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Nine Old Elizabethan friends whose careers have taken very different paths found time to pass on tips to young pupils when they met up for a reunion at the School.

All but one of the group from the Class of 2016 (those who started at QE in 2009) were from Broughton House, and so they duly enjoyed the opportunity to talk to the young Broughtonians of today.

They also seized the chance to meet up with some of their old teachers and to marvel at the changes to the School campus since they left.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It was good to learn that this group still retains great affection for their alma mater and to see that friendships formed at QE really do stand the test of time, even with some of this group having left before Year 13 (including one of their number, Brian Yoon, moving to South Korea as early as Year 9).”

The visit was arranged after one of the group, Alexander Ng, contacted Headmaster Neil Enright.

First stop was a trip down memory lane with a visit to 7B’s form time, where Languages teacher Marie-Jo Jacquin is still the form tutor, just as she was in their day back in 2009.

They then did a careers ‘speed-dating’ workshop in which they introduced their roles and industries, and the key skills and routes into it, to small groups of Year 8 boys. The group included doctors, engineers, a lawyer and a representative of the film industry. There was an opportunity for the boys to ask questions of the visitors.

As well as being taken on a tour of the campus, the group also caught up with some familiar faces, including: the Headmaster; Deputy Head (Pastoral) David Ryan; Sarah Westcott Assistant Head (Pupil Progress); Mathematics teacher & Head of Academic Administration Wendy Fung, and Head of Physics Jonathan Brooke.

The nine were:

• Three medical doctors: Alexander Ng, who went to UCL and is now at Barnet Hospital; David Hao, and Michael Yeung (Cambridge);
• Two engineers: mechanical engineer Lampojan Raveenthiranathan, who studied at UCL and now works for a company which designs and manufactures components for military aircraft ejector seats, and civil engineer Roderick Lee;
• Brian Yoon, who works in finance;
• Prahlad Patel, who studied Actuarial Science at City University, but is now in the film industry and has been working on Season 5 of Netflix’s The Crown, digitally refining the images;
• Lawyer Meer Gala-Shah;
• David Dubinsky, who read Physics & Astronomy at Durham.

Eight of the group were from Broughton, with odd man out Michael Yeung, of Leicester House, made an honorary Broughtonian for the day.

Zaki Mustafa was the “clear winner” in his age group in a prestigious financial journalism competition.

In his winning essay on the impact of technology on money, the Year 11 pupil ranged widely, starting with the first known currency in ancient Mesopotamia and ending with consideration of how modern financial companies could both use and abuse consumer data.

He won the 14–15 age group in the Young Financial Journalist competition run by the London Institute of Banking & Finance (LIBF) and the Financial Times (FT).

After reading his article, competition judge Claer Barrett, who is the FT’s Consumer Editor, said: “Zaki was the clear winner in this category. I loved his point about gambling with plastic chips and how this involves a similar sense of detachment to using contactless payments.”

Her fellow judge, mathematician, teacher, broadcaster and writer Bobby Seagull, praised the “very mature and clear writing for someone so young!”

Zaki was congratulated by QE’s Head of Economics Shamendra Uduwawala: “This was a well-argued piece of writing which gave an impressive overview of the opportunities and risks that come with the application of technology, including AI, to the world of finance.”

Reflecting on his success, Zaki explained why he had entered the competition. After starting his Economics GCSE last year, he said, “I wanted to educate myself a little bit about how technology is changing the way we view money.”

In his essay, he covered topics including:

• Today’s near-cashless society
• The rise in fraud and cybercrime, including the issue of scams that “impacts the elderly disproportionately”
• The rise of “entirely intangible” cryptocurrencies.

The 730-word composition concluded: “In summary, technology has provided huge benefits to the financial world, namely making payments far more efficient and traceable than hard cash. In spite of this, one must always remember to be vigilant, in light of the increasing risks that are associated with such a luxury.”

Zaki wins a cash prize of £150 and a certificate bearing the judges’ comments. His prize also included ten free places for QE pupils to complete the LIBF’s Lessons in Financial Education (LiFE) programme.

Neil Enright, Headmaster of Queen Elizabeth’s School, said today: “I know that the School community, alongside the nation at large, will be greatly saddened and deeply moved at the news of Her Majesty’s passing. We send our heartfelt condolences and loyal wishes to the Royal Family.

“Our School, founded by Queen Elizabeth I, has truly flourished in this second Elizabethan age. The past seven decades have seen momentous changes for the School, and in all our lives, yet through this time, Her Majesty has been a constant. She has been the nation’s strength and stay in difficult times and in good.

“An example of utter dedication, devotion to public service and unwavering commitment to the people of our country and the Commonwealth, she is rightly respected, admired and loved by people across the world. She was someone from whom we could all take inspiration and was in possession of so many of the qualities we value and seek to inculcate in our own Elizabethans.

“Whilst this is a moment of sadness, it is also an opportunity to be grateful for her lifetime of service and dignified leadership; for the impact she had on so many causes and charities; and to recognise how completely she fulfilled the promise she made to her subjects on her twenty-first birthday that ‘my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service’.”

QE pupils Abhinav Sandeep and Vyom Srivastava took third place in their age group in a global competition seeking to harness the power of robots to tackle environmental problems.

The pair, who have just started in Year 9, were the only winners outside North America in the Nature Recovery Robots virtual design challenge.

Their Buginator robot is designed to help farmers combat swarms of pests, thus protecting precious ecosystems while the farmers remain safely inside.

The School’s Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, said: “This is a tremendous achievement, and it is exciting to see that Abhinav and Vyom used their skills to develop a robot with a serious purpose, namely boosting the global food supply and helping farmers.”

The competition was run by REC Foundation (the organisation behind the worldwide VEX robotics programmes for young people) and technology company PTC.

It aimed to encourage the engineers of tomorrow to think about how they could help to tackle current global environmental problems.

The QE pair quickly homed in on the problems caused in agriculture by insects, especially locusts. Their submission stated that these “have been growing in numbers over the last few years” and were destroying crops and huge quantities of agricultural produce.

“Our robot has a few key mechanisms, the first being the front-wheel-drive to gain traction on uneven surfaces. The second being the pivot which holds a smartphone, which connects via Bluetooth to a computer screen. The third mechanism is the hammer, which pushes down the spray-can nozzle and sprays anti-insect solution. The last mechanism is the adjustable phone-grip.

“One weakness is that the spray can itself is not adjustable, so it would be more useful for shorter plants. One strength, however, is that there is a smart camera, allowing for possible AI development. The design would be feasible to build, although it would require a laser cutter and 3D printer.”

“This design could save tonnes of food, which could be used to feed people, instead of bugs. Our robot is unique because there is not currently a semi-automatic way to efficiently kill bugs.

As a prize, Abhinav and Vyom receive a $500 VEX Gift certificate.

For a more detailed look at their design, visit the Onshape 3D CAD website.

Old Elizabethan Priyan Shah and his family are so passionate about education that they have set up their own awards scheme to encourage the pupils of today.

Together with his parents, Dhiru and Rami, Priyan (OE 1991–1998) visited the School to present DVS Foundation Awards to ten sixth-formers.

The awards seek to promote a virtuous circle of motivation and success, together with kindness. And they are only one facet of the family’s philanthropic work: the foundation’s focus is on education, food insecurity and healthcare, in both the UK and East Africa.

Headmaster Neil Enright thanked Priyan and his parents for their visit, during which they addressed the whole of the current Year 13: “We are really grateful to the family for their generosity in awarding each of our ten prize winners a £100 Amazon voucher, and I know that the whole year group are, in turn, grateful for the great advice Priyan passed on to them.”

Priyan read Accounting & Finance at the University of Kent at Canterbury and then completed a postgraduate degree at the LSE. His father established the family’s commercial property investment business, DVS Property, in 1985. The company specialises in UK institutional real estate investment across sectors including logistics, automotive, out-of-town retail and supermarkets, as well as holding occupational assets that include student accommodation and hotels.

Having been part of the business throughout his career, Priyan today runs the company with his brothers, Julan and Prag. He is also actively involved in the running of the foundation, which was set up in 2012 to formalise the family’s giving.

Introducing its work in a special assembly, he explained that the foundation supports other organisations as well as operating its own programmes. These  include not only the awards programme, which was launched in 2021, but also its WhyOhYou personal development programme. QE plans to get involved in WhyOhYou during the autumn.

“Focusing on the individual (the name is a play on words for ‘YOU’), the programme is a five-week personal development journey that provides youth aged 15–18 with the space and tools to explore who they are, what they want and how to achieve it,” said Priyan, who is a member of the School’s philanthropic 450 Club. WhyOhYou is run by Rupal Shah (no relation), who was recruited by the foundation approximately four years ago, and by Priyan’s wife, Asmi, who has worked at EY for over ten years as an actuary and supports the global firm’s mentoring programme.

The Headmaster added: “I look forward to working with the foundation through WhyOhYou in the coming months: my thanks go to Rupal Shah for her work coordinating the scheme.”

The awards, set out below, cover a number of academic subjects, as well as extra-curricular activities.

Priyan and Asmi have a daughter and baby son. Priyan enjoys travelling and hiking. A long-time racquet sports enthusiast, he continues to play tennis and badminton.