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Founder’s Day 2026 brought together the finest traditions from the School’s history with glimpses of its future – all enlivened by the colourful afternoon fun of the FQE Fete that was made possible by the parents, pupils and staff of today.

The day began with a morning thanksgiving service at St John the Baptist, Barnet’s Parish Church. After that, staff, guests and Year 7 pupils from the congregation repaired to Queen’s Road for the lunchtime Roll Call and Reading of the School Chronicle in front of the Main Building, which this year was seen at its very best following the recent removal of scaffolding put up during an ongoing £2.3 refurbishment programme.

Crowds of pupils, parents, alumni and local residents then flocked to Stapylton Field for an afternoon’s enjoyment at The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s Fete, where the attractions included dozens of stalls, food from around the world, and a full programme of entertainment on the stage.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “What a joyous and spectacular occasion this was! Founder’s Day is a tremendous celebration of our QE community in all its wonderful, rich diversity, and it was lovely to see so many people at the fete having a good time. I offer my heartfelt thanks to all who made the day possible, including staff and prefects, and particularly our wonderful FQE parents, without whose tireless efforts the fete simply would not happen.

“Through our QE Global Schools programme, our broad Elizabethan community is set to become even broader this summer with the opening of QE Dubai Sports City and QE Gurugram in India. I was, therefore, especially pleased to welcome among us those schools’ Founding Principals, Dan Clark and Craig Cook.” During the church service, Mr Clark and Dr Cook received a replica of QE’s 1573 Great Seal to take to their new schools as they move towards opening.

“Founder’s Day is our biggest single fundraiser of the year. Donations are still coming in, but I am pleased to report that we have already greatly exceeded our £25,000 target, with the current total standing at over £35,000 – a magnificent effort!” Mr Enright added. “The money raised will go to helping us improve the learning environment at Queen’s Road – through projects such as the complete refurbishment of our Biology department, starting this summer – thus providing an even better educational experience for current and future generations of bright boys from all backgrounds.”

The service featured hymns and readings, with anthems performed by the School Choir and Junior Barbershop Group, and music before the service from School organists. VIPs attending included the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Zahra Beg. The prayers included the traditional Prayer on Founder’s Day, as well as a Prayer of Remembrance for Old Elizabethans who have died in the past year. The Founder’s Day pledge in its various forms was said by all in the congregation, who also joined in the singing of the anthem, And Be It Known, written by composer Howard Goodall for the School’s 450th anniversary in 2023.

The Guest Speaker was economist Promit Anwar-Westander (OE 2002–2009), who has occupied senior roles at the Treasury, as well as serving with several international development projects. In his address, he spoke about success not being the absence of failure, and about persevering through it: “failing better”. He drew on deeply personal experiences, as well as more light-hearted examples, such as the long wait for the Premier League title endured by Arsenal, the team beloved of so many QE pupils.

After the service, all boys gathered in front of Main Building, joined by staff robed in their academicals. Mr Enright followed the time-honoured Founder’s Day practice by reading aloud the School Chronicle. Brought up-to-date each year, this charts QE’s history, starting in 1568 – which is even before the School’s foundation in 1573 – when one of QE’s early promoters, Edward Underne, became rector of Chipping Barnet. The Roll Call was read by the 2026 School Captain, Tunishq Mitra, with each House Captain replying: “Ad sumus” (“Here we are.”)

The stage on Stapylton Field played host to both School performances and to displays by parents and visiting groups. The former included an opening performance by the School Choir and a strings and winds ensemble, followed immediately by an opportunity to see hip-hop dance from a new School group drawn from Years 7–10, who recently performed a five-minute routine as part of Step Around Town, a regional dance event in Camden. There was also music from QE’s Junior Jazz, Bollywood dance from a group of School mums, traditional Chinese dance and Telugu folk dance, to name just some of the attractions.

The fete featured dozens of stalls, selling items ranging from books to plants. Hungry fete-goers were spoilt for choice, with the food on offer including South Indian dosa, meat & vegetarian barbecues, Sri Lankan kothu roti, and an international tent serving oriental, Eurasian and African cuisine. For the energetic, there were the ever-popular stocks and the jungle run assault course, while the PE department brought a new cricketing attraction, with boys offered the opportunity to bowl a teacher out.

Cricket was also very much in evidence at a planning consultation event held during the afternoon in the Main Building’s Conference Centre. This featured plans for the Sports Hall that the School hopes to build, if approved. In addition to the four-court Sports Hall building (with classrooms on the top floor), which would be able to house indoor cricket nets among other sporting facilities, the plans also envisage the creation of six ECB-compliant outdoor nets and six new Fives courts.

• To view the full 36-page fete programme, which includes special features, recipes and advertisements from firms supporting the event, click here.
• To visit the Founder’s Day JustGiving page and make a donation, click here.

Six senior pupils have won Jack Petchey Achievement Awards, the School announced today.

The Jack Petchey Foundation allocated the awards after hearing from the six’s friends and classmates, who were invited to vote for those they felt contributed the most.

Today’s announcement follows yesterday’s news about a Jack Petchey Leader Award for Biology teacher Sam Acors.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My sincere congratulations go to these six students. Our Boundless School plan sets out that we seek to nurture our pupils in becoming, among other things, Self-aware people who make things happen, Leaders of influence and valued collaborators, and Community-orientated. What better examples of those qualities could there be than these six Elizabethans?”

The achievement awards go to: Year 10’s Pranav Bonagiri and Arnay Gupta; Year 11’s Abishek Prenav and Rohan Katkar; and, in Year 12, Zane Shah and Hasnain Jiwa:

• Pranav was recognised for his exceptional contributions to both robotics and sport. As a volunteer mentor, he supported two Year 9 robotics teams that progressed to the VEX Robotics World Championship. He was also a member of the Year 10 team that won the prestigious Innovation Award at the competition. Pranav’s award also acknowledges his success in Eton Fives. Alongside his playing partner, he earned Players of the Match honours at the Eton Fives National Championships and made a significant contribution to QE finishing top of their division.
• Arnay was similarly recognised for his dedication to robotics. He mentors Year 8 and Year 9 VEX Robotics teams, helping them prepare for competitions, while also assisting with the organisation of events.
• Abishek won his award primarily for his work as founder and programme director of I’m Possible – a youth mental health peer-mentorship service preventing suicides, which featured in a documentary, Manosphere, on S4C and BBC iPlayer. Abishek is the co-founder and executive director of MenTomorrow, an initiative which seeks to redefine masculinity for the next generation. In addition, he is one of 20 ‘change-makers’ from across the world invited to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) headquarters in New York for the Transforming Global Education Summit and was also invited by the United Nations Secretariat to its Palais Des Nations office in Geneva.
• Rohan received his award mainly for being an upstanding all-round academic student. A high-flyer even within the elevated context of QE, he also finds time to help others, mentoring younger pupils in Maths as well as in chess. Rohan is part of the Chess A team that will be going to the National Chess Championship Finals in Nottingham in the next few days.
• Nominated primarily for his work with the QE Islamic Society, Zane spearheaded with his peers a charity drive for Islamic Relief. To help raise the profile of the campaign and revive the society’s speaker programme (which had been dormant for six years), Zane invited in Saleh Rashid from Islamic Relief. The Islamic Society over a number of years raised more than £5,000 – with Zane’s own contributions including sponsorship from running a half-marathon – and were recognised with Charity Week Awards.
• An exceptional role model, Hasnain was praised by his peers for his leadership and mentorship with younger boys. This is in Vex Robotics competitions and CAD (Computer-Aided Design) activities. Additionally, he offers advice on A-level selection and careers.

The Jack Petchey Foundation was set up by businessman and entrepreneur Sir Jack Petchey, who died in 2024 at the age of 98. Since 1999, the foundation has been recognising and celebrating the achievements of young people across London and Essex.

The award-winners, including Dr Acors, have been invited to receive a medallion at a special awards ceremony on 7th July. They also win a pin, certificate, a book on Sir Jack and a £300 grant to spend on a project that benefits QE. The coordinator of the awards in School is Economics teacher Kishen Patel.

Biology teacher Sam Acors has won a Jack Petchey Leader Award after being nominated by his pupils.

QE is announcing the award to Dr Acors on National Thank a Teacher Day.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It seems especially fitting to be able to congratulate Sam today on this award, which is well deserved.

“It’s also an excellent opportunity to celebrate the immense contribution that all our hard-working, dedicated and inspirational staff make to the success of Queen Elizabeth’s School.”

Dr Acors joined QE last year after working as a post-doctoral researcher at Imperial College London. His doctorate from King’s College London was awarded in March 2024.

His pupils praised him for the good humour he brings to his teaching, as well as his supportive and nurturing approach.

Expressing his appreciation for the award today, he said: “It feels good to have made an impact on the students and be appreciated. I got into teaching to make a positive difference to young people’s lives, so having won an award that suggests I have influenced many of our pupils means a great deal to me. That being said, the students at QE are outstanding, so it makes our job as teachers that bit easier.”

The Jack Petchey Foundation was set up by entrepreneur Sir Jack Petchey, who died in 2024 at the age of 98. Since 1999, the foundation has been recognising and celebrating the achievements of young people across London and Essex.

The foundation’s Leader Awards recognise the ‘above and beyond’ commitment of adults who help young people. It encourages their schools and organisations to get the young people themselves involved in making nominations for the awards.

The Thank a Teacher campaign is run by the Teaching Awards Trust and has a vision to help create a society which values and celebrates “the great work that takes place in education every day across the UK”.

The Trust was established in 1998 by Lord David Puttnam, with the support of all the leading political parties, the teaching unions and the wider education community, as well as industry and media partners.

Dr Acors’ research at King’s included working with post-doctoral researcher Dr Nathalia Almedia to create populations, or lines, of a special type of human stem cell, which could help uncover why HIV leads to different outcomes in different people.

Announcing this development in February this year, Professor Mike Malim, co-senior author of the paper, said: “This has been a long journey for us, and I am particularly pleased for Nathalia Almeida and Sam Acors whose dedication and attention to detail enabled the creation of this panel of lines. It will be fascinating to see what we and others can discover about HIV biology and pathogenesis in the years to come.”

Year 9 pupil Ibrohim Saidahror has topped the podium at the Sixth Wales Taekwondo International Championships, winning a gold medal on his category debut.

Ibrohim took the top prize in the  -37kg Class A Cadet category in an event which attracted more than 500 athletes.

Having seen off fellow competitor Pius Junior Appiah in the semi-final, he achieved a 2–0 victory against Ethan Holmes from the Core Taekwondo Academy based in Kendal, Cumbria, in the final.

In what was a memorable day, he also completed his first refereeing assignment at the event, which was held at the Sport Wales National Centre in Sophia Gardens, Cardiff.

Director of Sport Jonathan Hart said: “My congratulations go to Ibrohim on an impressive achievement – one which is the fruit of a great deal of hard work, discipline and dedication to the sport.”

Ibrohim took up taekwondo seven years ago and trains at the Superior Taekwondo Academy in Greenford.

His previous achievements include winning a silver medal last autumn in the -37kg novice category at the British Taekwondo National Kyorugi Championships in Sheffield and, before that, taking gold in a sparring competition, also at Sophia Gardens.

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art renowned for its dynamic high, spinning and aerial kicks. In competition, athletes score points by delivering powerful strikes to legal target areas on the torso and head.

Reflecting afterwards on his victory, Ibrohim said: “It’s the first time I have won gold in a long while, so it meant a lot. However, it is the first time I competed in this category, so winning gold means even more. I am glad I managed to adapt successfully.”

QE AI supremo Paarth Aggarwal is celebrating after his latest app won plaudits in a competition linked to the world’s top-ranked university.

His SafeEat smartphone scanner for elderly and visually impaired users was one of just seven out of 2,176 entries in the Global Appathon to receive ‘honourable mentions’ alongside the winners.

The competition, which drew entries from more than 140 countries and regions, required participants to link their apps to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Year 12 pupil Paarth, who has been invited to attend next month’s MIT App Inventor Global Education Summit at the MIT Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has enjoyed a string of AI competition successes, including taking first prize for his age category among UK entrants in Intel’s AI Global Impact Festival in both 2024 and 2025.

QE’s Head of Technology, Bilaal Khan, said: “It is exciting to see our pupils at the forefront of technological development: my congratulations go to Paarth on another noteworthy achievement.”

SafeEat is an AI-powered food ingredient list scanner designed to help elderly and visually impaired users make informed food choices based on their personal allergies, intolerances, and dietary restrictions.

The app makes ingredient labels easier to understand, and helps users determine whether a product is safe to eat.

To build their apps, competition entrants had to use the MIT App Inventor – a free tool developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently ranked number one in the QS world university rankings.

Paarth submitted a three-minute video about the app, in which he not only explained what it could do, but also demonstrated it live to a potential user in a local supermarket.

His commendation certificate was signed by Professor Hal Abelson, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and Dr Natalie Lao, Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation.

Paarth said: “A single mistake on a food label can trigger a life-threatening allergic reaction, but technology has the power to change that. I am incredibly honoured that my app, SafeEat, won the honourable mention for accessibility.”