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The long Autumn Term began with the School still in celebratory mood following August’s excellent public examination results.

Our 2013 leavers matched the very considerable achievements of the previous year’s record-breaking cohort, with the proportion of A*-B grades at A-level remaining above 98% this year. The GCSE results were equally impressive: the proportion of A* grades (66%) set a new QE record for the second consecutive year.

As the term has unfolded, QE has reaped the rewards of this repeated high academic achievement in the form of national media acclaim and several new accolades. The School topped league tables in the Daily Telegraph and the Times, as well as taking first place in the Sunday Times Parent Power academic results league table of the top 500 State Secondary Schools. In the latter, QE matched the A-level results of St Paul’s Girls’ School, which headed the separate table for the top 425 Independent Secondary Schools. I recently had the honour of being presented with QE’s Evening Standard Award for Academic Excellence, based on our 2012 results, by Michael Gove.

The Education Secretary was also present at City Hall for the first London Education Conference, during which our School was appointed an inaugural member of Mayor Boris Johnson’s London Schools Gold Club. Member schools are those adjudged to have been exceptionally successful, taking into account the backgrounds of their pupils.

At the conference I attended a number of stimulating debates, seminars and workshops, including one looking at social mobility in relation to access to leading universities. At QE, we pride ourselves on being an entirely meritocratic School: boys may rise as high as their ability and application will take them, regardless of their social or ethnic background. Importantly, we seek to apply this principle not only to the time that boys are at the School; we also encourage them to aim high after they leave us, both in terms of their choice of university and of their eventual career.

To this end, we have a number of programmes and initiatives that seek to prepare boys fully for their future. We recognise that there is an inevitable gulf between the somewhat cloistered day-to-day lives of pupils and students on the one hand, and the world of business on the other. Last year’s Education and Employers Taskforce report identified a clear link between work experience at school and job prospects. To be most effective, work experience should not simply rely on parents’ connections, which may of course be limited in the case of those from modest backgounds; instead, participants should be directed towards diverse employers, the report found. That is exactly what we do at QE – through our work experience programme, to which we attach great importance, through encouraging boys to participate in programmes run by organisations such as the Sutton Trust, and through our annual Careers Convention for Year 11. I am happy to report that this event was well supported again this year, with many parents, friends of the School and OEs acting as advisers.

Similarly, our Sixth Form mock interview programme introduced earlier this year gives boys experience of a formal interview conducted by OEs and friends with significant professional expertise. It is available to all who receive invitations to interview from any university, although this relates mainly to those applying to study Medicine and Dentistry, as well as those looking to Oxford and Cambridge.

Prospective employers value attributes such as: critical thinking; adaptability to different ways of working; an aptitude for technology and, perhaps above all, the ability to continue to learn. Resting on the laurels of past academic achievement, whether at School or university, is not enough. Our School Priorities reflect these requirements. Of course, this should not be understood to imply any dichotomy between knowledge and skills: it is not all about the latter. I regard it as essential that we keep the curriculum under review, making sure that the subject content remains suited to our boys.

While it was gratifying to see a strong first set of results following the introduction of the more rigorous IGCSE Science qualification, the real importance of this change is that our new cohort of Advanced Level scientists in Year 12 now have a stronger foundation. The current Year 11 are preparing to take IGCSEs in Geography and Mathematics.

The Autumn Term concluded with a busy festive musical season, including charity performances at Barnet’s Spires shopping centre and our carol service at the parish church.

May I wish all our alumni a happy Christmas and a prosperous 2014.

Neil Enright

Jerome Singh (OE 2004-2011) has been appointed President of Cambridge University Karate Club for 2013-2014.

His appointment follows a highly successful term of office as Men’s Captain in 2012-13, during which he led the men’s team as it triumphed in the varsity fixture for the seventh consecutive year.

Jerome has been an enthusiastic member of the club since first going up to Cambridge in 2011. After a brief period of recuperation from an ankle injury, he soon began to compete in earnest for the club and was a member’s of that year’s men’s team in the varsity match.

Jerome started karate at the age of seven at his local Shotokan club. (Shotokan is a style of karate founded in Japan by Gichin Funakoshi.) He has won three bronze, one silver and one gold medal at regional championships, as well as taking bronze at the Student Nationals in 2011.

He is reading Archaeology and Anthropology at Caius College, specialising in social anthropology. He plans to complete a Master’s degree at Harvard and then enrol in the Teach First programme, a UK social enterprise with a mission ‘to end inequality in UK education by building a community of exceptional leaders’. Jerome, whose interests also include art, eventually aspires to work in higher education or become a national education policy-maker.

The opening of the new Dining Hall and Café 1573 close to the end of the Autumn Term represents a milestone in the implementation of the School’s estates strategy. These openings mark the completion of the second phase of this major building project at the rear of the Main School Hall.

Both facilities feature interior design with graphics that reflect the history of the School. Café 1573, which opens on to Red Square, provides a coffee shop-style social environment in which senior pupils can relax. It is also being used by the School to provide hospitality for guests and parents on special occasions, starting with this year’s Christmas Concert.

The first phase of the project, a Food Technology area, opened last year. Work on the final phase, the new Queen’s Library, is nearing completion. Once the furniture arrives next month, the process of installing the necessary IT infrastructure and filling the shelves with 13,000 books will begin.  The Library will open later in the academic year, offering 100 computer terminals and 40-50 additional study desks so that Sixth-Formers can undertake independent study, while pupils from the lower years are also accommodated.

Work is also now well underway on a separate project: a £800,000 new roof for the Fern Building. Replacing the previous faulty roof, this structure will safeguard of this very large building. “We have a 10-15 year estates strategy, and, thanks to the increased height that the new roof provides, one of the strategy’s objectives will be to create a new sports hall at one end,” said the Headmaster.

The Old Elizabethans Association Dinner saw a return to the School by former Headmaster Dr John Marincowitz, who spoke of the remarkable changes he oversaw during his 26 years at QE.

Firstly, there was the transformation of QE from an undersubscribed comprehensive to an outstanding one. The next phase he recounted was the reintroduction of academic selection and QE’s development into a leading grammar school. Finally came the progression to become one of the leading academic schools nationally, across both the state and independent sectors.

The dinner was well supported, with strong attendance from the ten-year leavers (the class of 2003-04), for whom this annual gathering now serves as a reunion. John stressed the importance of strong ties between the School and its Old Boys.

He also spoke of how much he is enjoying life, recommending retirement to his audience! He explained that retirement provides opportunities to spend time with those who mean most to you (his retirement almost perfectly coincided with the birth of his granddaughter, Amelia) and to spend time on those pursuits which most interest you.  He gave the example of his latest sailing adventure, in which he took his boat to Corfu after four weeks’ sailing from Totnes, taking in Brittany, La Coruna, Porto, Gibraltar, Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily and the Straits of Messina along the way.

In his speech, the current Headmaster, Neil Enright, updated the dinner guests on progress at the School, including the opening of new buildings.

He looked at School life in 1573, when the School day ran from 6am to 5pm, only Latin was allowed to be spoken and boys frequently made a mess when cutting their quill pens. Today, he said, QE remains one of the few state schools where Latin is still taught.  Spilt ink is no longer such a problem: “In 2013, the major source of stress seems to be iPad batteries running flat – much less messy, but equally as frustrating.”

“OEs are becoming more frequent and I enjoy giving tours of the site and catching up over coffee on these occasions,” the Headmaster said.

“This term many of our younger OEs have been assisting with careers advice and mock university entrance interviews. I would encourage anyone interested in participating in this in the future to get in touch with my office.

“It is always nice to see OEs at the dinner debate which is organised by the Association in the Spring Term and I also enjoy my hearty lunches with the Forty Society.”

“Founder’s Day, is of course, when we hope to see all OEs back at the School, whether it is for the church service, roll call, fete or the past v present boys’ cricket fixture,” he said.

OE Peter Sumpter’s successful career with the BBC has resulted in the School getting involved in an award-winning national project aimed at developing journalistic skills among 11-16 year-olds.

Peter (1968-74), who is the Craft Lead of the Technical Managers for BBC TV news, has worked alongside a huge number of famous people, including Nelson Mandela, top musicians and various American presidents. Pictured here is Peter’s pass from the 1997 General Election campaign, during which he followed soon-to-be Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has most recently been heavily involved in the BBC coverage surrounding Nelson Mandela’s death.

“I wasn’t the most academic of pupils, although the ethos of the School has served me well,” he says. “Over the years, I have designed lighting for several programmes and lit several music items for TV. I have worked on BBC events around the UK involving local communities. During the last seven years, I have helped to develop the award-winning BBC School Report project, which won the 2013 European Diversity Award for journalism.

In addition to his own history as a QE alumnus, Peter also has a work colleague of many years’ standing who is the father of the School’s Senior Year Head, Alexandra Pearson. Through this connection, he suggested that QE become involved in the School Report project, visiting the School recently to explain it in person.

As a result, QE will be a School Report participant in 2014. Using lesson plans and materials from a dedicated section of the BBC website, and with support from BBC staff and partners, Head of English Susannah Sweetman and English teacher Tom Quinn will help QE boys develop their skills to become ‘School Reporters’. In March, schools take part in an annual News Day, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school website, to which the BBC aims to link.

“With real-time deadlines to deliver an end product, the experience the pupils get out of this is fantastic and it gives a different dimension to the traditional learning process,” says Peter. “I am looking forward to working with the teachers and students at QE to ensure that this is a great success.”

Tom Quinn reports that the project has got off to an encouraging start, with no fewer than 30 Year 9 boys coming along to an initial meeting involving BBC News presenter and former teacher Huw Edwards, who works on School Report.

“We discussed the project after I gave an initial presentation on what it entails, and the boys were very enthusiastic and receptive; they came up with possible general focuses for a report, ranging from the effects of video gaming, drugs in sport and environmental challenges, to the developments of technology for young people, changes in British education and the impact of celebrity culture,” Tom said.

“We also discussed the diversity of roles and responsibilities to be fulfilled from Peter’s suggestion list.” This includes not only student correspondents, but also editors (a senior editor, news editor and sports editor), researchers, a director, cameramen, picture editors, lighting operatives, a soundman and those with the skills to build a QE-branded backdrop and design the graphics. After a further meeting at the end of term, the boys will be working on their ideas over the Christmas break.