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The festive season came early at QE this year, with the production of Twelfth Night for the Shakespeare Schools Festival bringing mirth, merriment and a strong measure of tenderness to the stage.

Two after-school performances of the romantic comedy in the School’s Robert Dudley Studio were followed by the main festival event at the Arts Depot in Finchley.

The play derives its name from the day before Epiphany (6 January); Shakespeare wrote it as an entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. It is the favourite Shakespearean comedy of Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) Crispin Bonham-Carter, a former professional actor who once played Twelfth Night’s Sir Toby Belch at the Edinburgh Fringe.

He hailed “another outstanding QE Shakespeare production” from the senior school cast and their director, Penny Gkritzapi. “Our production of Twelfth Night was a musical reminder that the season of good cheer is about to be ‘thrust upon us’, said Mr Bonham-Carter.

“The play is a wonderful reminder (especially for all our high-achieving young men) that however important it is to be organised and sensible, we must never forget our humanity, our humour and our need for a good party!

“Some of these senior boys have acted in QE plays since Year 8, and it is fantastic to see how they have come on over the years.

“Year 12’s Nittant Moudgil and Bharath Jayakumar, of Year 10, played alarmingly good drunkards while Felix Calder (Year 13) and Daniel Kollo (Year 12) perfectly caught the frustrated longing of Orsino and Olivia. Namish Thakur wore Malvolio’s yellow stockings (and painful cross-gartering) with comic relish. Meanwhile his fellow Year 11 pupil, Akshay Shah, was brilliantly convincing as the scheming Maria, holding it all together. The gentle heart of this tender play was beautifully captured by Year 13 student Suhaas Sabella’s sweet Viola.”

Suhaas himself described performing in Twelfth Night as “one of my pinnacle moments in my time at QE”. He added: “Acting as Viola being disguised as Cesario pushed me out of my comfort zone, but it was incredibly exciting to take on a new role and get a fresh perspective.”

The Shakespeare Schools Festival involves abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays. QE performed alongside other schools at the Artsdepot.

Final-year pupil Felix said: “A 30-minute abridgement of a script is really hard to work with, but with the help of our wonderful director, we were really able to bring out the best moments in this play. In my six years of doing QE drama I’ve made countless amazing memories and friends, and I have no doubt I will remember this play and all the other ones for the rest of my life!”

Akshay Shah, too, paid tribute to the director, Ms Gkritzapi. Originally from Athens, she has been based in London for more than a decade. She has written and directed performances at Southwark Playhouse, Park Theatre and Riverside Studios. She is the founder of Paradigm Productions, the resident company at The Drayton Arms Theatre.

Akshay said: “With Twelfth Night, I was able to take on a challenge with some of my closest friends, about one of my favourite plays. It was an incredible experience to be a part of, and I learned so much from the cast, our director and so many more people.”

The play’s music was composed and performed by: Akshay Shah; by Noah Green, of Year 10; and by Kelvin Chen, of Year 11.

Famous quotations

Twelfth Night is replete with sayings that have become famous. Here are just a few:

• If music be the food of love, play on.
• What country, friends, is this?
• I was adored once too.
• Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
• I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.

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England cricket legend Sir Alastair Cook joined QE Headmaster Neil Enright as well as more than a dozen Old Elizabethans and former members of staff at a special event in the UAE to showcase the new Queen Elizabeth’s School, Dubai Sports City.

The new school, which will open in August 2026, is the first to receive the go-ahead under the QE Global Schools programme – an initiative run by QE Barnet and its international partner, GEDU Global Education.

Former Test and One Day International captain Sir Alastair is GEDU’s Official Education Ambassador. He joined VIP guests from across business, education, sport and media, along with prominent social media figures, for the exclusive networking event held at the site of the new school in Dubai Sports City – a complex built around five major sports venues.

Speaking at the event, Sir Alastair said: “Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet, has a remarkable heritage of excellence, ambition and character. To see that legacy now being brought to Dubai is incredibly exciting. This school will give young people the opportunity to thrive, not only academically but personally, developing confidence, ability and responsibility, qualities that are essential for success in any field.”

Sir Alastair will serve as an advisor to the QE Global Schools’ planned élite sports programmes, supporting the development of high-performance pathways and strengthening the role of sport within the wider educational experience.

Mr Enright said: “We are making excellent progress towards the opening of Queen Elizabeth’s School, Dubai Sports City, next August, and I was delighted to meet so many local leaders and people of influence at this reception. It was also great to catch up with alumni and former colleagues now living and working in Dubai.

“There are exciting prospects for international collaboration and for gradually building a global network of Elizabethans, benefitting both the children in the new independent schools and our state-sector pupils in Barnet.

“We also intend to use income from QE Global Schools to support long-term educational excellence at Queen’s Road.”

The CEO of Queen Elizabeth’s Global Schools, Caroline Pendleton-Nash, said: “Our aim was to bring together key members of the media and the wider business community to introduce the exceptional education that will be available from August 2026 at Queen Elizabeth’s School, Dubai Sports City.

“We are gathering real momentum. Admissions have opened to very strong demand for places, and earlier this month we announced Dan Clark as our Founding Principal. These are important steps as we build towards launch.”

Mr Clark has held senior leadership positions at two of the UK’s leading independent schools, Repton and Marlborough College.

“Our hope now is that families across the UAE who aspire to a truly world-class K–12* education will look to Queen Elizabeth’s School as their school of choice,” Mrs Pendleton-Nash added.

She highlighted the significance of Sir Alastair’s involvement: “Having Sir Alastair represent us as an Education Ambassador is a tremendous privilege. His career reflects the exacting values that we seek to instil in every Elizabethan.

“Our location in Dubai Sports City means sport, health and wellbeing will be central to the student experience, supported by élite facilities and expert coaching. To have one of the most respected figures in world sport advising on our élite sports programmes is both inspiring and fitting.

“Sir Alastair Cook exemplifies the confident, able and responsible young people we aim to develop. He is an outstanding role model for our future students.”

*  K–12 is short for kindergarten through to 12th grade, reflecting the US school system from the age of around 5 to 17 or 18.

• For more on QE Global Schools, go to our dedicated web pages.
• Click on the thumbnails to view the images.

Old Elizabethan Samuel Akpan, who works for the Premier League, has received a special award at an international football conference in Italy.

Sam (OE 2011–2018) was representing the league at the Social Football Summit in Turin, where he was presented with the Leader in Social Responsibility and Impact Award.

The award recognises the success of the Premier League’s More than a Game initiative, through which it has committed £1.6 billion of investment into wider football (beyond the Premier League clubs) and into communities from 2022-2025.

It was, said Sam, “an honour and a privilege” to represent the Premier League at the summit – an international B2B (business to business) event held annually in Italy for the football industry.

Sam is a Communities Executive for the Premier League. “I am thankful for the recognition of all the work done by the team internally and through our network that goes on as part of the More than a Game campaign,” he said.

Sam joined the Premier League in September 2022 after winning an 18-month internship. On its completion, he was appointed to his current role.

After leaving QE, he read Politics and International Studies at Warwick, where he had a considerable impact. His work in social enterprise, sport and anti-racism at the university led to him being named among Future Leaders magazine’s 2021–2022 Top 150 of the most outstanding Black university students in Britain.

Sam is not the only OE at the Premier League. Piers Martin (OE 1987–1995) is Head of Leadership and Workforce Development there. Piers has enjoyed a highly successful career in sport, having previously led several sports’ organisations, including British Fencing at the time of the London 2012 Olympics.

Soon after becoming an intern, Sam spent six months working with Piers and his team.

“I knew from the start that Sam would be good because he had gone to QE,” said Piers. “He’s not afraid of speaking up and quite confident, but very softly spoken. He has a wise head on his shoulders for somebody who is early-stage career.”

• Sam is pictured, top, receiving the award. The other photo shows Sam and Piers flanking the Premier League’s Tony Scholes, Chief Football Officer; Joanna Pinney, Commercial Projects Manager; and
  Neil Saunders, Director of Football.

An Old Elizabethan who co-founded a $1bn-plus AI company urged boys to be flexible, to develop transferable skills, and to keep learning throughout their lives if they want to build successful careers.

Amar Shah (OE 1999-2006) said society is moving so fast that their career preparations are likely to be for job roles that do not yet exist.

Addressing a special QE Futures assembly, he pointed out to the Year 7 & 9 pupils that iPhones had not even been launched when he left QE – and that was only 19 years ago.

Assistant Head (Pupil Destinations) said: “Amar gave a really inspiring assembly on Dream Jobs. His message – with its focus on skills, being adaptable to emerging opportunities and lifelong learning – dovetails very well with our QE Futures strategy.

“The emphasis on transferable skills resonates deeply with our focus on the six QE Employability Skills – communication, critical thinking, digital literacy, leadership, resilience and teamwork.

“Thank you, Amar, for doing so much to get our pupils dreaming big and thinking boldly.”

The introduction came from an OE of the same generation, Asif Ahmed (OE 1997-2004), who said: “You might know that Amar is one of the co-founders of Wayve, the autonomous driving business that is widely regarded as one of the world’s (and certainly the UK’s) leading AI scale-ups.”

At the time of Wayve’s $1.05 billion Series C investment funding round last year, the then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “I’m incredibly proud that the UK is the home for pioneers like Wayve who are breaking ground as they develop the next generation of AI models for self-driving cars.”

Amar has moved on to investing in and building other equally exciting businesses.

Having already worked with AI-designed medicines, he is now focusing on a project to ‘democratise’ the MRI scanner to help the developing world– making the hardware cheaper to purchase, so it is more accessible, and using AI to mitigate the loss of functionality.

QE Futures is the School’s programme of careers and universities guidance & support. Its slogan is Find Your Path.

Amar’s own path has taken him from reading Mathematics at Cambridge to positions at Goldman Sachs and NASA, and to a PhD in Machine Learning. He has successfully founded several businesses.

His key messages were:

• Don’t prepare for one particular job, since many future careers are not even in existence yet.
• Build transferable skills. Adaptability and curiosity will matter more than any single qualification.
• Never stop learning. In doing so, you can help shape the solutions the world needs.

Amar argued for breadth of education – “every subject will impact your life”. He added: “Life is long; the world is constantly changing; learning is lifelong.” And he had his own clear idea of the importance of this stage in the boys’ lives: “School is learning how to learn (forever).”

Amar concluded his presentation with these words: “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School commemorated Elizabethans who gave their lives in conflicts in traditional fashion, while pupils and staff deepened their knowledge of QE’s wartime history through a special Remembrance quiz.

The QE Combined Cadet Force took their places in the Remembrance Sunday parade and service in High Barnet, and then also played a leading role in the Armistice Day event at the School yesterday.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The Armistice Day ceremony here is an important opportunity for today’s young Elizabethans to honour forebears who made the ultimate sacrifice in the two world wars and other conflicts. This year’s quiz creatively reinforced that aim by teaching pupils interesting facts about what war meant, both generally and for QE Barnet in particular.

“I am, of course, very grateful to the members of our CCF who represented the School so effectively in the civic Remembrance Sunday parade.”

The CCF set off from – and returned to – 240 (Barnet) Transport Squadron RLC on St Albans Road. The service took place at St John the Baptist Church and at the Chipping Barnet war memorial outside the parish church.

The ceremony at QE took place as in previous years in the ‘Crush Hall’ in the Main Building at 11am. The poem, In Flanders Fields, was read, the Last Post played, and wreaths were laid at the School’s war memorial. A two-minute silence was observed across the School.

The Remembrance Day quiz, compiled by Enrichment tutor and Mathematics teacher Nadeem Kydd, was made available to form groups over the past few days. Many staff participated.

Form tutors were encouraged to use the 17-question, multiple-choice quiz as a springboard for discussions about the significance of the Armistice Day events and QE’s history during the world wars.

Here are some of the questions. (Answers are at the bottom).

1. During World War I, QE pupils who won prizes were given money. But what did most choose to do with their money?
2. Where were soldiers’ horses kept during World War I?
3. In 1637, plans to unite QE with which school were shelved because of increasing political uncertainty in the run-up to the English Civil War?
4. Why were loudspeakers at Founder’s Day originally installed?
5. A memorial to Commonwealth soldiers, including those from the Indian sub-continent, Africa, Nepal, and the Caribbean, can be found where in London?

Answers

1. Donate it to refugees
2. The School playground
3. Merchant Taylors’
4. To warn of bombing raids
5. Constitution Hill

Click on the thumbnails to view the images.