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Pupil Saim Khan drew on his own experience with QE’s Young Enterprise team to identify ‘character’ as a key attribute for leaders of smaller groups in a prize-winning essay.

Saim, who was in Year 10 in 2021–2022, took the top prize in the Sustainable Success Essay Competition run by management consultants Telos Partners in partnership with Young Enterprise nationally. He wins £1,000 and four hours of mentoring from Telos Partners.

His winning words focused on the particular nature of the leadership of small groups, where, he wrote, character was especially important: “You need to inspire and make people want to follow you.”

The competition, which was for those aged 14–18, gave entrants this challenge: Using your own thoughts, ideas and experiences what do you believe are the qualities of a leader that is able to lead an organisation not only to short-term success, but one that will be successful for many generations to come?

The competition briefing also included this quotation from United States Army general Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the coalition forces in the 1991 Gulf War: “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.”

Saim was a senior member of a QE Young Enterprise that offered ‘stress balls’ for sale during the year. The team took part in a Young Enterprise trade fair and also had a stall at The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s School fete on Founder’s Day in June. There, they took a two-pronged approach, selling their remaining stock and running a Make your own stress ball activity, which particularly drew in younger boys.

Saim said that participating in Young Enterprise this year was “a great, different experience”, while the essay competition was “a reflective opportunity to academically tie it off and consider what I’ve learned”. He noted that he generally enjoys essay-writing too.

His essay, which included case studies, reflected his observation that, in the news, leadership is usually considered at a large or national scale. Little or no reference is made to the sort of small-group leadership involved in Young Enterprise, where a company might comprise only about 25 people. Leadership of such a group, and others like it, needs to be more dynamic and more equal, with less of a ‘leader and subordinates’ ethos. At this scale, he viewed character as being especially important: “You need to inspire and make people want to follow you.” By contrast, at a larger scale, not everyone will know you, and therefore character can be less important. “The CEO of Apple needs a strategy, but for regional managers it is more about managing people,” he said.

Other specific lessons drawn from his Young Enterprise experience that he covered in the essay were:

• How to include everyone in the group in big decisions
• How this creates unity
• What to do when things go wrong.

On this last point, Saim said: “Things go wrong quite a lot! For example, a week before the trade fair, we had under half of our expected stock. It’s important not to panic – do first, panic later.” Accordingly, the team simply got on with the meetings necessary to put things right.

“In other clubs, people share a defined passion, or it is more structured. Young Enterprise leaves it up to pupils to make decisions. We didn’t start all united in our interests, so there was scope for debate and discussion.”

With his company, decision-making was initially all taken by voting at the wider group level. “We realised as we went on that this was inefficient. We then had four–five people who took on leadership roles and made more decisions.”

Since this resulted in other members of the team feeling “less personally invested”, there was further refinement of the decision-making process, with company votes reintroduced for more important decisions. In short, he said, strategy was then determined by the whole company, with implementation delegated to a smaller group of leaders.

Saim was invited to a Young Enterprise Company Programme Final, during which it was announced that he had taken the top prize. “I was really surprised to win this – a national competition. I knew I could write a good essay, but you are competing against so many other people. It was a pleasant surprise to be invited to the final and I was then ecstatic to find out I’d won.”

He has yet to decide how to spend his prize money.

Old Elizabethan Sajjad Dar spoke to QE geographers about the powerful lessons he learned while volunteering at Eleonas refugee camp in Greece.

Sajjad (OE 2009–2016), who graduated in Human Geography from Durham University, highlighted how media portrayals often create negative perceptions of refugees, often showing them either as a threat or as merely passive receivers of aid.

He set out in his talk to make a case for an alternative view, highlighting the fact that, for example, refugees were generally better at organising workshops than the volunteer helpers working in the camp.

Emily Parry, Head of Geography, said: “I am very grateful to Sajjad for giving an inspiring and engaging talk that so powerfully illustrated why Human Geography is a fascinating and important area of study.”

After completing his MA in Human Geography at Durham, Sajjad took an MSc in Spatial Planning at UCL, which he finished last year. He is currently working as a planning officer for the London Borough of Newham.

His talk, which was entitled The Power of Representation, centred on his dissertation, which compared media representations of refugees with his own experience of volunteering at the refugee camp and was entitled Navigating everyday life at camp Eleonas.

The camp in Athens hosts refugees from Syria, Senegal and Somalia. Sajjad’s work in a small school there focused on helping young refugees with Key Stage 1-level studies and on teaching English speaking, literacy and comprehension at a higher level.

Corresponding to the dissertation’s title, in his talk he considered how refugees live their lives in the camp and “what we can learn about their life from this”.

His aim, he said, was to “unveil narratives that are often not shown by the general media”. How refugees are represented is very important, he averred. Sajjad noted that ‘flooding’ metaphors are often used in reference to refugees, implying that they present a problem which is “overwhelming and uncontrollable”.

He added: “Whoever has the power to define an object has a lot of power over that object, with the object in this case being refugees.”

Sajjad also talked about his degree studies and the career he has recently started. He reflected, in particular, on the field trip he took to Jerusalem in the fourth year of his MA and discussed the differing senses of place in the various religious quarters of the city.

While at Durham, he was also his college’s representative for the COCO charity, which works globally with the aim of providing “sustainable sources of quality education to children living in poor and marginalised communities”.

The lunchtime talk was open to boys studying Geography in Years 10 and 12.

Boys from QE picked up an existing pre-pandemic partnership with one girls’ school and staged a joint concert as part of their developing links with another.

Year 8 and Year 10 pupils from QE met their counterparts from The Henrietta Barnett School for debating – part of the well-established academic partnership between the two schools.

And QE Together – a recent initiative led by sixth-formers at QE and near-neighbour Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School – gained fresh momentum with the staging of the joint concert for residents at a nursing home.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “QE is very much part of the community and, as such, we value our local partnerships highly. Our academic links with HBS give our boys the chance to flex their intellectual muscles against their peers in activities such as debating, while the focus of our link with QEGS is on community action.

“In addition, both these connections offer our boys the opportunity to socialise and study with girls, thus better preparing them for university and careers.”

QE’s Head of Academic Enrichment, Nisha Mayer, said: “The Year 8s enjoyed an animated and enjoyable morning at HBS. They debated in mixed teams in breakout rooms before assembling for a grand final.”

Topics for the Year 8 event included ‘school strikes’ for climate change, and rich countries accepting more refugees.

The motion of the final debate – made up of the best debaters from both schools selected from the earlier sessions – was the prospect of extending the school day. “Unsurprisingly perhaps, the opposition won the debate, but the proposers certainly made an excellent case for making up time lost during the pandemic,” said Mrs Mayer.

Year 10 QE boys travelled to HBS for a preparatory workshop for their debates, which included agreeing on the motions to be discussed. The girls then came to QE for the debates themselves, with the final held in the new Friends’ Recital Hall.

For QE Together, a concert took place at Barnet’s Abbey Ravenscroft Park Nursing Home, involving musicians from both QE and QEGS.

Organised by QE Vice-Captain Dylan Domb, of Year 12, who is a regular voluntary helper at the home, the lunchtime event included music for clarinet played by the girls and songs sung by QE’s TTBB Vocal Group.

QE musician and fellow Vice-Captain Jao-Yong Tsai, of Year 12, said: “QE Together is aiming to foster greater connections with all aspects of the local community, and the presentation of a charity concert at a nursing home within walking distance of both schools was a strong illustration of such goals.

“Students at both schools have long enjoyed volunteering locally, and integrating the arts into both that and a project that brings the two schools together is but the beginning of a growing relationship with people in the local area.”

QE Together has plans for further events, including a Big Litter Pick.

QE expanded its series of popular challenges for local primary school children this year, adding a humanities day to the programme.

The events, which are part of QE’s partnerships work with the local community, are aimed at giving Year 5 girls and boys an early taste of secondary school education.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We are pleased to support local primary schools in this way.

“I know that our staff and pupils involved in running these enrichment activities greatly enjoy the opportunity to meet the visiting children.”

The first of the three days was the ever-popular Primary Forensics Workshop. The visitors were tasked with completing a number of experiments and analyses to work out who had murdered the Headmaster!

There were stations where the children could undertake: hair and fibre analysis using a microscope; fingerprint analysis, and blood spatter analysis (with a blood substitute).

The pupils worked to solve the ‘crime’, using the evidence they collected to build a case, while also weighing up the respective motives of the suspects.

Boys from Year 12 helped staff run this workshop, engaging with the children at each station.

In the Maths and English Challenge, the girls and boys had to solve a series of games and puzzles that ranged from a cross-number round to a session looking at composing and performing poetry.

There was a focus on teamwork and collaboration. Each team had the support of a QE Year 7 pupil.

Special plaudits went to Foulds School pupils, who achieved a near-clean sweep of the prizes, having impressed across the various disciplines on the day.

The new humanities day hosted by the History, Geography and Economics departments comprised two separate activities.

Firstly, teams were given the challenge of designing a castle on paper. They had to base their design on a certain set of criteria and follow a budget, requiring them to decide which features they wanted to prioritise.

They then faced a number of scenarios, presenting both challenges and opportunities for their fortifications. Could their castle and kingdom survive?

“This was a way of exploring history and strategy in a fun and engaging way,” said Mr Enright. “The Year 5 pupils also had to adapt their plans as the scenarios unfolded, which meant teams had to communicate well and quickly make decisions.”

There was then a Sustainability Challenge run jointly by Geography and Economics. The children had to work in groups and devise a sustainable product. They designed their product, chose a logo and decided on their target market. Then each group presented to the other children in attendance. Among the ideas generated were: a mobile phone where the case is a solar panel and charges the phone, and a ‘plastic’ bottle where the bottle itself is biodegradable.

“Our staff were really impressed with the confidence shown by the children in their presentations and by the creativity they brought to bear in designing their products,” said the Headmaster.

Participating Barnet primary schools this year included: Underhill, Whitings Hill, Christchurch, and Foulds.

QE played a central role in the High Barnet Chamber Music Festival, with the School’s new Friends’ Recital Hall serving as the main venue and its own musicians performing in a special charity concert there.

Pupils and staff performed to support victims of the war in Ukraine, with donations going to UNICEF and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.

Joshua Ballance, artistic director of the festival, which is now in its second year, told interviewer Nick Jones, of The Barnet Society, that QE had blazed a trail for others to follow. “It is a real breakthrough for the festival to stage a showcase concert by a school orchestra and jazz band, and we hope other schools will join us next year.

“To demonstrate our involvement with local schools, we shall be running master classes at Queen Elizabeth’s with some of the professional musicians who have performed at the festival, ” said Mr Ballance. “We want to extend our reach-out programme and offer master classes at other schools. Our link with Queen Elizabeth’s demonstrates the partnership we would like to create.”

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “QE is very much a part of Barnet, so it was splendid to support this new festival bringing professional music to our community. I was also pleased that our own musicians were involved and that we were able to showcase our new facilities to music-lovers beyond our immediate Elizabethan family. I look forward to many similar events in the future.”

During the charity concert, QE’s Director of Music, Ruth Partington, joined Year 12 pupil Jao-Yong Tsai and the School’s accompanist, Tadashi Imai, in a performance of Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio, for clarinet, viola and piano.

There was a performance of Brahms’ Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, i. Allegro & ii. Adagio. The Jazz Band and QE’s junior jazz group, conducted by Music teacher Caroline Grint, performed a medley for the concert’s finale that included Rock Around the Clock, Georgia on My Mind, and Bandstand Boogie.

Following the charity concert, audiences returned to the 230-seat recital hall – part of the School’s new Music complex officially opened in May – for the festival’s final two events.

First the Mad Song ensemble of young musicians, directed by Mr Ballance, performed a range of music by modern composers Missy Mazzoli, Kaija Saariaho, Joan Tower, Richard Causton, Barbara Monk Feldman, and Steve Reich. The evening was acclaimed by Bernard Hughes, reviewer for specialist website theartsdesk.com as an “ambitious and intriguing concert”.

More familiar musical fare came in the final concert held in The Friends’ Recital Hall, when cellist Ben Tarlton and pianist Robin Green played Beethoven’s Sonata in F for Cello and Piano, Nadia Boulanger’s Three Pieces for Cello and Piano and Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Cello and Piano.