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Founder’s Day is in many ways the highlight of the year for the entire Queen Elizabeth’s School community – which emphatically includes our old boys, as well as current QE families. I was so pleased to see and meet so many Old Elizabethans at this year’s celebration, with the numbers swelled particularly by past pupils from recent generations.

I hope to see equally large numbers of past pupils at our next major alumni event, The Old Elizabethans’ Association Dinner on Friday 17th November. It is always an enjoyable occasion and I do hope that many reading this will accept this invitation to come along and hear our guest speaker, Robert ‘Judge’ Rinder (1989–1994).

The preceding day, Thursday 16th November, sees another occasion with heavy involvement from our old boys, our annual Careers Convention for Year 11 boys and their parents. We are always interested to hear from old boys who would be prepared to share their professional experience and expertise: if you are interested, do, please, contact my office.

Founder’s Day 2017 marked 444 years of the School’s history. The day began as usual with our Thanksgiving Service at Chipping Barnet Parish Church, followed by the procession back to the School and the Roll Call and Reading of the Chronicle in front of the Main Building.

Our guest speaker at the service was an old boy, guest speaker Ashley-James Turner (OE 2001–2008), who is today Director of Business Development at CoreAzure, a leading Microsoft UK Partner specialising in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

After his A-levels, Ashley-James went up to Oxford to read Geography. Upon graduating in 2011, he began work in the field of sustainability and environmental science, before making the transition into IT. But he cheerfully admitted to the congregation: “As anyone who knows me will be able to attest, I am not the most obvious candidate when it comes to technology. As my IT team tell me, the biggest threat to my laptop isn’t malware – it’s me! I still cannot figure out how to connect my iPhone with the car’s handsfree, and heaven forbid should I try to navigate through satellite television…”

He reflected on how technology had moved on in the brief period since he was at QE – “we had white boards that were on rollers…and I can remember when I thought Snake on the Nokia 3310 was surely the greatest technological triumph of the 21st century”. Today, Ashley-James counts the support he is able to provide to educational institutions such as QE in dispersing the latest advances in technology as one of the privileges of his job.

The service featured anthems from composers including Vaughan Williams, Tavener and Rutter performed by School musicians and the School and Chamber choirs. Bible readings were given by current School Captain Oliver Robinson, and his predecessor, Varun Vassanth, while the Headmaster led the prayer of remembrance for old boys who had died recently.

Once the formalities were concluded, the Founder’s Day Fete and the annual Stanley Busby Memorial Cricket Match took place. As is now the custom, the match featured a team of alumni taking on the present School First XI on the Third Field.

This year, it was present pupils who won, but by the narrowest of margins. Batting first, the old boys set 165 for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs. The innings highlight was the 91 from 57 balls from Kushal Patel (OE 2009–2016). Director of Sport Jonathan Hart said: “It shows that spending a year out in Australia playing Grade cricket has put him in good touch.”

The First XI lost a couple of early wickets, but a 46 from the in-form Kevin Van der Geest and a 59 from Ayush Shah had the game looking safe.  However, once they were both out, things became very close, Mr Hart reported. “With the game tied and two balls remaining, a sharp piece of fielding from Ram Sivarajah gained a run-out. So it was down to the last ball, and it was the First XI who claimed victory, managing to secure the one run required to win.“

On the Stapylton Field, the fete presented a colourful spectacle at which OEs and all our other guests had ample opportunity to relax and have some fun on an unusually hot early summer’s day. Performances by School musicians contributed to the vibrant, festive atmosphere, as did the stalls selling a wide variety of international cuisines. The fete, which is the culmination of many months of planning by the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s, raised an impressive total of almost £20,000 for the School this year.

Neil Enright

FUTURE EVENTS

Careers Convention

• Autumn 2017: Thursday 16th November 2017
• To include pre-event reception for participating OE volunteers
• Email Matthew Rose (OE) in the Headmaster's Office to volunteer

OE Association Dinner

• Friday 17th November 2017
• Guest speaker: Robert Rinder (OE 1989–1994)
• Tickets will be available from the online shop in September

For more information about alumni events, please contact the Headmaster's office

Old Elizabethan Aidan Radnedge is Chief Reporter at Metro, which last month overtook The Sun to become the UK’s biggest weekday newspaper by circulation.

Aidan (OE 1988-1995) reports on major national and international events and has worked as a war correspondent and an international undercover journalist. He has also written books on world football and about the Olympics.

He follows in the footsteps of his father, Keir Radnedge, a noted football journalist who has written for World Soccer magazine for around half-a-century and is the author of 33 books.

“I have very fond memories of QE,” says Aidan, who recalls, in particular, “trips to Germany to appreciate and enrich our understanding of friendly counterparts”.  He won QE prizes and commendations for Music, History and Politics and was a Form Captain. School records show that he gained some early journalistic experience by working on the Underne House magazine.

After QE, Aidan went to Birmingham University, where he read English.

He happily recalls attending a QE Dinner Debate ten years after leaving School: “Six of us went as a gang and found former classmates surprised to find so many of us were still friends as adults – as we remain: the best of friends, a good gang.”

Aidan is modest about his career – “apologies to QE for squandering such good grounding and potential” – yet his newspaper has a circulation of close to 1.5 million and is also widely read online.  And he routinely writes front-page leads on the biggest news stories of the day, from the death of three-year-old Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, who drowned while trying to enter Europe with his family in 2015, to last year’s Brexit referendum.

“In attempts at boasting mode, I would point towards times as a foreign correspondent in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan; working undercover in crisis-ridden Zimbabwe at a time when foreign journalists were officially banned; and to working in earthquake-hit Nepal, famine-ridden Ethiopia and reporting child-soldier stories in Sierra Leone and Cambodia.”

His sports books have been for major publishers, such as Carlton Books and Dorling Kindersley.

Recruitment expert Santino Boffa is now the global chief head-hunter for a fast-expanding international technology company.

His role as Global Talent Acquisition Manager for Qubit is the latest post in what has already been a highly-varied career.

After reading Law at Sheffield, Santino (OE 1996–2003) first became a professional football coach. He later moved into recruitment, taking a number of posts before a secondment in 2014 saw him helping to launch a global banking programme – Santander’s My Rewards – to over 3 million account holders.

Santino began working for Qubit, a Software as a Service (SaaS) start-up company specialising in personalisation, in March 2016. Qubit, which has received more than $76m in venture capital funding, helps more than 300 of the world’s top consumer brands to understand and influence how people interact with them across multiple digital channels, including web, mobile and email. Customers include John Lewis, TOPSHOP and Hilton Hotels.

His London-based job involves recruiting engineers globally, with a specific focus on software engineers and product managers. He is also responsible for shaping and executing global recruitment strategies and building world-class teams.

Earlier this month, Santino visited the School to help out as part of a careers event. “It was great being back at QE. The School Hall seems a lot smaller these days – and I was really impressed with the new facilities,” he said.

“My memories of the School include early-morning games lessons in the old swimming pool in the middle of winter, with the roof leaking. The students today don’t know how good they have it!”

He said: “I like to spend my time outside work travelling to new countries and watching my beloved Arsenal home and away.”

Santino this month celebrates the first anniversary of his wedding to Carmela Vitale, who works in advertising.

While life at Queen Elizabeth’s School has continued calmly this term, the country at large has been beset by a string of terrible episodes, including terrorist outrages and the fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington. On a number of occasions, we have joined the rest of the nation in honouring the dead and remembering the injured and the bereaved through the observance of a minute’s silence. Such events inevitably leave their mark on young and old alike.

Against this backdrop, I am acutely conscious that young people today face many challenges to their mental and emotional wellbeing in a world that has changed considerably since their own parents were children. The curtailment of outdoor play and the prevalence of family breakdown have been cited by commentators as ‘dehumanising’ factors deleterious to a child’s ability to form loving relationships and to trust people. And while technology has undoubtedly brought benefits, an addiction to smartphones, to social media and to computer games is too often replacing the normal human interaction that previous generations took for granted, reducing young people’s capacity for empathy and leaving them socially isolated. Moreover, research is still uncovering the factors which account for the tendency of some older male adolescents to adopt unhelpful, and even risky, behaviours; the key is likely to lie in understanding how a combination of genes, childhood experience and the environment a boy had in early adolescence affect his behaviour at a time when the brain is undergoing physiological change.

Now, more than ever, it is important that teachers, parents and the boys themselves pay due regard to the mental and emotional health of our pupils. To this end, we already have pastoral strategies in place and are also currently developing a new mental wellbeing policy for the School. Pupils are encouraged to engage with political and social issues, as demonstrated by this term’s mock General Election and by tutor-time discussions that have focused on the recent tragedies. Form tutors have been working on developing in pupils the seven ‘learnable skills of resilience’. Alongside such collective approaches, more intensive support is available for individuals, whether to deal with an existing problem or to intervene pre-emptively at an early stage.

Interestingly, several of our alumni have touched on such themes recently. At our recent Junior Awards Ceremony, the guest of honour, Prashant Raval (OE 2003-2010), spoke about the lessons he had learned from both successes and failures. He underlined the importance of hard work and preparation and of savouring achievements when they come. But, recalling that he had been “quite the perfectionist” while a pupil himself, he had some further wise counsel for our young award-winners: “What I’ve realised, alas, is that in the real world, it is nigh-on impossible to achieve 100% in everything, all of the time, and you will make mistakes along the way. Don’t be afraid of these mistakes – instead, embrace them as opportunities to learn.” Prashant took a First in Economics at University College London and then worked initially as an analyst with UBS Investment Bank. After that, he became a Senior Commercial Manager for Aston Villa Football Club, before taking up his present senior post in Operations for Uber. “At the age of 24, it’s perhaps slightly unusual that I’m already in my third full-time job. But this professional diversity has enabled me to begin to truly understand what makes a job more fulfilling, rewarding and enjoyable than another – and that is the scope for learning,” he said.

Our guest speaker at the Thanksgiving Service on the morning of Founder’s Day, Ashley-James Turner (OE 2001–2008), rightly reminded us that the commitment, sacrifice and diligence of QE parents are core not only to the success of their own sons but of the School in toto. After welcoming many Old Elizabethans on Founder’s Day, I look forward to seeing even greater numbers during the Autumn Term at the OE Association dinner – where our speaker is Robert ‘Judge’ Rinder (1989–1994) – at the Careers Convention and at the Carol Service. It has also been great to connect with many old boys on LinkedIn recently: if you haven’t found me there yet, do please feel free to look me up – I will be happy to hear from you.

More than any other event in our calendar, Founder’s Day represents an opportunity for our whole School community – past, present and even future – to come together. It thus seemed entirely appropriate that this year’s event coincided with The Great Get Together, a weekend of community events around the country inspired by Brendan Cox, the husband of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was murdered last year by a political extremist.

In these troubled times, I have been heartened by the poetic endeavours of Old Elizabethan George ‘the Poet’ Mpanga (OE 2002–2009), who put his mastery of language to service in producing a poem to encourage people to report hate crime, which ends with the words “you can’t fight violence with silence”. The poem, which was commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to coincide with the anniversary of Jo Cox’s death, reminds us of the need to be vigilant against all forms of hatred. Like many of our old boys, by giving his time to causes greater than himself, George is fulfilling the tenet of the QE mission statement that Elizabethans should seek to “make a contribution to society rather than pursuing only personal gain”.

I wish all Old Elizabethans a peaceful and enjoyable summer.

Neil Enright

Akshay Ruparelia has launched his online estate agency and secured more than half-a-million pounds in investment – just a year after completing his A-levels at QE.

Having previously secured £100,000 as an initial investment, Akshay’s current fund-raising campaign for Doorsteps.co.uk hit its £400,000 target in less than half of its 30-day window, which runs until 27th July 2017.  “It’s great news – and I’m sure some in the QE alumni network may be interested in investing in the remaining few days, especially as our largest backer in this campaign is a vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch.” (Compliance rules prohibit Akshay from disclosing this investor’s identity at this stage.)

“My ambitions did depend upon raising the money, so it seems I will now be pursuing them!” says Akshay (OE 2009–2016).

His interest in starting his own business was already well established while he was at school.

“I had long had an ‘entrepreneurial streak’ about me (I hate using the phrase, though, as it is so abstract), whether I was selling sweets in school (sorry!), colognes, or portable chargers. I wasn’t hugely involved in clubs, but I did found the Young Entrepreneurship Club, which was an upper school competition for developing and nurturing new ideas.

“QE has helped me develop a sense of independence and resilience in a competitive atmosphere. This really gave me the mettle and the determination I needed, built over the years. I have also been plagued by a huge work ethic driving me to pursue the business further, in a gap year!”

Akshay spent the first year of his A-levels working on an app –housesmartapp.com/housesmartapp.co.uk. “The app really confirmed my passion – almost an obsession – for the property market, as I saw how entrenched the market was. It lacked disruption and was archaic in its ways, yet we had grown up seeing shopping, dating, reading, taxis and other markets being disrupted and sometimes overhauled completely.”

He was inspired by the record of online market leader Purplebricks, which in just three years had built a market share approaching that of Countrywide, the UK’s largest estate agent, which had been developed through half a century of acquisitions and brand-building.

“The market is ripe for disruption: it’s simply not every day that there is an opportunity to step into such a revolution!”

“I attempted to build the structure of the app with developers, funded initially by renowned internet entrepreneur Mark Kotecha, who has gone on to become a major supporter of Doorsteps.co.uk.” It was at this point that Akshay hit difficulties. “To cut a long story short, this app was far too revolutionary for the market.”

And so, during the second year of his A-levels, he changed tack. “Without compromising grades, I focused on developing a go-to-market strategy for the business – an online agency with a real branded feel, value proposition and great service. Something the market lacked, in my opinion.”

His A-level results last August presented him with a dilemma: “I secured a place to read Economics at University College London.” (Akshay wanted to stay in London, because he was a carer for both of his parents, who are deaf, and because his only other sibling was moving out to get married.) “But I had also secured a £100,000 angel investment to develop the business in the direction I wanted.” He opted to develop the business.

“After continuously tough work, we have rebranded to a warmer feel and the result is doorsteps.co.uk. Within six months of full incorporation, we have escalated to the point where we are the sixth-largest online agency in UK and 41st of over 12,000 general estate agents, based on size.”

Akshay has hired several customer service staff – a focus which is already bearing fruit. “We are top-rated on Trustpilot and word-of-mouth has allowed organic growth, with revenues growing tenfold in less than six months.”

The current fund-raising to enable further expansion and growth is being conducted through the Crowdcube crowd-funding platform. Further details are available here. Akshay can be contacted by email.