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Queen Elizabeth’s School has been named the State School of the Year for the second consecutive year in the Sunday Times’ Parent Power survey.

QE leads both the London and national rankings in the influential annual table, which is based on GCSE and A-level results.

And the survey revealed that QE is in fact among the uppermost echelon for schools of any stripe, state or private, since only four independent schools surpassed the School’s 2019 figure of 95.7% for the proportion of A-levels passed at A*-B (namely St Paul’s Girls’ School, Godolphin and Latymer School and King’s College School in London, together with Brighton College).

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This is very welcome news and I feel tremendously proud to have the privilege of leading this School. Our position as the leading state school reflects both a substantial amount of hard work on the part of my colleagues and the boys, and our sustained commitment to pursuing the highest levels of achievement across all areas of School life.

“Good examination results, while important for our boys in securing places at the world’s best universities, are by no means our only priority. Through our broad and balanced curriculum, together with our extra-curricular academic enrichment programme, we seek to nurture a genuine spirit of scholarship among our boys.

“In addition, consonant with our mission ‘to produce young men who are confident, able and responsible’, we expect pupils to take advantage of the many other worthwhile activities available to them, whether top-quality music and drama, our wide range of sports, or our popular clubs, such as chess and robotics.”

The Parent Power rankings are determined by the percentage of examination entries gaining A* to B grades at A-level this summer (which is given double weighting) and the percentage of entries awarded A* and A grades, or their numerical equivalents, at GCSE. For QE, the GCSE figure was 90.8%.

Parent Power’s editor, Alistair McCall, wrote: “Despite the rapid advance of several relatively new schools in the capital, age is no barrier to success. Once again, Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet – founded in 1573 – tops both the London and the UK state school rankings. Competition for places at this boys’ grammar is not for the faint-hearted: 2,400 sat the entrance exam last year – a pool that is 50% larger than just five years ago.”

Immediately below QE in the state school table was Wilson’s School in Wallington, with local girls’ school, The Henrietta Barnett School, in third place.

The high position of these and other selective state schools in the rankings has not gone unnoticed among commentators. Professor Alan Smithers, a well-known educationalist from the University of Buckingham, highlighted the widespread national problem of bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds doing well at primary school, but then failing to make progress at secondary level. “Could the reintroduction of grammar schools be the answer to enable bright children to fulfil their potential?” he wrote in the Sunday Times.

The School’s first large-scale concert of the academic year gave the junior ensembles the chance to showcase the repertoire they have been rehearsing since September.

In her welcome to the Autumn Concert audience, QE’s new Director of Music, Ruth Partington, set out a powerful argument for the importance of participation in extra-curricular music.

The boys, including many from Year 7, then performed a programme that featured a truly eclectic mix of genres and styles, ranging from the Sinfonia’s playing of Schumann’s Träumerei to the Guitar Ensemble’s rendition of Metallica’s Fade to Black.

Miss Partington said in her address how much she had enjoyed her first few months at QE since joining the School from Canford School in Dorset.

She then pointed to the contribution that Music makes “to the development of soft skills, which are so important at interviews and in life generally.” Music, she said, “helps develop boys at QE into rounded scholars”.

Later in the evening, together with the Headmaster, Neil Enright, she presented Music colours to select boys in Years 8 to 10.

Ensembles performing on the night included the Concert Band, Junior Indian Ensemble, Flute Ensemble, the B Minors barbershop group, Queen Elizabeth’s Jazz Lounge, Friday Jazz, the Sinfonietta and the Trebles & Altos of the School Choir.

The evening began with the Concert Band performing John Williams’ Highlights from Harry Potter. After the interval, during which refreshments were served in the Dining Hall, the Sinfonietta also performed film music – Theme from Jurassic Park and Pirates of the Caribbean – before the Trebles & Altos rounded off the night’s entertainment with Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

The audience in the Shearly Hall included a number of guests whom Sixth Formers were hosting from the High Barnet Good Neighbour Scheme, a voluntary service giving practical help to the elderly, sick and anyone finding it difficult to cope.

Next in the School’s musical calendar are the Christmas Concert on 10th December and the traditional Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at Chipping Barnet Parish Church on 18th December.

QE’s actors tackled the challenging issues in one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays head-on in their production of The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare Schools Festival organisers at Finchley’s Art Depot praised the abridged QE production, which involved actors from across the year groups.

And Assistant Head (Pupil Development), Crispin Bonham-Carter, in turn, lauded Gavin Molloy, from QE’s external drama partners, RM Drama: “Our excellent theatre director-in-residence updated the story with an edgy, modern, Italian urban setting, which made the anti-Semitic storyline all the more shocking and relevant. Our mixed-aged cast really rose to the occasion.”

“Rivu Chowdhury, as Shylock, found real depth and nobility in this complex and tragic role,” added Mr Bonham-Carter, who was himself a well-known professional actor before becoming a teacher.

“He was ably balanced by the cruel exuberance of the young ‘Christians’ – Antonio, played by Sathujan Manmatharajah, and Bassanio, played by Maanav Patel, were both particularly convincing young hoodlums strutting around in their black leather jackets.” All three actors are in Year 13.

“George Raynor, of Year 12, caught Portia’s humanity as well as her steely intelligence, dealing calmly with a minor wig issue in the second half…”

He highlighted “notable performances” by Paul Ofordu and Ethan Solanki (both of Year 11) as “the arrogant losers – the dancing princes of Morocco and Arragon respectively.

“The whole cast of 23 were praised by the organisers for their team-work, their physical focus and the clarity with which they spoke and understood their lines,” said Mr Bonham-Carter.

Before staging the performance, the whole QE cast took part in a workshop at the Arts Depot led by professional Shakespeare Schools Festival staff.

Mr Bonham-Carter, who took up his post at QE in September, added: “The best part of my role as head of pupil involvement is seeing our young men responding creatively under pressure. Whether being interrogated in a debate, lost on a Duke of Edinburgh hike, or performing Shakespeare in a live theatre, our boys are learning through ‘real’ experiences such as these that, with good preparation and a can-do attitude, they can do anything!”

QE were performing alongside productions from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, Swiss Cottage School (a special school in Camden), and La Sainte Union Catholic School.

Headmaster Neil Enright delivered a speech on QE’s focus on ‘free-thinking scholarship’ to an influential conference of heads from independent schools.

Mr Enright was invited as one of a small number of guest speakers at the Girls’ Schools Association’s Annual Conference for Heads in Bristol.

In his speech during a plenary session entitled Keeping scholarship at the heart of education, he set out QE’s work to cultivate habits of independent learning and academic curiosity.

“We summarise this approach as free-thinking scholarship – a relatively new phrase in the QE lexicon,” he told his audience, who were drawn from some of the country’s most famous girls’ schools.

Mr Enright spoke of the importance of maintaining a focus on free-thinking scholarship within a curriculum that is designed to be intellectually rigorous yet also to be exciting and to embrace worthwhile innovation.

However, he also highlighted QE’s commitment to its academic enrichment programme, through which it offers activities that go beyond the classroom curriculum and the requirements of public examinations.

Mr Enright pointed to the role here of the academic symposia that QE holds with local girls’ schools, including North London Collegiate School (whose Headmistress, Sarah Clark, also spoke in the session and through whom Mr Enright’s invitation had come) and The Henrietta Barnett School. On the day Mr Enright spoke, a group of Year 13 girls from NLCS were visiting QE for a symposium, while a group of Year 11 boys headed in the opposite direction the following day.

While scholarship might be seen as “somewhat of a heritage brand” – gothic libraries, decanters of port and the like – the focus at QE was instead on the fundamental attributes that underpin scholarship: “We must be open to expressions of scholarship which look rather different.”

And Mr Enright cited as a recent example the work of old boy George the Poet (George Mpanga OE 2003–2010), an award-winning podcaster, who opened the coverage of the 2018 Royal Wedding, performed at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Rugby World Cup and has been a regular panellist on BBC’s Question Time. “His work is now undoubtedly a great example of scholarship – a contemporary, urban, forward-looking, free-thinking scholarship,” said Mr Enright.

He also mentioned Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994–1999), QE’s poet-in-residence, who was recently shortlisted for the prestigious TS Eliot prize and whose “radical perspective [is] grounded in his experience of race and identity”. Acknowledging that neither Anthony’s nor George’s work found ready recognition at the School when they were pupils, Mr Enright added: “I would like to think that the School would be better placed now to value and support their brands of free-thinking scholarship.”

To inspire and facilitate scholarship in their pupils, schools must identify, attract and then develop staff who have a “deep-rooted interest to continue to explore their [own] interests” and can model “scholastic traits”.

“Our boys expect their teachers to be on top of not just the course material, but the hot topics in their field, the emerging theories and technologies,” he said.

One significant factor in QE’s success in supporting staff had been the work of many departments with the Prince’s Teaching Institute, which, Mr Enright said, had “proved a great way of stretching our subject leaders, giving them the opportunity to collaborate across different schools, learn from best practice and then train others”. Several staff, including Mr Enright himself as well as Assistant Head Sarah Westcott, Head of History & Politics Helen MacGregor and Head of Mathematics Jessica Steer, have current leadership roles within the charity.

Mr Enright set out several other steps the School takes to promote scholarship, all of which, he said aimed at “trying to create and maintain a culture whereby curiosity, ambitious thinking and intellectual risk-taking feels safe”.

Former pupils from across the generations turned out in force for the annual Old Elizabethans Association Dinner, enjoying the opportunity to celebrate with fellow alumni, rekindling past friendships and forging new ones.

During an evening marked by much convivial chatter and by lively speeches, the diners also observed a silence in memory of former Headmaster Eamonn Harris, one of the great figures in the School’s recent history, who passed away only a few days before the dinner.

The celebratory tone was amplified by a good attendance from the ‘ten-year leavers’ – the class of 2009–2010 – while older Elizabethans present included Brian Gilbert, returning to the School after a gap of 50 years.

The event in the Main Hall was the first dinner to be hosted by the new President of the Old Elizabethans Association, Eric Houston, who taught at the School from 1976 until he retired, as Second Master, in 2010. Mr Houston is both a Governor and a Foundation Trustee of the School.

Another change this year was the reading at the dinner of the Queen Elizabeth’s School Prayer before grace was said. (The prayer is appended below.)

In his speech, Headmaster Neil Enright paid fulsome tribute to Mr Harris (HM 1984–1999): “Few can have had such a profound, transformational and lasting impact on Queen Elizabeth’s as Eamonn Harris, without whom we, quite simply, may well not be sitting here this evening.

“His bold decision-making, in making the School independent of the local education authority and then restoring academic selection, and the high expectations he had for all in the School community are the bedrocks of our present pre-eminence. We all owe him a debt of great respect and gratitude.”

Mr Enright reported on significant developments during the year, including “the exciting news that we have secured £2.2m of government funding…for our new Music School”.

To prepare the site, the Mayes Building was demolished during the summer. This facility was named in honour of Harry ‘Curly’ Mayes who “spent a full 60 years (from 1902 to 1962) as butler, porter, steward and then caretaker”.

Alluding both to Mr Harris and to Mr Mayes, the Headmaster said: “The present fortunes of the School have been built upon the foundations of the great service given by so many.”

Mr Enright gave a warm, if piquant, welcome to the many ten-year leavers at table, pointing out that Assistant Head David Ryan had described this particular group “as his most challenging in all his years in the Sixth Form”!

“I’m not, though, surprised to see a good turnout, as they have actually proved to be one of the more actively engaged alumni cohorts and are doing lots of good work in support of the School,” he added.

“They were, and remain (on this evening’s evidence), a very sociable and enthusiastic group and it is always a great pleasure to have them here at School events.”

He reported on the start of a project to digitise QE’s archives, beginning with photographs.

And, he said, with the School’s 450th anniversary in 2023 approaching, his predecessor as Headmaster, Dr John Marincowitz (1999–2011), was well on the way to completing his book on the School’s history.

“Recording and giving access to the School’s history is important so that the contributions of people such as Eamonn and Curly Mayes are remembered and so that generations of Elizabethans to come are able to learn about their place in the long and fascinating narrative.”

Mr Enright concluded his speech with a report on QE Connect, the School’s recently launched online community for alumni, which has gained more than 450 members in the space of just a few weeks.

“Whilst we want to help OEs connect to the past, we also have QE Connect to help enable connections in the present and the future,” he said.

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The School Prayer

O Lord God, the Maker and Builder of every house not made with hands, we give thee thanks for this School in which we have our share.

Give thy blessing, we beseech thee, to all this our body, to the Head Master, to the members of the staff, to the boys, and to those who minister our needs.

Inspire us, O Lord, so to do our work today that, even as we are being helped by the remembrance of the loyal lives of those who came before us, so our faithfulness in thy service may aid those who shall take our places.

Remember, O Lord, for good, all who have gone forth from this School, to labour elsewhere in thy kingdom.

Grant that both they, and we, may fulfil thy purpose for us in this life, and finally may attain thine everlasting kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.