Viewing archives for Alumni

Boys from Years 7 & 8 lined up in front of the School to bid a colourful goodbye to Queen Elizabeth’s School’s 450^th anniversary year.

With sixth-formers helping to ensure all looked good, and with a drone filming overhead, the junior boys filed on to Stapylton Field in front of Main Building to spell out #QE450. Click here to see the drone footage showing how it was done!

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It has been a tremendous year, so we wanted to find a way to mark its conclusion which was both fun and which created an impressive spectacle involving a large number of boys. My thanks go to our Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, and his Year 12 Technology class for lining up the participants so accurately.

“More generally, I would like to thank the countless people – boys, staff, alumni, parents, Governors and other friends of the School – who have contributed in so many ways to making our anniversary year such a resounding success. We look back with gratitude on a fantastic 2023, and look forward with great anticipation to all that 2024 will bring.”

The Year 7 & 8 boys wore sports strip in their House colours for the shoot:

• Broughton in red for the hash tag (#)
• Harrisons’ in brown for Q
• Leicester in yellow for E
• Pearce in purple for 4
• Stapylton in blue for 5
• Underne in green for 0.

The anniversary celebrations were heralded close to the end of the 2022 Autumn Term with a royal visit from HRH The Duke of Gloucester.

Major events during the year itself began with the launch of a new authoritative history of the School, Queen Elizabeth’s School: 1573–2023, written by former Headmaster Dr John Marincowitz (1999–2011).

On 24^th March, 450 years to the day since Queen Elizabeth I signed the Royal Charter to establish QE, the whole School gathered for a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey.

Founder’s Day on the third Saturday in June was heavily anniversary-themed, with events including the planting of a time capsule intended for exhumation on the School’s 500^th anniversary in 2073.

The Old Elizabethans Annual Reunion Dinner this year had a special emphasis on the anniversary, including the opportunity for alumni to see items from the QE Collections archive.

The Chamber Choir were recorded performing And Be it Known, the anniversary anthem commissioned by the School from international composer Howard Goodall for the service in Westminster Abbey, where it was premiered. The recording was used as the soundtrack for a special anniversary video.

The traditional Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Chipping Barnet parish church, which included the first-ever congregational rendering of And Be It Known.

And those are just some of the highlights: throughout the year, the anniversary was celebrated through a series of special events and activities, including: the 56th Annual Elizabethan Union Dinner Debate; competitions; festivals in areas as diverse as the Sciences, Economics & rugby; and the planting of trees in Heartwood Forest, as well as hundreds of bulbs around the QE site.

• For more details about the anniversary celebrations, visit the dedicated 450th anniversary page.

With just a few days left until the end of Queen Elizabeth’s School’s 450^th anniversary year, a special film published today provides an exciting whistlestop tour of the highlights of 2023.

Professionally produced, the film is set to the soundtrack of QE’s Chamber Choir singing And Be It Known – the anniversary anthem commissioned by the School from international composer Howard Goodall, which was recorded in a special session last month.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I invite everyone to take a look at this video, which captures in just a few short minutes so much of what has made our anniversary celebrations so memorable, starting with the visit of HRH The Duke of Gloucester this time last year and including major events involving the whole School, such as our Westminster Abbey thanksgiving service in March and Founder’s Day in June.

“It’s a great watch, and with a super musical soundtrack: as we wrap up the celebrations and start to think about our exciting plans for 2024, I hope everyone will take a few moments to enjoy this memento and reflect on our fabulous year.”

The Chamber Choir was conducted by Director of Music Ruth Partington, with Music teachers Rebecca German and Jas Hutchinson-Bazely also closely involved in the recording session in The Friends’ Recital Hall. Miss German sang and Mr Hutchinson-Bazely played the School’s new electric organ.

Sound-recording was managed and produced by Year 13’s Indrajit Datta, with fellow pupil Abhinav Sandeep, of Year 10, operating the venue’s in-built camera to record the wide angles, alongside fellow Year 10 pupil Benjamin Newton. Indrajit, who is hoping to forge a career in this industry, used ten microphones, strategically placed, to record the different instruments and choir sections, including a feed directly from the organ.

The filming of the session was conducted by professional cameraman Andrew Litt, with video production by Dashing Duck. Stills photography is courtesy of Eleanor Bentall and Westminster Abbey.

The anthem was premiered at Westminster Abbey on 24^th March, 450 years to the day since Queen Elizabeth I granted the charter for the establishment of the School. It was performed again on Founder’s Day, and the congregation will sing it at the end of the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Chipping Barnet Parish Church on Wednesday this week, with all boys in Year 7 learning it in advance so they can contribute.

The video covers many of the more formal events of the year, but there have been numerous other anniversary-related events, from subject festivals, tree and bulb plantings, lecture assemblies, competitions, and even the unique experience of QE hosting a TV film crew for a food programme popular in Korea!

Anthem recording session performers

Conductor
Miss Ruth Partington, Director of Music

Chamber Choir
Year 7
Krish Bhatia

Year 8
Aarush Marti
Akein Athukoralage
Eshaan Anil
Sree Harsha Gullapali
Anirudh Premkumar
Aadi Chauhan
Mithun Madhu
Galinghan Balamurugan

Year 9
Adithya Ananthakrishnan
Parth Jain
Jamie Lam
Aayush Shukla
Akshay Shah
Kiran Wright
Joseph Donovan
Krishiv Karelia
Aatheethya Jeyanth
Arjun Anand
Nikhil Francine
Gyan Nadhavajhala
Krishna Gajendra
Kelvin Chen

Year 10
Keeyan Shah
Rishi Watsalya
Siddhant Pochalwar
Nafis Meah
Noah Morley

Year 11
Colin Copcea
Saahil Shah
Ram Chockalingam
William Joanes
Johnny Yassa
Simi Bloom
Adam Liang
Keon Robert

Year 12
Akshat Bajaj
Harrison Lee
Joel Swedensky
Nikhil Mark
Jason Tao

Year 13
Tharun Dhamodhran
Arjun Patel
Sena Lai-Fujiwara

Old Elizabethans
Mr George Raynor (2014–2021)
Mr Bhunit Santhiramoulesan (2016–2023)

Staff
Miss Rebecca German, Music teacher

Instrumentalists
Trumpets
Mr Peter Yarde Martin (OE 2002–2007)
Joel Swedensky, Year 12

Horn
Mr Eddie Morgan, QE peripatetic Music teacher

Trombones
Mr William Barnes McCallum
Mr Tom Scaife

Tuba
Mr Stuart Beard

Timpani
Mr Neil Rowland, QE peripatetic Music teacher

Organ
Mr Jas Hutchinson-Bazely, QE Music teacher

Guests at this year’s QE alumni dinner enjoyed a new, more relaxed approach to the occasion, while also making the most of a few additional activities during the evening.

Always a highlight of the Autumn Term, the dinner gained additional importance this year since it came in the School’s 450^th anniversary year. One hundred and fifteen diners – a record attendance in recent years – gathered at Queen’s Road.

They were overlooked – but hopefully not put off their sumptuous fare! – by portraits of the two key figures in the School’s 1573 founding, Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the Dining Hall.

The guests ranged widely in age, from those who were pupils in the 1950s to a group of 31 who all left the School in 2020 during the first year of the Covid pandemic.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The OE dinner is a great reminder and celebration of the strength of our Elizabethan community.

“While our guests certainly seemed to appreciate the extra attractions we laid on for them to enjoy in our anniversary year, the dinner is mainly about people spending time with friends, making new connections and remembering their time at QE. And in this, it was a great success, with a lovely atmosphere, excellent food and some really positive feedback afterwards.”

The evening began with the QE Saxophone Ensemble playing in the Main School Hall while guests enjoyed welcome drinks. Their tunes included Irving Berlin’s 1929 song, Puttin’ on the Ritz, its title a reference to a slang expression of the time meaning to dress conspicuously and fashionably. With the black-tie dress code of previous years relaxed for this year’s new-style dinner, there was plenty of opportunity for guests to do just that: colourful ties were there in abundance (although, in fact, even ties were not compulsory).

Guests had the opportunity before and after dinner to look through materials from the School’s archives. There were also tours of the Mayes and Main buildings, with current Sixth Form students Danylo Gutsulyak, Maxwell Johnson and Sena Lai-Fujiwara all playing the piano in the Friends’ Recital Hall, entertaining the visitors and amply demonstrating the acoustics in this major new facility opened in May 2022.

Personal messages written by the Headmaster on specially produced postcards were provided for each guest.

In his words of welcome, Mr Enright recapped on the anniversary year, including the launch on 1^st March of former Headmaster John Marincowitz’s “excellent” new history of the School, Queen Elizabeth’s School: 1573–2023. “It is never too early for some QE-themed Christmas shopping!” he said.

While some of the formalities involved in previous years’ dinners were dispensed with, the evening still featured the presentation of the Eric Shearly Memorial Prize awarded to 2023 School Captain Darren Lee by Martyn Bradish, Chairman of the Old Elizabethans Association.

Also retained were the traditional toasts. Eric Houston – President of the association, Master 1976–2010, and Second Master 1999–2010 – duly toasted: His Majesty The King; The pious memory of Queen Elizabeth I, our founder; Friends, present and absent; and The School.

The dinner included confit lamb shoulder croquettes and roasted chicken breast (with cauliflower bhaji and autumnal vegetable pithivier as vegetarian options), followed by dark chocolate torte and then tea or coffee, served with homemade petit fours.

• Click on the thumbnails below to view a selection of photos. (QE alumni can see all the images from the evening on QE Connect.)

As A-level grading returns to pre-pandemic standards this year, QE is celebrating “brilliant” results that cement the School’s place in the very top echelons of the country’s academic schools – a proud pinnacle in its 450-year history.

At the highest possible grade, the School improved significantly on its 2019 figures, with 58.2% of A-levels being awarded A* – easily beating the pre-pandemic record of 46.9% set in 2018. It was a similar record-breaking performance for combined A–A*: 89.1% of A-levels had these grades, well above the equivalent figure in the pre-Covid years.

And at the benchmark A*–B, QE continues to shine, achieving 96.9% in 2023, the 18^th consecutive year in which QE has exceeded 95%.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We are very pleased indeed with this brilliant performance. Like the record-breaking 47 Oxbridge offers made to QE boys in the spring, these A-level results demonstrate that, in our 450^th anniversary year, the School is thriving and continues to go from strength to strength.

“We recognise that this Year 13 cohort has not always had an easy journey: they were unable to sit their GCSEs because of Covid, so, like their peers across the country, this was the first time they had faced high-stakes testing.

“Ofqual, the examinations regulator, told examination boards to aim for the proportion of top grades to be in line with the levels recorded in 2019, so for our boys to have comfortably exceeded that level is really quite an achievement – one which demonstrates that the highest standards were maintained at QE throughout the pandemic. They should be very proud of what they have achieved.

“The pandemic has in fact helped us accelerate the technological development of the School; we have taken great strides in our digital strategy, whilst continuing to invest in our campus, its facilities and the further opportunities that this generates for our boys.”

Among many successes across the subjects this year, French stands out for its 100% performance – all five candidates achieved A*.

In purely numerical terms, Mathematics had the most A* grades, with 106, followed by Chemistry (44) and Further Maths (43).

“While examination performance certainly matters, what goes on beyond the classroom here, including all the many opportunities available through our QE Flourish enrichment programme, is of equal performance,” added Mr Enright.

“This cohort at QE have taken full advantage, making an impact on a national and international stage, not least in providing members of the team that won the VEX Robotics World Championships in 2018. We have many stars – one of their number, Rahul Doshi, won Channel 4’s Child Genius programme some years ago, for example – but he and his peers wear their intelligence, talent and ambitious aspirations lightly.

“They should be proud of the wider contribution they have made. Known for their kindness and empathy, they have supported each other as friends, and those lower in the School as peer mentors. They have also helped to establish and develop connections with the local Barnet community, such as our QE Together partnership with Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School.”

“We hope that these students take away from QE not only great results, but a broad range of experiences that will have shaped them into well-rounded young men of good character, ready to step into the world and make a positive difference to the lives of others, living up to, and perhaps even exceeding, the example set by many illustrious Elizabethans over the past 450 years.

“Congratulations to the boys and their families on their fantastic achievements.”

Figures in this article were updated following the outcome of re-marks in early October 2023.

QE boys were the first-ever under-18s to watch producer Ilana Metzger’s film about her father, a Holocaust survivor who once attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

And she was so impressed by the their mature response that she is now donating 30 copies of his autobiography – gifted to her by an anonymous viewer of the film – to the School.

The visit had been suggested to the Headmaster, Neil Enright, by Old Elizabethan Alan Solomon (OE 1951–1957), pictured here.

He had been impressed by the way the documentary told the story of Ilana’s father, Henry Wermuth, and also looked more widely at the Holocaust and its origins.

Following the screening of the film, Breathe Deeply My Son, to last year’s Year 9 during the Summer Term, the boys took part in a question-and-answer session.

In a message sent to the Headmaster subsequently, Ilana praised the QE pupils for their “interesting and insightful questions” and high level of maturity.

In the film, Mr Wermuth, pictured here with Ilana, explains how in 1942 he broke out of Klaj ammunition camp in Poland when he learned that Hitler was scheduled to pass through the village.

He piled sticks and rocks on the railway track, but the attempted derailment was unsuccessful.

He told The Jewish Chronicle in 2013: “A train passed with three wagons, and in the window was a man who I recognised by the moustache as Hitler. I stood there mesmerised, waiting for the crash, but it never came. Either a local farmer or someone patrolling must have removed the logs.”

Mr Wermuth survived the war weighing just 5st 3lb (33kg). His father, mother and sister all died in concentration camps.

He was awarded a medal for his attempt by the German city of Frankfurt in 1995.

After liberation, he settled in the UK and built a property business in London. He died in 2020, aged 97.

3D printing entrepreneur Arian Aghababaie, co-founder of California-based Holo, shared insights into the latest developments in additive manufacturing and gave advice on engineering careers when he led two inspirational events at QE during a visit to the UK.

After working for global software firm Autodesk, based in San Francisco, Arian (OE 1998–2003) raised venture capital and successfully spun out its additive manufacturing team to form Holo, while also transitioning its technology from the 3D printing of polymers to metals. Six-and-a-half years later, Holo is at the forefront of innovation, using its proprietary digital platform to enable the manufacturing at scale of high-performance parts across a range of materials, including metals, ceramics and composites. Holo is supported by top-tier Silicon Valley investors and strategic partners.

Arian’s morning at QE began with a tour of the School, before he led a Sixth Form additive manufacturing workshop, with five of QE’s own 3D printers on hand. Later, he delivered a lunchtime talk, giving his take on careers in engineering and 3D printing.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “Arian provided Year 12 with a workshop which firstly covered his professional journey to date, from his early days post PhD working on founding his own company (The Invention Works) through to his position as Senior Principal Engineer at Autodesk. Most of the workshop, however, focussed on his current company, Holo. He explained that he and the other co-founders could see the enormous potential to create a viable business in this area and so pursued it as an opportunity.”

Arian went on to explain the details around the scale of production, the materials used and the fidelity of the products which Holo’s machines can make through its own PureForm Technology.

“His technologies have a unique advantage over competitors, and he works with many major companies in the healthcare, consumer electronics, robotics, and automotive sectors, to name a few,” said Mr Noonan.

He even set the Year 12 boys a challenge to develop a product using QE’s own 3D printers. They should design (and perhaps build) a scaled-up, minimally invasive surgical instrument. His requirements were that:

• The instrument should have six degrees of freedom
• It should be able to be cable or gear-driven
• The boys’ work should include the design of at least two custom end-effectors (the devices at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment)
• They should determine its size and features based on the capabilities of their own printers.

Bonus points were offered for the designs with the fewest components and if the end-effectors could be easily changed within the same clevis pin (part of a fastener system)!

Two examples of the boys’ work in response to the challenge are shown here.

In the lunchtime talk to Year 10, Arian took a more personal look at his story, beginning with his time at QE, when he was in Stapylton House and was a musician and prefect.

After first presenting a version of his life which had him gliding seamlessly from his first engineering degree at Bristol to gaining his doctorate, also at Bristol, moving to San Francisco in 2016 and then founding Holo the following year, he next spoke about “what it’s actually been like” – a narrative that includes leaving QE early, dropping out of university, the financial crash and the huge impact of Covid.

The lessons he learned included “stay true to your authentic self” and “don’t fear failure”.

The visit came about after Headmaster Neil Enright struck up a conversation with Arian on LinkedIn.

Mr Noonan said: “It really was a tremendous day. One of the boys involved said to me afterwards: ‘Sir, are you aware that Arian is working in the job we all dream to have one day?’ I am immensely grateful to Arian for taking the time to give back to his School and for giving our students something amazing to aspire to.”