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After making his mark at QE, Akhil Shah, this year’s Guest of Honour at the School’s Junior Awards, has gone on to a glittering record of academic achievement.

Akhil (OE2002-09) gained a Double First in Economics from Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 2012 and was awarded the Patrick Cross Prize by the college for exceptional achievement in the Economics Tripos. In 2011, he won the PricewaterhouseCoopers Prize in Economics for best overall performance in Part 2A of the Tripos.

At QE, he secured 13 A* GCSEs, four A-levels at grade A (the highest grade available at that time) and a distinction in the Advanced Extension Award in Economics. He remembers his time there with gratitude: “I certainly have Mr Price’s A-level Maths lessons to thank for my Double First.” Alongside his studies he won a gold certificate in the Senior UKMT Maths Challenge and participated in the British Mathematical Olympiad. Akhil also passed Grade 6 Acting with Distinction and Grade 7 Violin.

Since going to university, he has played tennis and rowed, as well as raising £25,000 in a telephone fundraising campaign for the college.

Akhil started work last September at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Corporate & Institutional Banking on an 18-month graduate programme.  “I do hope to use the skills and experience I pick up along the way to make some sort of difference in the world,” Akhil says.

Akhil addressed prize-winners from Years 7-9 and their parents at the Junior Awards Ceremony. VIP guests included: the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Melvin Cohen; Martin Russell, Deputy Lieutenant for the Borough of Barnet, and the Chairman of Governors, Barrie Martin (pictured with Akhil).

He identified three key ingredients for success and achievement: “I believe the first thing is to have a vision, the second is to work hard for it, and the last, and possibly the most challenging part, is to persevere through difficulties.”

Akhil told the boys that at their age, having a vision did not require a long-term plan: “When I was in your position I was thinking about which subjects I should study for GCSE which, despite Mr Enright’s best efforts, did not include Geography!”

He explained how a desire to study Economics at university led him to pick his A-levels and also to read widely around the subject to see how the subject related to real life. Prompted by a growing interest in Finance, he sought an internship with RBS before his final year of study at Cambridge. “Having a plan helped to focus my endeavours and actually made life a lot easier,” he said.

He alluded to Andy Murray’s long journey to ultimate success in winning the Wimbledon Men’s Singles Championship supported by his family and friends. “I think sticking with it when things get tough is the hardest thing to do. It can be hard to let go of your pride and ask someone else for help. However, make sure you let your family, your friends and your teachers support you as you face challenges, because you can’t do it alone.”

He concluded by saying: “Don’t worry if you’re not the best or don’t get 100%; regardless of your grades, it will be your attitude that differentiates you. So just have that vision and work diligently, with perseverance and with modesty, and you really can achieve something incredible.”

Old Elizabethan Dr Malcolm Sabin (1952-59) has been awarded a gold medal at the Royal Society in recognition of his life’s work and contribution to Mathematics.

During the ceremony to bestow on him the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) medal, he presented a lecture called The Mathematics of Shape. A few days before, Dr Sabin CMath FIMA delivered a talk on the same topic to Year 10 boys at the School.

Presenting the award on behalf of the IMA, Dr Neil Dodgson said: “Malcolm Sabin pioneered research in computer-aided design (CAD). His principal contributions have been interrogation methods for parametric surfaces, scattered data contouring, transfinite surfaces defined by curves, and subdivision analysis. Two constructions bear his name, Powell-Sabin splines and Doo-Sabin subdivision, but perhaps his greatest legacy is the number of people who would acknowledge that their research critically benefited from his input.”

Dr Sabin graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first-class honours degree in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos. He has been a Candidate of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1977 and was awarded a PhD from Leeds University in 1998.

In addition to the IMA gold medal he has also received the Bézier Award and the John Gregory Award, both in 2010.

He combined his Cambridge studies with an apprenticeship at the British Aircraft Corporation, then worked for BAe for 10 years before taking up a number of positions as visiting lecturer in Hungary, Austria and the UK. Since the late 1970s he has concentrated on research and teaching, pioneering CAD.

A Chartered Mathematician, he has published extensively on mathematical topics. He has at various times held the following positions: Chairman of BCS CAD Specialist group; a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 5.2 (CAD); the UK delegate to IFIP Technical Committee 5 (Information Technology Applications) and Secretary of the UK Geometric Modelling Society.

During his lecture to the Royal Society he talked about how people working together in making things have needed ways of describing shape to each other so that their pieces will fit together.

“Today, because the stylist has computer graphics visualisation for making sure that the product looks good, the designer has computational analysis and simulation for making sure that it will work and the production engineer has numerically controlled machines for actually making the parts or moulds, we need ways of describing shape which their various pieces of software can interpret. This means formal digital descriptions of shape, which in turn demands mathematical foundations.”

QE Mathematics teacher Wendy Fung said his visit to the School had been very illuminating: “He explained how shape description using Maths enables designers, engineers and mechanics to communicate during a project, ensuring that separate component parts will fit together to make a whole. He gave Pixar as an example of a company that makes use of the work he does with CAD, offering boys a fascinating insight into how Maths is relevant outside the classroom.”

Old Elizabethans were much in evidence at the wedding of Mustali Sarkar (2000-07).

Mustali graduated from Imperial College with a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2011. Since then, he has been working at ExxonMobil in its Gas & Power Marketing Division. He has held roles in the Business Planning & Analytics team and is currently in the Supply & Trading team, helping to provide 6% of Europe’s total natural gas demand.

His wife, Ummehani, graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2012 with a Master’s degree in Pharmacy. She undertook her pharmacist pre-registration training at Frimley Park Hospital, Surrey, and is now working as a community relief pharmacist at Boots. The couple are living in the Surrey area.

Pictured with the happy couple are (front row, left to right) Priyesh Patel and Sanil Shah, and (back row, left to right) Samir Patel, Khilan Shah, Utsav Patel, Devan Mistry, Kishan Gangadia, Roheet Pindoria and Ceyon Jeyarajah. All were Mustali’s contemporaries at QE.

It has been a busy 12 months for the Sarkar family: Mustali’s brother, Mustafa, got married last December. His wife, Tasnim, is originally from Mumbai and is a qualified speech therapist.

Since graduating from Loughborough University in 2008, Mustafa (1996-2004) completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Psychology from Middlesex University and then returned to Loughborough to complete a MSc Psychology of Sport and Exercise programme, gaining several awards along the way.

Christopher Mason’s recent wedding became a reunion for his School contemporaries from the late 1980s and early 1990s, with OEs prominent among the bridal party and guests.

Chris (OE 1987-94) and his brother Andrew (OE 1985-92) got engaged within weeks of each other, with Andrew marrying Kay in north Devon, followed last month by Chris’s wedding to Sharon. Pictured here are (left to right) best man James Davidson (OE 1987-94), groom Chris and bride Sharon, usher Tim Barlow (OE 1987-94) and friend Mark Flack. Other OE guests included Daniel Davidson, Matthew Shamshoon, Alex O’Donoghue, Matt Thomas, Robin Evans, Robert Davidson and Richard Burr.

Whilst at the School, both Chris and Andrew were very involved in music and Chris also excelled in sport. He was a member of the water polo and swimming teams and represented England at the European Youth Games.

Chris and Sharon Mason (née Smith) live in London. He is a finance officer working in an independent sixth form college. Andrew and Kay live in north Devon.

Many alumni will also know the Mason boys’ parents, Diane and George, who have been stalwart supporters of the School since the mid-1980s.

Diane Mason used to be the School’s extra-curricular tennis coach as well as the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s liaison and administrative assistant. Today she is the FQE secretary. George has invigilated at the School. He organises the questions on Quiz Night and generally supports FQE. They are pictured with the bride and groom.

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.