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Visiting expert Gabriella Rutherford not only helped boys understand the threats and challenges faced by tribal people around the world, but also encouraged them to reflect on lives that are different from – and sometimes surprisingly similar to – their own.

Gabriella, from Survival International, the global organisation championing tribal peoples’ rights, spoke at a Lower School lecture assembly. She focused on the challenges facing tribal people around the world and encouraged the boys to think about ‘otherness’.

She looked at how our conceptions of other people and groups are often based on the ways in which we believe they are different to us. She asked the boys to picture a tribal person in their mind. Establishing the sort of image that is often conjured up – a jungle environment, spears, feathers and bare chests – she looked into where that image comes from. She then pointed out that while such tribes do exist, there are others that look and live more like us than we might imagine, particularly among contacted tribes with whom there has been cultural and economic exchange.

Gabriella touched on the ongoing threats to tribal people from racism and prejudice, and from those who advocate taking control of their lands in the public or national interest – as, she said, President Bolsonaro is hinting at in Brazil.

Head of Academic Enrichment Nisha Mayer said: “This was an engaging assembly, which required the boys to consider and voice their own ideas.

“One aspect of our lecture programme is that, through it, we seek to encourage boys to think critically about people with different life experiences, understanding their value and the challenges they face. This assembly raised awareness of a particular set of issues and got boys engaged in the moral questions around the cultures and the treatment of tribal peoples in different parts of the world.”

Topics covered during the assembly included:

• What tribal people need to survive. (Their own land and self-determination are key elements, Gabriella stated);
• The dangers associated with outside contact, including the people losing control over resources and also their lack of immunity to viruses and other illnesses. Some 50–90% of tribal communities are typically wiped out following outside human contact;
• The benefits brought by tribal people and communities. They often constitute very strong communities; and 80% of the world’s biodiversity is located in tribal land, so they are hugely important for conservation;
• Whether there is ever justification for the outside world making contact with an uncontacted tribe.

On the final point, Survival International’s view is that there really is no such justification, since: it is impossible for us, as outsiders, to assess the harm that we might be doing; since tribal peoples have human rights, just as we do, and these should not be forfeited to some notion of the ‘public good’; and since they are equipped to deal with problems in their own ways, even if these ways are different from ours.

Gabriella encouraged boys to consider getting involved in the Survival International Youth Action Group that is being established.

It was standing room only in the Conference Centre when Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary Correspondent, gave a talk to the Politics Society.

With boys eager to hear an inside view on the political machinations surrounding Brexit, Mr D’Arcy’s lecture proved a significant lunchtime draw.

Mr D’Arcy who has been a correspondent for Today in Parliament since 2002 and presents BBC Parliament’s political review show, Book Talk, covered the biggest issues of the day in Parliament. He talked about Brexit in depth, touched on how Parliament operates and shared his own experiences as a journalist.

His career has included stints at LWT’s Weekend World and the Leicester Mercury. Since joining the BBC he has also produced, and occasionally presented, Radio 4’s The Westminster Hour.

He told the boys that politics had not been “normal” over the last two years: “It is unusual that you have Cabinet ministers threatening to resign, or actually resigning, almost daily. Politics used to be boring!”

Politics was now split into Brexit and ‘everything else’, including all the usual big issues such as the NHS, housing and education. He added that dealing with Brexit is very complex: “Because of how closely we have been integrated in a whole range of areas over decades, it will take some time to establish new relationships. It’s like trying to unscramble an egg.”

Generally, in politics and government, he said, it is very difficult to make things much better, but easy to make them very much worse. “The first aim of any politician is to avoid the latter!”

Mr D’Arcy said that Brexit is the biggest thing he will have seen go through Parliament, whether the deal is passed or not. He predicted the process will be very difficult because of the Parliamentary arithmetic and the differences of opinion, particularly within the Conservative Party. But he added that Labour is also divided – their strategy seems to wait and try to force a General Election. But would the public want another one? he wondered, adding that General Elections are exhausting for journalists. At this stage, no serious commentator can really predict, with any certainty, how it will all end up,” he added.

The Headmaster, Neil Enright, said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for the boys to hear from, and engage with, an eminent journalist, who is observing first-hand and up-close the unfolding of the key issues of the day at this pivotal point in recent political history. It is also very pleasing that the very active Politics Society continues to thrive.”

Mr D’Arcy went on to talk more broadly about Parliament, paraphrasing a quotation attributed to Churchill that Parliamentary democracy is “the worst system, apart from all the others”.

He talked through the make-up of Parliament and mentioned safe seats and how they give those members a different focus to those in a close marginal. And yet history shows that those in supposedly safe seats may still have a shock at election time, he pointed out.

Other topics covered included the structure and functions of Parliament, including more technical matters, such as statutory instruments and different mechanisms for changing the law. He noted the difficulties associated with the government not having a functional majority – as seen with the recent row and Government climb-down over fixed-odds betting terminals.

“Rebels find voting against their party leadership easier the more they do it,” he said. “It means that the law can be changed against the Government’s will and it can lose its control over the country, which would be fatal for its credibility.”

There was a Q&A session during which the boys pressed Mr D’Arcy on such matters as: what Theresa May’s strategy should be ahead of a potential election; whether Brexit could trigger independence referenda in Scotland and Northern Ireland; whether there is space for a third big party and why he became a journalist. To this last question, he replied that he is fascinated by the human element of the drama: “As a journalist you get a ring-side seat!”

He was also asked who would be most likely to win a Tory leadership election, to which he said it would depend upon the circumstances under which it arose. Any run-off was likely to be between a ‘remain’ candidate (that is to say, someone who would have been in favour of a remain vote in the original referendum, though might now support the UK leaving the EU) and a ‘leave’ candidate, an enthusiastic Brexiteer.

Mr D’Arcy describes himself as a politics nerd, a cricket fanatic, an amateur cook and a Bruce Springsteen fan.

A litigator working at the heart of the UK’s financial regulatory system urged on QE’s aspiring lawyers the importance of a genuine passion for the Law.

Those who possess such a passion and duly enter the legal profession must then make sure they stand out from the crowd, Samir Manek (OE 2001-2008) advised senior pupils in a lunchtime lecture.

Samir, who took a First in Law at the University of Warwick, trained at Allen & Overy, one of the so-called ‘magic circle’ of leading UK law firms. He now works at the Financial Conduct Authority, where his job title is Associate (Solicitor). His role entails supervising a global investment bank to ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of the rules, and assisting with investigations into, and prosecution of, white-collar crime at investment banks.

In the lecture, he told the boys: “You have to have a good and natural reason for wanting to study Law, and, once out of university, work in it – not that everyone who reads Law has to become a lawyer. It’s no good studying it because your parents have told you to, and I hope that’s not the case for anyone here,” he said, suggesting the boys needed to think about the what, where, when and why of studying Law.

He also advised boys to make the most of opportunities to prepare for their future. “Do read things, email barristers – I followed a QC about, which was very useful! All this will help you to gain insight and experience.”

During his time as an undergraduate, Samir became President of the Warwick European Law Society and was involved in the university debating team. He also spent a year abroad at Utrecht University.

He told the pupils it was important to take and to make opportunities to excel. “You are all incredibly bright and, if you work hard, you’ll do well wherever you go, but think about what will make you stand out – it is always good to have a position of leadership, even if it’s not related to Law,” said Samir. In the afternoon, after the lecture, he conducted mock interviews for a number of Year 13 boys.

Head of Year 13 Michael Feven thanked Samir for contributing his time and for his sound advice. “It is very important that our boys’ career choices tally with their own strengths and interests,” he said.

Only a few short months after starting his job as a Civil Service economist, Old Elizabethan Andrei Sandu was already advising a Government Minister at a European summit, he told senior boys at a special lunchtime lecture.

Andrei (OE 2007-14) took up his role in August last year with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as part of the economists’ group of the Civil Service Fast Stream. By the autumn of 2017, he was called upon to attend a Council of Ministers summit in Brussels, where he advised Lord Henley, of BEIS, throughout the session.

“There are few jobs where just four months in you are able to shape UK policy and EU law,” he told the boys as he promoted Civil Service careers. After his lecture, he also conducted a number of mock interviews with pupils considering studying Economics at university.

Thanking him for his visit, Head of Year 13 Michael Feven said: “This was an ideal opportunity for boys to hear about an interesting and rewarding career path in economics.”

After leaving QE, Andrei read Economics at Durham, where he gained a first-class degree last year.
In broad terms, he set out for the lunchtime audience both the departmental structure of the Civil Service and his own role, which involves advising the Government of the day and supporting it in implementing its plans, while remaining politically neutral. He also provided information about BEIS, including the history of the 2016 merger of the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills with the Department of Energy & Climate Change to form the new department.

His role at BEIS is as lead economist working on EU energy regulations, analysing draft laws and regulations to explore which aspects the UK would consent to and which it would want to see amended. He considers factors such as how much implementation would cost, the likely policies required to achieve particular targets and how measures should be phased in – whether, for example, to stipulate even progress each year or whether instead to specify an incremental build-up.

Andrei will return to QE on 22nd November for the School’s annual Careers Convention, where he will give his support and advice to boys in Year 11 beginning to think about their future career paths.

A leading academic expert on Artificial Intelligence set out both its huge potential for education – and some of the looming pitfalls.

Rose Luckin, Professor of Learner Centred Design at UCL’s Knowledge Lab, took as her starting point in the Senior School lecture assembly the need for deep human understanding: “AI is the inter-disciplinary study of intelligence – if we don’t understand intelligence, we can’t automate it.”

Together with educationalist Sir Anthony Seldon and entrepreneur Priya Lakhani, she is one of the leaders of the new Institute for Ethical AI in Education. Headmaster Neil Enright was among those who attended its launch this month at Speaker’s House in the Palace of Westminster.

During her lecture at QE, she highlighted ways in which Artificial Intelligence might obviate an impending global shortage of teachers – an estimated 69 million more will be needed by 2030. It could, for example, be used in teaching larger groups, releasing human teachers to focus on particular aspects of the curriculum with particular children.

However, Professor’s Luckin’s work takes in not only how AI can be used to assist human education, but also how education itself may need to change in response to the new technology. And in her lecture to the boys and staff, she said that, since AI can learn information faster and more accurately than humans can, there is a need to move beyond a focus on subject knowledge. This, she acknowledged, was already being done at QE, with the School’s emphasis on skills such as problem-solving and on synthesising and understanding the meaning of data.

She pointed to some of the ethical issues presented by the new technology. AI is built upon “big data”, she told the assembly, and it was not only in the area of data security that there were concerns, but also in how representative the data used is. There have been cases where AI has delivered skewed results, such as facial recognition only recognising certain ethnicities, or has shown a gender bias in its decisions. “We need to be appropriately sceptical,” she said – careful about what is automated ensuring that companies and technologies are held to account. “We need detailed explanatory answers when being presented with a seemingly nice solution to something.”

There were specific issues in education which AI was particularly well-suited to tackle: speech recognition might be deployed to help people with disabilities, she said, noting that Google has predicted that developments in speech recognition will be more significant than driverless cars. Yet doing so was no easy matter, because of the ways in which voices change.

In a question-and-answer session with the boys after the lecture, Professor Luckin delved into: issues of AI and consciousness; understanding what knowledge is and where it comes from; the need for AI that can explain its decisions, and how the education sector should be engaged in the development of the technology. She also explained the importance of inter-subjectivity in teaching and learning to make the best use of AI – that is, achieving the right blend between human interaction and machine-learning.

In thanking Professor Luckin, Year 13 pupil John Tan said: “Whilst we live in a society characterised by technology and technological advance, her talk emphasised the importance of the human connection in education.”

In addition to her work in education, Professor Luckin is also working with the Department of Health on a project commissioned by current Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt (in his previous role as Health Secretary) into how AI will impact and can help the NHS.

A copy of Professor Luckin’s book, Machine Learning and Human Intelligence, which was published in June, was donated to The Queen’s Library.

Media reports about the extent of divisions within the parliamentary Conservative Party over the Brexit negotiations are well wide of the mark, MP Mike Freer told sixth-formers.

The Tory MP and former QE governor came into School to speak to Year 13 in a special assembly and responded robustly when asked whether he thought splits in the party would prevent the Government from winning any vote on Brexit.

“I sometimes feel as if I work at a different House of Commons to what I see portrayed in the media,” said Mr Freer, an Assistant Government Whip and MP for Finchley and Golders Green. He stated that the vast bulk of the Parliamentary Conservative Party supports the Prime Minister, adding that not only had she been a successful Home Secretary, but that she also knew Europe and understood that good deals inevitably happen at the very last minute.

And Mr Freer had another example of how perceptions of British politics can be affected by the media: he pointed out that although the chamber of the House of Commons usually appears quite empty on the BBC Parliament channel, this was because most of Parliament’s work was in fact conducted outside the chamber.

Mr Freer was on QE’s Governing Body when he was as a councillor in the London Borough of Barnet, where he served as Leader prior to running for Parliament. He spoke to the boys about the true role of MPs in the legislative process and about how to effect changes in public policy, before answering their questions on a wide range of political topics.

An MP’s job is to scrutinise the law, not make it, he explained. The law usually comes from the Government, which is the executive. However, there are a number of ways in which MPs can achieve a change in the law, through lobbying, questioning, building consensus, and trying to amend legislation as it progresses through Parliament. One approach is to hang an amendment on to a piece of legislation already tabled – known in the US as a Christmas tree bill. Westminster Hall debates – for which MPs sit in a horseshoe arrangement intended to encourage non-confrontational discussions – provide another opportunity to influence, he said.

Mr Freer recounted how he had secured changes to the law to:

• Make residential squatting illegal
• Remove ‘poppers’ from the list of drugs controlled under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 (having challenged the Department of Health’s evidence about their health impact).
• Make PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) available on the NHS. (PrEP is when people at very high risk for HIV take HIV medicines daily to lower their chances of getting infected.)
• Extend the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine’s availability to include boys.

“Changing public policy is the most worthwhile thing about being an MP. I’m proud if I’ve stopped one person getting an HPV-related cancer,” he said.

Boys challenged Mr Freer in a number of areas during the Q & A session. He was asked, for example, “how do you reconcile the fact that your constituency voted for ‘remain’ with the Government’s position (that you are whipping)?”

“Easy! I’m a democrat,” he replied, adding that the Brexit referendum was the largest democratic vote in the country’s history and that all should therefore respect its outcome.

There were also questions on his voting record, including one on tuition fees. One sixth-former put a particularly thoughtful question about community relations: how did Mr Freer reconcile religious rights with the rights of other groups, such as the LGBT+ community, within such a diverse constituency. His answer was that trust is built over time as people get to know you as their MP and see you working hard for the local area; this allows you to disagree on particular issues without destroying those relationships.

After the assembly, Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a wide-ranging talk and set of questions, which engaged the boys and which will have aided their understanding of the political and legislative processes, not least in terms of gaining an insight into how MPs influence public policy. It is important that our pupils are able to consider a range of political perspectives on the key issues of the day and engage critically with them.”

An award-winning mental health campaigner gave senior boys some serious food for thought when she visited the School.

Natasha Devon looked at topics ranging from the need to deal with stress and the perils of stoicism, to the limitations of the English language, during a lecture assembly given to Years 10 and 12.

She made sure her answers were truly relevant by inviting boys to submit their questions anonymously in advance – and received questions on body image, the pressures on men to not cause offence, social media, examination stress, gender and even the TV programme, Love Island.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We want all our pupils to be both happy and resilient; we therefore arrange events such as this lecture in order to nurture boys’ wellbeing. I am grateful to Natasha for her engaging examination of some of the key issues relating to mental health.”

Natasha, who won an MBE for services to young people in 2015 and a Fellowship from the University of Wales in the following year, used the boys’ pre-submitted questions to structure her talk.

She emphasised that stoicism should not be equated with strength, telling the boys that they could, in fact, demonstrate strength by talking about problems, confiding in others and seeking help. Yet she acknowledged that this could be tougher for boys than for girls because gendered language equates masculinity with strength. She suggested gender is a spectrum and that generalisations such as ‘men are like this’ and ‘women are like that’ only deal with an average and, even then, one that most people would not fully identify with.

She recounted her experience of trying to deal with difficult family matters when she was about ten years old – and the eldest child among her siblings and cousins – by being ‘strong’, reasoning that because things were not happening to her directly they were not really affecting her. But this, she felt, probably contributed to the anxiety, panic attacks and eating disorder she suffered from subsequently.

Natasha, who has authored and contributed to books on mental health, urged that, just as physical health is considered relevant to everyone – not just those who are ill – so everyone should be aware of mental health: it should not be considered to be an issue only for those who experience a mental health problem.

While encouraging the boys to discuss things with each other, she pointed out that they could not expect to be able to fix other people’s mental health issues, just as people who are not doctors would not expect to be able to cure a physical ailment. There were measures that laypeople could take to help, however: she is promoting having trained mental-health first-aiders in all workplaces. (QE’s pastoral staff have already been trained.) Importantly, she said, such training helps people know what to say and what not to say: although English had the greatest variety in its vocabulary overall, it was far more limited than many other languages in expressing feelings and emotions – something, she opined, which doesn’t help!

Natasha also listed factors which contribute to good mental health, stating that it helps to:
• Be loved
• Have a sense of belonging
• Have a purpose
• Achieve things
• Feel that your voice is heard.

She advised the boys that they needed to deal with stress so that it does not “overflow”. Mindfulness techniques, endorphin-releasing physical activity and taking breaks from revision could all help and might even prevent one’s mind going blank in an examination.

Economics Society guest speaker Lal Chadeesingh gave pupils an insider’s view of how behavioural economics is being applied to UK public policy – and explained that it all stemmed from the personal interest of David Cameron.

Lal works at the Behavioural Insights Team – a group that was the brainchild of former Prime Minister Cameron, who set it up under the Cabinet after reading the seminal book, Nudge. The team was later spun out into a company part-owned by the Government which now works to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Government measures.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a good opportunity for the boys to hear about a different side of Economics beyond finance, and to understand how economic theory can be used in the public interest.”

Year 12 pupil, Ibrahim Al-Hariri, added: ‘The talk introduced a part of Economics that is often overlooked; changing people’s behaviour for their benefit is a fascinating idea that I would love to explore.”

Lal, who read Economics at Durham before completing a Master’s degree in Economics and Public Policy at Bristol, introduced boys to the principles behind behavioural economics as described in Thinking Fast and Slow – another key work about this emerging discipline and one of the first books to introduce it to a wider public. The book contrasts two modes of thought: fast, which is automatic, intuitive and requires little to no effort, and slow, which is conscious, more deliberative and logical. While traditional assumptions among economists and policy-makers about the existence of homo-economicus (a purely rational decision-maker) take no account of this dichotomy, exponents of behavioural economics have used it to develop a theory of predictable irrationality.

The Behavioural Insights Team uses this understanding to tailor policies and their implementation so that they are more effective in generating the desired results, explained Lal, who began his career working in the Civil Service under the then-Business Secretary Vince Cable. It has condensed its guidance into a simple mnemonic, EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely), for policy-makers to keep in mind.

One assignment taken on by the team was reducing the number of people missing NHS appointments by looking at the wording of text messages sent out to patients. After testing various other forms of wording, they found that stating the material cost to the NHS of missing an appointment was the most effective, with a typical message reading:

• We are expecting you at Mile End Hospital on Sep 16 at 10:00am. Not attending costs NHS £160 approx. Call 02077673200 if you need to cancel or rearrange.

This change reduced missed appointments by 2.6% which, although a diminutive percentage, equates to 400,000 appointments nationwide.

Year 12 economist Mipham Samten said that, to some amusement from the boys, Lal also explained the theory behind painting a small fly on the back of lavatories – a small, subtle image getting men to focus on the task at hand and reducing the chances of spillages by a significant rate.

“Students were rather less amused by another novel application of the EAST framework on behaviour,” added Mipham. “The team had discovered that the effect of sending text messages to parents informing them their child will have an exam soon and asking them to encourage revision was to increase maths score grades by the equivalent of one month’s teaching.”

“Overall,” said Mipham, “Lal’s talk opened the students’ eyes to the numerous material benefits of Economics to the public and many expressed an interest in pursuing professional economics as a career.”

Younger pupils had the chance to explore one of the world’s most intractable conflicts when a Palestinian and an Israeli visited the School.

The two young women spoke during a Lower School Lecture Assembly led by the charitable organisation, Solutions Not Sides, which promotes open and positive engagement as the best approach to the long-running conflict.

Celia Hart, Outreach and Administration Manager for the organisation, introduced the session in the Shearly Hall, which was part of School’s lecture programme for Years 7–10 organised by Nisha Mayer, Head of Academic Enrichment. The boys heard from Rena, a Palestinian who grew up in Jerusalem, and from Tania, an Israeli from Tel Aviv. Both recalled vivid memories of childhood fears arising from the conflict, yet they were able now to agree about many aspects of what the way forward should be.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was an engaging exploration of a very important, but often difficult, topic, with the two young women recalling experiences that are almost unimaginable for us in the UK, but were part of normal life for those growing up in the conflict.

“It was good for the boys to see how two people ostensibly on different ‘sides’ can work together. Although there was a clear sense that there is still some way to go, with divisions rooted in both communities, it was apparent that there is real hope things can be better for future generations. In today’s climate of polarised political debate, it is more crucial than ever that our pupils learn to consider the viewpoints of others and do not simply resort to tribalism.”

Rena remembered playing outside as a child and then fearing her mother was dead as bombs started going off around her and her friends. She recalled an Israeli soldier who pointed his loaded weapon at her in the street when she was outside during curfew.

For her part, Tania, who is finishing a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology, explained the system of compulsory military service for young Israelis – she served in Intelligence. She told the boys that the first time many young Israelis encounter a Palestinian is in this context, where they are viewed as hostile or enemies. As a child, the fear of suicide bombings was very real and limited some opportunities. There were regular bomb sirens, which gave people only 60 seconds to get to a shelter. She told an anecdote of how on one Holocaust Memorial Day, she mistook the siren sounded to mark the start of the period of reflection for a bomb siren and, startled, began running downstairs towards a shelter. When she realised it was a false alarm, she simultaneously laughed and cried.

Violence, said Tania, only adds fuel to the fire and cannot be the answer: “Israelis will only have a safe home when Palestinians have a safe home.”

Among the questions posed by the boys were:

• Would a single-state solution work? The visiting speakers answered that people were probably not ready; there was broader support for a two-state solution.
• How have foreign nations affected the conflict? The response was that there had been many impacts, and these had not always been helpful. Tania cited President Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem as something which added to tensions. However, foreign support could have a positive impact if it focussed on supporting the leaders of both sides to find a way forward.
• What was the main cause of the conflict – perhaps Hitler’s régime and World War II, or the Crusades almost a thousand years before? In response, the speakers pointed to further causes, including the fact that the ‘Holy Land’ is just that for all three Abrahamic religions, and that the region’s geography makes the territory strategically important. Any solution would need to take many factors into account.
• How had other young people of the two women’s generation viewed the situation growing up and had they taken sides? Yes, many Israelis viewed Palestinians as the enemy, never knowing them as children, said Tania. The conflict is very deep-seated, with hatred and fear common. Many Palestinians saw Israelis as soldiers and machines, not as people, Rena said. But, she added, people could get beyond that if they tried to understand others and reach out to them. The two speakers were clear that they didn’t view each other negatively.

Two Old Elizabethan friends returned to their alma mater to recount an inspirational story of success in the face of extreme adversity.

Johan Byran, who is a successful London GP, has from the age of 18 struggled with the painful and debilitating condition of rheumatoid arthritis, yet this year he completed one of the toughest endurance challenges of them all – the Marathon Des Sables, a 156-mile ultra-marathon across the Sahara Desert.

He was filmed throughout the race by his QE contemporary, Johnny Ho (1997–2004), a professional film-maker who has recently secured investment to complete a documentary about the adventure, to be entitled Grit.

They came to the School to deliver a lecture to senior boys in assembly. The pair addressed themes of taking on challenges, of being resilient – a quality that comes from the experience of testing yourself in uncomfortable environments – and of needing to draw intelligently on the support of a team around you.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Johan and Johnny’s account was truly inspiring: I trust our boys will have taken to heart the message that if they have the belief, the persistence and the determination, they, too, can achieve extraordinary things.”

Johan works in a conglomerate of doctors’ practices in Enfield, which is innovating by taking healthcare into the community in places such as gyms. Having been a photographer, Johnny now makes videos, with a portfolio that includes music videos and corporate work for major firms.

Although he continued with his studies and eventually qualified as a doctor, Johan’s condition, which first developed in the summer holidays after he left QE, quickly left him unable to accomplish basic tasks such as getting dressed, nor would he shake people’s hands because it hurt too much. Moreover, the condition took a mental and emotional, as well as a physical, toll. In response, Johan wanted to prove that he could still conquer big challenges.

“I initially had a failure mind-set, but moved to a growth mind-set, where I saw failures as challenges. I decided to do things that I found hard and compete against myself, not others.”

So he took up long-distance cycling, scuba-diving and marathon-running. And while he did not see himself as competing with fellow participants, he did draw inspiration from them, such as his companion on a bike ride from London to Barcelona – a man who had cystic fibrosis and was on the lung transplant register.

He progressed from multiple marathons to Iron Man events, to running 100km to Brighton for his stag celebrations, and ultimately to the Marathon Des Sables. “It was absolutely awful… really hard… and then, for the documentary, after ten hours on the go, Johnny would ask ‘Can we do that last bit again?’ No! But it was part of the process. I had to follow a routine each day, including the filming. It provided structure.

“A lot of the time you were on your own in the desert with a map and some markers, and you have to draw on everything you have.” He likened it to the feeling of isolation around examinations when your classmates are no longer there and you have got to do it yourself.

A huge physical challenge for Johan, the event was also tough for Johnny. He had never actually made a documentary before, so had to learn the specific skills involved, as well as coping with 50-degree-plus heat and the challenges posed by sand, including occasional sand storms, which caused problems with the camera equipment. This required plenty of problem-solving along the way.

He, too, drew inspiration from what he saw: “As humans we like things that are comfortable, but these guys are in a place where no one would feel comfortable. But to learn and be successful you have to put yourself in these positions.”

Johnny showed a trailer of the film to the boys and made clear how appropriate its title, Grit, is, given the way Johan had overcome his difficulties.

He also spoke about not needing to know what you want to do when at school and the merits of taking a different path from the norm. Johnny took Photography at A-level at QE, taught by Alison Lefteri, who is still in the School’s Art department. “Trust in your own beliefs and what you are interested in – it doesn’t matter if it’s not like what others are doing. Opportunities will arise,” he told the boys. He found a passion for photography, developing his skills and discovering an interest in documentary-style photography at university. Eventually, however, he moved into film and found he loved that even more.

Johan reinforced Johnny’s advice, saying: “Never look to the side of you, as you’ll only end up keeping up [with others] – you should look ahead of you.” He added that “arbitrary markers of grades or salary are not important for life satisfaction”. Nor was natural aptitude necessarily essential for achieving fulfilment, he said, claiming not to be a great marathon-runner: “I tended only to run when on camera!” Instead, what was important was self-belief – without it, he simply would not be able to run marathons.