK was first presented to me when I was in Year 11 at QE, when I attended a seminar in London. The Law Faculty at CUHK was then only five years old and they were hoping to encourage more students from abroad to enrol,” says Aaron.

Aaron signed up for CUHK’s summer school at the end of Year 11 and was impressed by the campus, faculty building and collegiate system. In Year 12, he achieved grade A in all his AS subjects – English Literature, Maths, Economics and Politics – and could potentially have gained a place at a Russell Group university in the UK.

In addition to a tuition scholarship from his faculty, his college (Wu Yee Sun College) has also presented him with the Francis Wong Hok Bun Memorial Scholarship for Distinguished Freshman worth HK$20,000 (approximately £1,600).

“Many have asked why I chose CUHK. I’ve two main reasons: firstly, it’s rare for students to be offered a place a year early and, secondly, I was awarded a full tuition scholarship to read the subject of my choice. I hope these factors will help me stand out when applying for a training contract with an international law firm.”

Aaron, who would like to practice Law in Hong Kong, where his parents live, is hoping that during his time at CUHK, he will also be able to establish useful contacts in the city. He is impressed with the course, which is taught in English, and considers the best part to be when students are required to apply the law to fictional scenarios. “The lectures are extremely thorough and detailed, giving the students a very strong understanding of Law,” he added.

“Although only time will tell, I hope that my choice of coming to CUHK was the right one,” said Aaron. “It goes without saying, all this would not be possible without QE. It still feels quite strange to me to be a former student of the School.”

The audience at this year’s Charity Christmas Concert enjoyed a wealth of seasonal music performed by a number of the School’s music groups. The annual fund-raiser is run in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Barnet (RC Barnet) and its proceeds support a number of causes in the community.

This year’s President of RC Barnet, Saiful Shamsad, commented on the 20-year association between the club and QE, and welcomed the audience to the concert: “The considerable pool of talented pupils will ensure that you are treated to an evening of fine entertainment.”

The programme was eclectic, ranging from traditional festive favourites  – including movements from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, and pieces by Bach and Corelli – to an arrangement of H Gregson-Williams’ and S Barton’s The Chronicles of Narnia, arranged by Year 13 student Chris Wong.

There were performances from the String Camerata, the Concert Band, the Senior String Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra and the Junior Indian Ensemble as well as the Choir and Chamber Choir. The Concert was rounded off with a selection of carols, with the audience joining in.

Director of Music Kieron Howe said: “It is particularly pleasing that the boys not only performed to such a high standard, but have also been key contributors as both arrangers and directors. Praveen Prathapan and Janan Sathiendran have been running the Indian Music Ensembles for two years now with wonderful levels of success, reflected in the performance at the concert.”

The Charity Christmas Concert supports a number of local groups, including Youth Makes Music; Youth Speaks, Young Chef and Young Engineer. “Youth Makes Music is a venture which gives boys and girls from across London the opportunity to further their musical experience through performing at wonderful venues such as the Royal Festival Hall,” said Mr Howe.

Mr Howe thanked the boys and staff for all the hard work, preparation and practice that had gone towards making the event such a success.

George Mpanga, last year’s Chair of King’s College Student Union at Cambridge, has been forging a strong reputation as a poet with a focus on social and political issues.

With a performance in front of Prince Charles and success in a major national competition already under his belt, George (OE 2002-2009) is now planning a multi-faceted career, taking his poetry to diverse new audiences.

After gaining A grades in English Literature, Sociology and Politics A-levels, George won a place at King’s to read Politics, Psychology and Sociology (PPS).

Earlier this year, he spoke to the Harrow Observer about his time at QE, his upbringing on the St Raphael’s housing estate and the inspiration for his poetry:  “I always had the aim of academic success and my school was supportive in this way. My main motivation was my parents as we were all brought up in a culture which celebrated academic achievement  –  and all the negative stuff about the area only encouraged us more. I wanted to move away from all of that, but as I have matured I have realised I don’t want to run away from it, but help to change it – that’s a lifelong battle.”

Widely known as George the Poet, George previously performed as MC Shawalin, before deciding to focus on the spoken word. He appears at venues across London and his performances of his rap-influenced, politically conscious poems have also gained a significant following on youtube.

Highlights of his career to date have included winning a £16,000 prize from The Stake competition, sponsored by Barclays and Channel Four. The prize is to fund a series of poetry workshops called The Jubilee Line (TJL), which are aimed, he says, “at empowering underprivileged young people with the thinking tools they need to transcend their environment”. In his application to the competition, George set out how the workshops would draw on his own experiences “as a …Cambridge University student of African descent, hailing from a council estate in North-West London”.

His performance before The Prince of Wales came at the Awards for Excellence, held by the Prince’s charity, Business in the Community. This year, he has also been named one of the UK’s Top Ten Black Students in Rare Recruitment’s Rising Stars awards.

Now nearing the end of his degree, he told Alumni News about his future plans: “After university, I’ll be working in three sectors: education (in the form of my poetry workshops), entertainment (in the music world) and corporate social responsibility.

“The workshops are aimed at using poetry to help students explore the Citizenship syllabus primarily, but the same method can be applied to most writing-based subjects.

“In the entertainment world, I’ll be collaborating with prominent artists and probably release my own music albums on which I’ll perform poetry. It’s uncharted territory, but music has always been my true passion.

“In terms of CSR, I deliver presentations in the corporate sector. These are poems about social issues ranging from sustainable development to youth unemployment. So far my clientele have included Business in the Community, their branch on ethnic diversity, Race For Opportunity, and Citigroup.”

“I also do a bit of writing here and there, which I aim to continue after uni. Thus far I’ve published two articles for the think tank, Runnymede Trust.”

Eleven Year 13 students from QE attended lectures on King Lear delivered by top-flight academics. The lectures, which are part of a series intended to enhance the boys’ A-level studies, were given by academics from the universities of London, Birmingham and Manchester, as well as by a Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute.

“While there may be a perception that A-levels are now somehow easier than in years gone by, such study days remind us that there is real academic rigour at the heart of the courses that our students continue to take,” said David Ryan, English teacher and Assistant Head. “Lecture programmes such as this one push our students to consider literature from a range of perspectives; they will act as excellent preparation for the way in which they will be taught at university.”

The topics were diverse and included The Poetry of King Lear and Suffering in the Play. “There was significant emphasis on the impact of history on the performance of the play,” said Mr Ryan. “Between 1650 and the 1830s, directors changed the ending of the play to a happy one. Since 1945 there has been a greater desire to focus on the play’s interpretation of the challenges of human existence.”

The Sixth-Formers will now go on to study Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath and Webster’s The White Devil as part of a paper entitled Poetry and Drama 1800. 

A number of departments at QE take senior pupils to such lectures, which take place at venues including the Quakers’ Friends House at Euston and some of London’s most important academic venues. The King Lear lectures were held at the Conway Hall in High Holborn, which is owned by the South Place Ethical Society. It is renowned as a hub for free speech and independent thought, and hosts a wide variety of lectures, classes and performances. The society’s library, known as the Humanist Reference Library, is the largest and most comprehensive research resource of its kind in the United Kingdom.