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With representatives from more than 50 businesses and organisations – most of them old boys – the 2018 QE Careers Convention was our biggest ever, writes Headmaster Neil Enright.

Volunteers gathered early for a reception and the chance to network in Café 1573. Later, there was a tremendous buzz on the convention floor as alumni shared their experiences and answered questions from Year 11 boys and their parents.

It was an evening that featured a mix of both structured presentations and extensive opportunities for informal conversations between the volunteers and the Year 11 boys with their parents.

We want our boys to be as aware as possible of the many different possibilities that are out there for them, and I am pleased to say that this convention did exactly that, showcasing a very broad range of opportunities. It is always incredibly useful for the boys to be able to seek advice from those who have been at the School and who have had the experience of establishing themselves in their chosen fields.

I was really delighted to see so many alumni there, giving something back, reconnecting with their peers – and clearly enjoying themselves in the process! Many were young professionals who have left the School in the past decade or so.

In addition to representatives of the major professions, those present at the convention included a good number who have forged a path in more unusual careers, such as:

• Sergio Ronchetti (OE 2004-2011), who gave a presentation on Sound Design in Video Games
• Kane Evans (OE 2003-2010), who, after working for Manchester United, now works as a business analyst for Formula 1
• Phil Peters (OE 1997-2004) who leads e-commerce operation Zing Zing, vying to be ‘the best Chinese takeout in the world’
• Civil Service Economist Andrei Sandu (OE 2007-2014) who found himself advising a Government Minister at a European summit just months after beginning his career upon graduating
• Ashish Patel (OE 1997-2004), a medical doctor who is now Head of Research at a venture capital firm. He gave a presentation on Medicine, AI and Venture Capital.

Of course, in addition to supporting this event, OE contributions have done much to boost the broader careers and university preparation programmes that we run throughout the year.

It is a real strength of the Elizabethan community that OEs are so willing to be active in supporting the current boys – and naturally I hope to see even more alumni there at next year’s Careers Convention.

It was standing room only in the Conference Centre when Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary Correspondent, gave a talk to the Politics Society.

With boys eager to hear an inside view on the political machinations surrounding Brexit, Mr D’Arcy’s lecture proved a significant lunchtime draw.

Mr D’Arcy who has been a correspondent for Today in Parliament since 2002 and presents BBC Parliament’s political review show, Book Talk, covered the biggest issues of the day in Parliament. He talked about Brexit in depth, touched on how Parliament operates and shared his own experiences as a journalist.

His career has included stints at LWT’s Weekend World and the Leicester Mercury. Since joining the BBC he has also produced, and occasionally presented, Radio 4’s The Westminster Hour.

He told the boys that politics had not been “normal” over the last two years: “It is unusual that you have Cabinet ministers threatening to resign, or actually resigning, almost daily. Politics used to be boring!”

Politics was now split into Brexit and ‘everything else’, including all the usual big issues such as the NHS, housing and education. He added that dealing with Brexit is very complex: “Because of how closely we have been integrated in a whole range of areas over decades, it will take some time to establish new relationships. It’s like trying to unscramble an egg.”

Generally, in politics and government, he said, it is very difficult to make things much better, but easy to make them very much worse. “The first aim of any politician is to avoid the latter!”

Mr D’Arcy said that Brexit is the biggest thing he will have seen go through Parliament, whether the deal is passed or not. He predicted the process will be very difficult because of the Parliamentary arithmetic and the differences of opinion, particularly within the Conservative Party. But he added that Labour is also divided – their strategy seems to wait and try to force a General Election. But would the public want another one? he wondered, adding that General Elections are exhausting for journalists. At this stage, no serious commentator can really predict, with any certainty, how it will all end up,” he added.

The Headmaster, Neil Enright, said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for the boys to hear from, and engage with, an eminent journalist, who is observing first-hand and up-close the unfolding of the key issues of the day at this pivotal point in recent political history. It is also very pleasing that the very active Politics Society continues to thrive.”

Mr D’Arcy went on to talk more broadly about Parliament, paraphrasing a quotation attributed to Churchill that Parliamentary democracy is “the worst system, apart from all the others”.

He talked through the make-up of Parliament and mentioned safe seats and how they give those members a different focus to those in a close marginal. And yet history shows that those in supposedly safe seats may still have a shock at election time, he pointed out.

Other topics covered included the structure and functions of Parliament, including more technical matters, such as statutory instruments and different mechanisms for changing the law. He noted the difficulties associated with the government not having a functional majority – as seen with the recent row and Government climb-down over fixed-odds betting terminals.

“Rebels find voting against their party leadership easier the more they do it,” he said. “It means that the law can be changed against the Government’s will and it can lose its control over the country, which would be fatal for its credibility.”

There was a Q&A session during which the boys pressed Mr D’Arcy on such matters as: what Theresa May’s strategy should be ahead of a potential election; whether Brexit could trigger independence referenda in Scotland and Northern Ireland; whether there is space for a third big party and why he became a journalist. To this last question, he replied that he is fascinated by the human element of the drama: “As a journalist you get a ring-side seat!”

He was also asked who would be most likely to win a Tory leadership election, to which he said it would depend upon the circumstances under which it arose. Any run-off was likely to be between a ‘remain’ candidate (that is to say, someone who would have been in favour of a remain vote in the original referendum, though might now support the UK leaving the EU) and a ‘leave’ candidate, an enthusiastic Brexiteer.

Mr D’Arcy describes himself as a politics nerd, a cricket fanatic, an amateur cook and a Bruce Springsteen fan.

Broughton successfully took on last year’s champions, Stapylton, in the grand final of QIQE to claim the crown in this year’s inter-House quiz.

The fiercely fought battle in front of the whole of Years 7–10 saw Broughton win with a total of 180 points, ahead of Stapylton’s 100, notwithstanding the presence in the Stapylton team of Year 9 boy Rahul Doshi, who was Channel 4’s Child Genius in 2017.

Both Houses had secured their places in the final after topping their respective group rounds in the earlier stages of the competition, which is modelled on the BBC’s University Challenge.

Organiser James Clarke (OE), who is an Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor, said: “In recent years, QIQE has established itself as a key fixture within our eclectic programme of events that make up the overall House Competition.

“The final was an exciting and enjoyable event which showcased the boys’ impressive general knowledge and involved their competing under considerable time pressure and in front of a very large and enthusiastic audience of their peers. Credit must go to all the participants, and my congratulations to Broughton.”

Biology teacher Hinesh Shah (OE) acted as quiz master for the final in the Shearly Hall, which followed the familiar format of a starter-for-ten, followed by three bonus questions worth 5 points each, with 5 points lost for those who ‘buzzed’ (or, in fact, raised their paddle) before the question was finished and then got the answer wrong. The final lasted 20 minutes.

Each team comprised one boy from each of years 7, 8, 9 and 10. Boys are restricted to only competing in the quiz once, so, for example, last year’s competitors were ineligible.

While Stapylton were strong on buildings & architecture, car manufacturers, food and capital cities, the Broughton boys’ impressive knowledge of astronomy & astrophysics, television characters, authors, football grounds and film scores helped see them to victory.

The Broughton finalists were: Sultan Khokhar (Year 10); Ishaan Mehta (Year 9), Aradhya Singh (Year 8) and Kaushik Reddy Nakki Reddy (Year 7). Stapylton’s team were: Aarav Shah (Year 10); Rahul Doshi (Year 9); Madhav Menon (Year 8) and Koustuv Bhowmick (Year 7).

The full placings of QE’s six Houses were as follows:
1st – Broughton (180 points in the final; topped their group with 115 points)
2nd – Stapylton (100 points in the final; topped their group with 160 points)
3rd – Underne (115 points in group)
4th – Pearce (110 points in group)
5th – Leicester (95 points in group)
6th – Harrisons’ (50 points)

• How would you have fared? Here are six sample questions. Answers at the bottom.
  1. Puck, Bottom and Titania are all characters in which Shakespeare play?
  2. For this airport code, name the European city that you would be flying to:
  OPO
  3. How many colours are there in the spectrum when white light is separated?
  4. Which recently deceased comic book writer has had a cameo in the majority of Marvel films?
  5. The Allianz Arena football ground is home to which European club?
  6. What is the jellylike material that makes up much of a cell inside the cell membrane?

• Answers:
  1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  2. Porto
  3. Seven
  4. Stan Lee
  5. Bayern Munich
  6. Cytoplasm

Queen Elizabeth’s School has been named the country’s top state school in the influential Sunday Times Parent Power survey.

QE overtook the 2017 winners, The Henrietta Barnett School, to head the list of the 150 leading state schools.

The 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 at GCSE.

At QE, 97.3% of A-levels were awarded A* and B in August – the 13th consecutive year in which this key statistic has topped 95%. For GCSEs, 92.2% of examinations received A* or A grades (or their numerical equivalents), while at the very highest level, the proportion of A* grades reached 76.5%, which was a new School record.

QE’s Parent Power success follows the recent publication of Government league tables revealing that its boys make more progress in their first five years than pupils at any other grammar school in the country, according to the Government’s own Progress 8 ‘value-added’ measure.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to both my colleagues and the boys on this very welcome news: I am tremendously proud to lead such an outstanding school. Our position at the head of this survey reflects a sustained and meticulous focus on excellence in all areas of School life.

“We offer a broad and balanced curriculum and seek to foster in our pupils habits of free-thinking scholarship: these combine thorough mastery of their subjects with a desire to pursue their own academic interests beyond the confines of the classroom syllabus.

“Moreover, there is much more to QE than examination success, important as that is in securing places at the world’s best universities. We strongly encourage all boys to take full advantage of the very wide range of extra-curricular activities.

“The fruit of this may be seen in the high standards achieved, for example, on the sports field, in the performing arts and in areas such as robotics, in which QE won a world title this year.

“Through an emphasis on service – such as in our Sixth Form volunteering programme – we aim to ensure that our boys will go on to make a valuable contribution to society.

“In short, QE aims to help our pupils become happy, well-rounded individuals, or, as our School mission has it, to ‘produce young men who are confident, able and responsible’.”

The upper reaches of the Parent Power state school survey are dominated by selective schools. This year’s Parent Power reveals that, in national terms, state schools are closing the gap on the independent sector: the 128 schools in which at least half the GCSEs taken were graded A*, or 9/8, this year include 38 state schools (including QE), or nearly a third. In 2016, the proportion was only 20%.

The Parent Power guide is available online here.

Phil Peters is Managing Director of a fast-growing e-commerce business aiming to revolutionise the Chinese food delivery market.

Phil (OE 1997–2004) leads a team working to ensure London-based Zing Zing the “best Chinese takeout in the world”. Zing Zing, which was launched in 2013, sets itself apart by using only the freshest ingredients – and no monosodium glutamate!

He read Political Science and Philosophy at Birmingham and then worked for BBYO – the world’s largest Jewish youth organisation – before going into management consultancy, training first at PricewaterhouseCoopers and then working at i2a Consulting.

In 2014, he joined Tesco.com’s Customer Fulfilment Team in 2014 to look after various aspects of UK, and then, international online delivery.

Two years later, Phil was appointed as Zing Zing’s Operations Director, becoming MD a year after that. He worked on delivering an ambitious roll-out plan that has already seen the business grow from two sites to six since his arrival, which followed shortly after record-breaking Crowdcube fundraising.

He is pictured above with his colleague, joint Zing Zing founder Mark Schlagman, at the British Chinese Food Awards last year, where the company won the title of Best UK Chinese Takeaway.

With his breadth of experience in the professional services and start-up world, Phil was among the many Old Elizabethan volunteers contributing to QE’s recent Careers Convention for Year 11 boys and their parents, where he enjoyed talking to pupils interested in careers beyond the ‘traditional’ options available to them.