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After a spring and summer spent largely in lockdown, I am pleased to report that this Autumn Term has felt much more normal.

The majority of School life has taken place, albeit often in adapted form. Not only have our classrooms once again reverberated softly to the sounds of teaching and learning, but there has also been a welcome return to those in-person extra-curricular activities which could be run within our year-group bubbles. Alongside this, cross-bubble activities have taken place online, including our much-valued peer-mentoring system.

I do not underestimate the magnitude of the changes many have had to contend with. To name just two examples among many, our University Mock Interview Evening and our Year 11 Careers Convention at the School both had to be cancelled. I, therefore, greatly appreciated the willingness of alumni such as Zac Howlett-Davies (2006–2013) and Karan Dewnani (2006–2013) to support senior boys by giving online interviews and speaking at our virtual careers event respectively. Overall, however, I can say that we have been fortunate in terms of the number of incidences of Covid-19 within the School. It has certainly been difficult at times, but I am thankful that we have not faced really significant disruption.

I was naturally delighted to read the highly laudatory report on Queen Elizabeth’s School published recently by the Good Schools Guide. The guide’s Kate Hilpern began her research during lockdown and then visited us in October. Her final report commented on how we had “flexed quickly and well” to the challenge of Covid-19 and had “learned from it, too” in areas extending beyond the classroom, including pastoral care.

That process has continued throughout the Autumn Term. The intelligent use of technology has enabled much more day-to-day normality. For those needing to isolate at home it has also enabled them to participate in their lessons.

We have seen some bold initiatives within the scope of the current restrictions. Our Year 9 Drama Club members rose magnificently to the challenge of staging an abridged version of Hamlet for this year’s Shakespeare Schools Festival. Music, too, has adjusted well to the current dispensation, deploying web broadcasting and live-streaming to ensure that the term’s concerts reached as wide an audience as possible.

The Good Schools Guide mentioned our “intellectual approach to Art”, noting the breadth of the forms and materials used, such as animation, installation, sculpture, and painting. While sports fixtures with other schools have not been possible, the PE department have been ensuring boys stay match-fit, organising intra-year group games and tournaments in rugby and water polo, for example.

Our new, pupil-led initiative, Perspective, continues to have an impact. We were pleased to welcome Jamie Sherman (OE 2002–2009) and Arjun Goswami (OE 2001–2008) on International Men’s Day, when they spoke about their experiences as members of the LGBTQ+ community in an event that combined an actual meeting with senior prefects with live-streaming into Year 9–13 tutor rooms. During Black History Month, Ifeanyi Chinweze (OE 2008-2015), recorded films for older and younger boys. recounting discriminatory comments against him as a teenager and telling the junior pupils: “It’s important to understand that racism is not limited to hate crimes or acts of violence.” Our forthcoming curriculum review will incorporate themes of combatting racial bias.

In spite of all the new pandemic-related restrictions, the term got off to a very cheerful start as we continued to celebrate the GCSE and A-level grades awarded to our boys during August. All the things we were hoping for in the summer were realised. At GCSE, a shining performance at the very top, with 61% of all grades being at level 9, helped propel us towards what were ostensibly our best-ever results. It was a similar story at A-level, where our leavers achieved 99.6% A*–B grades, as well as a 9.3% increase to 54.6% in the number of A-levels awarded an A* grade; both figures represent a School record. Given the cancellation of public examinations in 2020, comparing these awarded grades with previous years’ results is difficult. But they are, by any measure, remarkable statistics, and I fully appreciate what an extraordinary amount of time and effort from our whole Elizabethan community stands behind them. They are a vindication of our emphasis on free-thinking scholarship. As the Good Schools Guide put it in their summing-up: “[QE is] a place where boys can expect to get carried away with the collective will to learn both in and outside the classroom, the result of which is one of the most inspiring learning environments we’ve ever come across.”

The end of term sees the retirement of Deputy Head Emi Aghdiran. Emi joined QE in 1998 and has made an outstanding contribution over many years.  She was the School’s first Business Manager and also our first female Assistant Head, before her promotion to Deputy. Dynamic and visionary, yet with attention to detail, she has been a significant factor in the School’s present success. On a personal note, I have found her hugely supportive and a pleasure to work with. Happily, she is by no means quitting the Elizabethan community entirely: she will remain a trustee of the School and of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s. I wish her a happy retirement.

Work on our keenly awaited Music School continues apace. The foundation works have largely been completed, and the erecting of the steel frame is scheduled to start this week. We remain on track for completion in time for the autumn of 2021.

I also eagerly anticipate the publication of our exciting new School Development Plan, covering the period 2021–2025, which was approved by the Governors last month. We look forward to launching it.

May I conclude by saying how impressed I have been at the resilience and good humour shown by so many in our Elizabethan family in the face of the unprecedented crisis which 2020 has brought us. For that, I thank you.

I extend my best wishes to all alumni for a peaceful Christmas holiday and for health and happiness in the New Year.

Neil Enright
Headmaster

Covid-19 caused the cancellation of the normal November Concert in front of a large audience in the Shearly Hall – but the Music department were determined not to be defeated by the pandemic. 

Director of Music Ruth Partington decided to use technology to showcase the boys’ musicianship and devised a creative way to recreate the experience of performing together.

Staff made special sound recordings over three days, featuring boys who had been rehearsing in their year group bubbles since September.  

Pupils from across the year groups were brought together in socially-distanced ensembles in two large venues, the Shearly Hall and Main School Hall.   

To recreate, so far as was possible, an authentic concert experience for the boys, they were asked to wear ‘concert dress’  – with white shirts, where available, instead of the normal light blue – and Music ties. 

The recordings were then put together as a high-quality soundtrack illustrated by photographs and broadcast as a YouTube Premiere in early December. The recording remains available on the Music Department’s YouTube channel. 

“We were determined to do our best to give all our musicians a collective ensemble experience and an opportunity to perform,” said Miss Partington. 

The virtual concert opened with a Best of Queen medley from the Junior Wind Band. 

It then featured contributions from the School Choir, Year 13 Choir, Junior Strings, Advanced Strings, Senior Orchestra and from the Gaubert Trio, who played Soir d’automne from Trois Aquarelles by the French composer, Philiippe Gaubert. 

Other works performed were by Grieg, Beethoven and Richard Rodgers (the Junior Strings’ performance of tunes from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma!). 

The QE Blues Band brought the 51-minute performance to an end in upbeat style with the 1958 Mexican-style hit, The Champs.  

After the success of those sessions, the Music department adopted a similar format for the end-of-term Christmas Concert.  

After seven years in a senior role for the global advertising agency behind Nike’s ‘Just do it’ tagline, US-based Nilesh Ashra is now blazing a trail with his own innovation consultancy. 

Named in Ad Age’s 40 under 40 list in 2016, he has been profiled in the print edition of Fast Company, the influential American business magazine. He is a high-profile speaker who has appeared at events including SXSW (the annual conglomeration of jointly organised film, interactive media and music festivals and conferences in Texas), Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and numerous other conferences. And he has won several industry accolades, a winner of Webby, Cannes, Fast Company and D&AD (Design & Art Direction) awards.  

Nilesh (OE 1995–2002) launched his consultancy, Pragmatic Futurism, in January last year. “My consulting work involves helping companies face the future of technology, work, and business,” he says. “We give our clients new ideas, new strategies; we create prototypes, and redesign their internal processes – all to help them face the future in a more optimistic way.” 

His interest in technology was apparent early – he started coding at the age of 11 – and after QE, he took a degree in Artificial Intelligence at UMIST (now part of the University of Manchester).  

On graduating, Nilesh says he was “interested in working in a ‘non-traditional’ technology space. That led me to a digital creative studio called Poke, in London.” 

In his four-and-a-half years with Poke, there was, he says, “barely a corner of modern, open-source-stack web development that I didn’t have the opportunity to work on. 

“From there, I was headhunted by the iconic Wieden+Kennedy.” Not only had W+K famously produced Just do it for Nike, they also created all of Nike’s TV commercials.  

He began his seven years with W+K, based in Portland, Oregon, as Creative Technology Lead and was later promoted to Director of Creative Technology. In creative industry circles, Nilesh is best known as the founder of W+K Lodge – the agency’s technology-focused division. One example of the Lodge’s work was the 2017 launch of Nike’s new retail experience that combined video-game-style motion capture and projection mapping to reduce the time needed to customise shoe graphics from eight weeks to less than two hours. This was short enough for it to be done on demand and in-store.  

“My professional obsession has been the profound and positive impact that emerging technology can have on culture and on businesses alike. After many years in the spotlight at W+K, I am now committed to my young family, and to humbly helping my clients thrive in their careers.” 

Nilesh is married and has one daughter aged six months and another who is four. “I have found myself very settled in Portland. It is mostly a liberal, relaxed, and positive community of creative people. 

“I’m an avid surfer, and have surfed all over the world,” he adds. 

Frankie Vu (OE) has secured a role as a presenter of the iconic children’s television show, HOW, while also enjoying a new job with Facebook, working in virtual reality.

ITV have revived the educational programme, with Frankie (Francis) among the team of four presenters. HOW originally ran from 1966 to 1981 and was then re-launched in 1990 as How 2.

“I have very fond memories of the children’s television I grew up with in the 90s and 00s, and a handful of those shows were memorable enough that they still find their way into nostalgic conversations with my peers,” said Frankie (OE 2000–2008). “How 2 was one of those shows, and when I received the news that I would be part of the new presenting line-up, it took weeks to really process the heritage that I would be contributing to.

“Before the audition process, I was unaware that How had been a successful series from the 1960s through to the 80s, and that How 2 had run for a further 16 years from 1990 to 2006. So to be a part of such an iconic format, and to be reviving a show with so much history, is a real honour.”

Produced by Terrific Television, the new series is being shown on CITV and simulcast on ITV; it is also available on ITV Hub. The team also includes veteran HOW presenter Fred Dinenage MBE, who has been a TV presenter for 56 years and was a presenter on both the original series and How 2.

Frankie, a freelance presenter who has worked for broadcasters including the Disney Channel and CBBC, has also been working for Facebook since the start of this year.

“I work in virtual reality (VR) for Facebook ‘by day’. I’ve juggled this with presenting by using annual leave days to film, as and when necessary.

“After spending the best part of ten years messing around in front of cameras, I decided to get a ‘proper’ job, where I spend my days in the virtual world, desperately avoiding the perils and responsibilities of real life. Jokes aside, VR is a rapidly growing part of the tech industry, and over the past few years, I’ve witnessed huge development in the capabilities of the hardware, as well as the current and potential uses of VR.”

Beyond its most obvious application in gaming, VR is now also being used for fitness, surgical training, sports rehabilitation, corporate meetings and tourism, amongst other industries, Frankie points out. “My own role involves overseeing the training and development of Product Experience Specialists, who are tasked with delivering memorable first-time VR experiences, both in-person and now remotely.

“Managing my schedule has been challenging at times, but the gratitude I feel for being able to do what I love massively outweighs any negativity.”

On leaving QE, Frankie studied English Language & Communication at King’s College London. After attending a talk on careers in the media in his final year, he was invited to screen-test for Disney, and secured his first TV contract at the end of the summer.

A sports enthusiast – he won the UK football freestyle championship while still at QE in 2006 – he was a host for the fencing and taekwondo events at the London Olympics and for the wheelchair fencing at the 2012 Paralympic Games, as well as for other live sporting events, including rugby, football and NFL.

“If I could glean any lessons from my own journey, and from this year in general, I would say that we can never know what lies ahead, so it doesn’t serve any purpose to worry too much about the distant future.

“My advice would be to focus on what you love doing, work hard – and don’t give up. Many of us will spend 50 years of our lives in the world of work, so it’s worth trying to figure out what really motivates you – and if that changes somewhere down the line, that’s fine too. The job I’m doing at Facebook didn’t exist a few years ago, and when I was at QE, I had no idea I’d be presenting TV shows – so focus on the things you can control and everything else will fall into place.”

Frankie adds: “I’m still in regular (socially distanced) contact with lots of friends from QE, and I live within walking distance of two my closest friends from Underne house, Robert Michel and Anil Douglas.”

• Frankie can be reached at:
  Instagram: @frankiepresents
  Twitter: @theFrankieVu

For any QE sixth-formers frustrated and perplexed because they haven’t yet got a career path all mapped out, Kushal Savla has a few words of encouragement.

“My advice is: just follow your passion in terms of choosing your uni course, and you’ll figure the rest out later.

“I think especially at QE you almost expect yourself to know what you want to do with your career before you even finish your A-Levels. But it took me two years after graduating to figure out what I want to do – and I couldn’t be happier with my decision!”

Today Kushal (OE 2005–2012) is a London-based Senior Sales Operations Associate with Diligent Corporation, a US multinational that provides a secure software platform used by the boards of companies and other organisations for collaborating and sharing information. “What does that fancy job title mean? I’m a data analyst who works with sales and commercial teams. I build data models, analyse our sales and marketing data, and build reports and dashboards for our leadership teams.”

After leaving QE, Kushal studied Economics with German at the University of Nottingham, where he gained a Distinction for his spoken German. He was a student on the European Union’s Erasmus scheme and spent his Erasmus year working at Bosch in Stuttgart, Germany. “It sounds like a cliché, but at the time it really was the best year of my life. I was fully immersed in a whole new culture, I made new friends who I am still in contact with, and, of course, the Erasmus grant meant I was able to enjoy the entire year travelling around Germany and Europe.”

Even after graduating, he still had no idea what career path he wanted to follow. “All I knew was that keeping up and maintaining my German was really important to me. After searching and searching, the main roles on offer were in sales, so I thought I’d try it out to see if I liked it.”

This job, which he took up in September 2016, was with his current employer, Diligent. “I really enjoyed using my German every day on the phone and I was also promoted to Team Leader. But in my heart, I knew that in the long term it wasn’t for me, and I wanted to do something more data and numbers-oriented.”

Diligent later took over a German competitor in Munich. “I almost landed a position as a data analyst there, but that fell through. Then I looked back at my company, started talking to the right people – and after a few months got that perfect position I was after.

“I feel very fortunate and lucky to be in the position I am. Things have fallen into place now and I am learning a lot on the job. There is also lots of opportunity to travel to the US, which is something I really appreciate. (Of course, this was all pre-Covid.)”

He still uses German in his job. Like his fellow Nottingham alumnus, Tony Norman (also featured in this issue of Alumni News) Kushal, has been in touch this term with QE’s Head of Languages, Nora Schlatte. And he points out that none of this – getting a job he loves, with all the perks and opportunities for travel that it provides – would have happened had he not studied German. “Learning language is still dear to me: I used it as an entry point into my career and it has guided so much of that career to date!”

• Kushal is pictured: top, in New York; above right, with friends in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, and, above left, at the Munich Oktoberfest.