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Jake Schogger packed more experiences into his first decade after leaving QE than many achieve in a lifetime.

Jake (OE 1999–2006) sampled life as a professional rock musician, a drum teacher, a marathon-runner, a football manager, a Bollywood film extra, a writer and an entrepreneur. He has now set out on a new career path in Law.

On leaving School, he embarked on a gap year, safe in the knowledge that he had a place to study Animation at Bournemouth University. During that gap year, however, a band in which he played as the drummer along with two other QE leavers – bassist Justin Pither (OE 1999–2006) and guitarist Michael Lane (OE 1999–2004) – was offered a small record deal.

“The band was (quite embarrassingly) called Minus IQ,” says Jake. “We spent the next four years recording and touring around the UK, and eventually released an album. Our singer quit at this stage so we all applied for university!”

He went to Warwick, where he studied Law & Business. “At Warwick I got very involved in a number of societies and helped to establish the Commercial Law Society.” He regularly assisted younger students with their CVs, job applications and interview preparation. “This gave me the idea to write a short guide to help these students to enhance their commercial awareness. This guide was initially distributed free throughout Warwick University, but demand was so high that I decided to develop it into something more substantial and release it nationally the following year. There is now a series of four books aimed at different City careers (three on Commercial Law, Investment Banking and Consultancy and an Application, Interview & Internship Handbook). These are complemented by a website (www.citycareerseries.com) and approximately 7,000 have been sold during the past 12 months in more than 15 countries.”

While studying for his degree, Jake was elected president of Warwick Finance Societies, which, with its sub-societies, is regarded as the university’s largest society. He also won places on vacation study programmes in H R College of Commerce in Mumbai, India, and at Shandong University China. Over the years, he has completed the London and New York marathons, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and reached Mount Everest Base Camp. A keen footballer, he founded and now manages and plays for a five-a-side team at Warwick. Jake also has a 12-year record of teaching drums, helping a number of students through grades 1-8, while also regularly playing drums in the University Big Band. He has given his time to a number of charities and has worked towards making various festivals carbon-free.

Jake has now embarked on a new career as a lawyer, working for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer after completing the Legal Practice Course at BPP University. Freshfields, at which Jake took part in a summer vacation scheme during his degree, is believed to be the world’s oldest international law firm.

After becoming an MP, James Cartlidge wasted no time before deploying his expertise in housing.

Within three months of winning the South Suffolk seat for the Conservatives in the May 2015 General Election, he was appointed chairman of a new All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Housing and Planning.

James (OE 1985–1992) is the founder and director of Share to Buy, a social housing business that was launched in 2004.

He also previously volunteered as a small-business advisor to the homelessness charity, St Mungo’s Broadway, which involved sitting on a panel to decide which of St Mungo’s clients would receive grants to start a small venture.

On his appointment as chairman, James said: “Having spent my working life in the shared-ownership housing sector, I am acutely aware of the challenges facing first-time buyers, particularly in London. Equally, as a rural MP, I recognise the need for development to be sustainable.

“Ultimately, there are a whole raft of complex issues in housing and planning today but I hope that our APPG can make a real contribution to the debate.”

After leaving QE, James read Economics at Manchester University, gaining a first-class degree. He joined Conservative campaign headquarters as a researcher, then became a freelance journalist, writing leaders for the Daily Telegraph and opinion pieces for the Guardian and The Spectator.

After that, he set up Share to Buy, which is described as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those needing affordable housing and for first-time buyers. The business includes a shared-ownership property portal and a mortgage broker, and it hosts the London Home Show. The portal lists all the properties available from the Mayor of London’s FIRST STEPS scheme, providing the platform at no cost to the taxpayer.

James Cartlidge lives in Assington, near Sudbury, with his wife Emily and four children. She is the daughter of Sir Gerald Howarth, Aldershot’s Conservative MP. The couple survived the Asian tsunami whilst on honeymoon in Sri Lanka in 2004 because their hotel was the only one in their resort left standing.

Until becoming an MP, James was a councillor for Babergh District Council in South Suffolk. He first stood for Parliament in 2005, in Lewisham Deptford, where he finished third.

As South Suffolk MP, he supports various campaigns relevant to his constituency, with causes ranging from rail and road improvements to a bid to secure Unesco World Heritage Site status for the historic village of Lavenham. At Westminster, in November 2015 he became a member of the Public Accounts Commission.

In his spare time, James is drummer for a local band, Tequila Mockingbird, and also enjoys cycling around South Suffolk.

Former School Captain James Slessor is now a world leader in security and public safety.

James (OE 1988–1995) has fulfilled the promise he showed at School, rising to an international senior management role with one of the world’s top professional services companies.

James became School Captain at QE, having been singled out for his all-round contribution to School life as well as his ability as a public speaker. He went on to Bristol University, where he achieved a first-class degree in Geography.

Employed by Accenture, since the turn of the century he has led a range of programmes involving public safety and operational policing.

Today he is Managing Director for Accenture Police Services. “This covers the work we do in policing, justice, borders, intelligence, prisons and rehabilitation,” he says.

His job has included serving as Accenture’s Client Director on the Police Scotland i6 Programme, which aims to see more than 120 IT and paper-based local and regional systems replaced by a single, new national operational policing system.

He advises on Accenture’s policing engagements across Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Singapore, Australia, and the US.

In addition, James leads Accenture’s virtual Policing Center of Excellence, which draws together the latest international thinking to build new processes, technology solutions and drive innovation within policing.

James has written extensively in leading industry publications on a range of policing topics, including social media and police information management.

Richard Burr is combining life as a celebrity baker with work for his family’s building firm.

Richard (OE 1987–1994) shot to national recognition in 2014, when he was a finalist on series 5 of BBC TV’s The Great British Bake Off, having won the programme’s ‘star baker’ accolade a record five times during the series.

A member of the Federation of Master Builders, multi-talented Richard told the School that he is also proud of the first-class BSc degree in Biodiversity and Conservation that he gained in 2012 from Birkbeck College, London, studying part-time.

Since the Bake Off shows, he has continued to make regular appearances in the broadcast media, at shows and festivals and on the Scoff video food channel. He appeared on a celebrity edition of the BBC’s Pointless TV quiz show with Frances Quinn, winner of The Great British Bake Off 2013.

His blog, which features recipes, has a growing following in the US and his first book, BIY Bake it Yourself, has been successfully published.

In December 2015, Richard and his wife, Sarah, who live in Mill Hill, celebrated the birth of their third daughter. He is a governor at the infant school attended by his older daughters.

Richard himself went to St Paul’s C of E Primary School in Mill Hill, before coming to QE when Eamonn Harris was Headmaster.

He is the fourth generation to work in his family’s building business and continues to enjoy “getting his hands dirty” on building sites.

He traces his love of baking back to the time he spent in the kitchen with his mother as a small child. Then he had a Saturday job washing up in a local bakery as a teenager, which further fired his enthusiasm. At home, he does most of the family cooking and enjoys baking with his wife. He especially enjoys bread and pastry-making, while making the girls’ birthday cakes are highlights of the family’s year.

It is always heartening to begin the New Year with positive news, so I was naturally delighted to receive the highly laudatory report that followed our Combined Cadet Force’s biennial inspection in the first few days of January.

Major Andrew Hart praised not only the numerical strength of our contingent, but also the cadets’ commitment and motivation, as well as the creative training they receive and the excellent state of their morale. There were then further encouraging external endorsements for our School during the course of the term, including articles in the Sunday Times and in Tatler magazine.

Perhaps an even more important indicator of QE’s success than these press articles has been the high level of Oxbridge offers: the 36 boys offered places at Cambridge and Oxford this year takes the total number over the past three years alone to more than 100.

This is in addition to many boys who gain places at medical school, for example, or at top universities in the USA. This year, the latter includes Valavan Ananthakumaraswamy, the first QE pupil ever to be offered a place at Stanford in California, one of the world’s leading teaching and research institutions.

It is important for our boys and parents to understand that gaining a place at one of the world’s best universities is an increasingly challenging undertaking. In my speech recently at our Senior Awards ceremony, I reminded parents of the words of American philosopher, Eric Hoffer, who said: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” While the acquisition of knowledge and facts certainly has value, it is the very ability to learn that is critical in life.

We have now completed our analysis of the Family Survey that was conducted last term. It is very gratifying that we enjoy such strong parental support. The survey was conducted as part of our preparation for drawing up the new School Development Plan, covering 2016–2020. The survey results therefore give us great confidence to press on with the next phase of its formulation. The Senior Leadership Team are now drawing up more detailed content, consulting with staff and with pupils through the pupil conference. The SLT will then take a complete draft to the Governing Body in the Summer Term, before presenting the approved plan to parents at the start of the new academic year. Our emerging themes for that are Within and beyond the classroom and Ability and character – with a particular emphasis on character.

It has been my privilege to receive a number of distinguished guests to the School in the past few weeks. Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London, was the guest of honour at Senior Awards. We also continued with our series of lectures in assembly, which are a new element in our academic enrichment programme for 2015–16. For the boys from Years 7–10, cardiologist Professor Adam Timmis gave some valuable insights into medical advances, while meteorologist Michael Evans gave the senior pupils an excellent talk on the work of the Met Office, at the same time sharing with them some valuable careers advice. Thanks to the good offices of Year 12 political blogger, Adrian Burbie, our Politics Society again welcomed some very high-profile speakers – Sir Vince Cable, Evan Davis and Nick Robinson – whose talks were appreciated by large audiences here.

The greatest number of visitors to our site this term was of course on the day of our well respected Rugby Sevens tournament. It is 40 years since the competition began and this anniversary, combined with our Year 8 team’s barnstorming record, has made for a vintage season of rugby. We have a long and proud history of rugby at Queen Elizabeth’s School and I am pleased to see our boys continue to draw tremendous enjoyment from this robust and rewarding sport.

I send my best wishes to all our old boys and trust you enjoyed the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

Neil Enright

In financial terms, artificial intelligence expert, neuroscientist and computer game designer & player Demis Hassabis is almost certainly the most successful ever Elizabethan, having sold his start-up technology company to Google for a reported £400 million in January 2014.

Demis is still involved with the company – DeepMind – which hit the headlines a few weeks ago when its AlphaGo program beat one of the highest-ranking players in the world in the ancient board game of Go. The program won four games in a five-game series.

While he was at QE from 1988–1990, Demis was already a chess prodigy, reaching master standard at the age of 13, with a rating that made him the second-highest rated U14 player in the world. He captained many of the England junior chess teams.

He later went on to Christ’s College in Finchley, where he took his A-levels aged 16 and then began his computer games career with the British company, Bullfrog Productions. At 17, he was co-designing and lead-programming on the classic game, Theme Park.

He left Bullfrog to read for the Computer Science Tripos at Queens’ College, Cambridge, taking a double first. Later in his career, he gained a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University College London and continued his research in neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at UCL and as a visiting scientist jointly at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.

Following his graduation from Cambridge, he worked as a lead AI programmer on the Lionhead Studios title Black & White. He then founded Elixir Studios in 1998, a London-based independent games developer. He expanded the company to 60 people, signing publishing deals with Eidos Interactive, Vivendi Universal and Microsoft, and was the executive designer of the BAFTA-nominated Republic: The Revolution and Evil Genius games.

As well as designing games, Demis was also an expert player, winning the Pentamind world games championship a record five times before retiring from competitive play in 2003. He is an expert player of games including chess, the Diplomacy board game and shogi board games and poker. The Mind Sports Olympiad website describes him as probably the best games player in history.

In April 2005, his company’s intellectual property and technology rights were sold to various publishers and the studio was closed. Demis left the games industry and turned his attention to neuroscience, winning wide acclaim from experts in the field for his research into memory and amnesia. His work was listed as in the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of 2007 by Science magazine.

In 2010, he co-founded and became Chief Executive Officer of London-based DeepMind Technologies, a company working on machine learning, which is a branch of computer science. DeepMind specialises in building ‘general algorithms’ – algorithms that are capable of learning for themselves directly from raw experience or data and are general in that they can perform well across a wide variety of tasks straight ‘out of the box’.

Following Google’s acquisition of DeepMind, he is now Vice President of Engineering, leading the company’s general AI projects. Google DeepMind’s website proclaims that its aim is to ‘Solve intelligence: use it to make the world a better place.”

Interviewed by the Evening Standard shortly after the deal, Demis said he had no plans to leave London, where he enjoyed living with his wife – a molecular biologist – and two young sons. “I think we punch above our weight,” he told the reporter. “We have some of the world’s best universities producing all these amazingly smart people, scientists and programmers who want to work in technology that might change the world. There are not as many opportunities in the UK as in San Francisco, so if you’re that kind of company and you base yourself here you have a lot more available talent of the highest calibre that is looking for something more interesting than going into finance or down the usual routes in London.”

Demis was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 2009 for his game design work. He was awarded the prestigious Mullard Award by the Royal Society in 2014. He was included in the 2013 Smart 50 list by Wired, listed as the third most influential Londoner in 2014 by the Evening Standard and in the Financial Times’ top 50 entrepreneurs in Europe.