Headmaster Neil Enright delivered a speech on QE’s focus on ‘free-thinking scholarship’ to an influential conference of heads from independent schools.
Mr Enright was invited as one of a small number of guest speakers at the Girls’ Schools Association’s Annual Conference for Heads in Bristol.
In his speech during a plenary session entitled Keeping scholarship at the heart of education, he set out QE’s work to cultivate habits of independent learning and academic curiosity.
“We summarise this approach as free-thinking scholarship – a relatively new phrase in the QE lexicon,” he told his audience, who were drawn from some of the country’s most famous girls’ schools.
Mr Enright spoke of the importance of maintaining a focus on free-thinking scholarship within a curriculum that is designed to be intellectually rigorous yet also to be exciting and to embrace worthwhile innovation.
However, he also highlighted QE’s commitment to its academic enrichment programme, through which it offers activities that go beyond the classroom curriculum and the requirements of public examinations.
Mr Enright pointed to the role here of the academic symposia that QE holds with local girls’ schools, including North London Collegiate School (whose Headmistress, Sarah Clark, also spoke in the session and through whom Mr Enright’s invitation had come) and The Henrietta Barnett School. On the day Mr Enright spoke, a group of Year 13 girls from NLCS were visiting QE for a symposium, while a group of Year 11 boys headed in the opposite direction the following day.
While scholarship might be seen as “somewhat of a heritage brand” – gothic libraries, decanters of port and the like – the focus at QE was instead on the fundamental attributes that underpin scholarship: “We must be open to expressions of scholarship which look rather different.”
And Mr Enright cited as a recent example the work of old boy George the Poet (George Mpanga OE 2003–2010), an award-winning podcaster, who opened the coverage of the 2018 Royal Wedding, performed at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Rugby World Cup and has been a regular panellist on BBC’s Question Time. “His work is now undoubtedly a great example of scholarship – a contemporary, urban, forward-looking, free-thinking scholarship,” said Mr Enright.
He also mentioned Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994–1999), QE’s poet-in-residence, who was recently shortlisted for the prestigious TS Eliot prize and whose “radical perspective [is] grounded in his experience of race and identity”. Acknowledging that neither Anthony’s nor George’s work found ready recognition at the School when they were pupils, Mr Enright added: “I would like to think that the School would be better placed now to value and support their brands of free-thinking scholarship.”
To inspire and facilitate scholarship in their pupils, schools must identify, attract and then develop staff who have a “deep-rooted interest to continue to explore their [own] interests” and can model “scholastic traits”.
“Our boys expect their teachers to be on top of not just the course material, but the hot topics in their field, the emerging theories and technologies,” he said.
One significant factor in QE’s success in supporting staff had been the work of many departments with the Prince’s Teaching Institute, which, Mr Enright said, had “proved a great way of stretching our subject leaders, giving them the opportunity to collaborate across different schools, learn from best practice and then train others”. Several staff, including Mr Enright himself as well as Assistant Head Sarah Westcott, Head of History & Politics Helen MacGregor and Head of Mathematics Jessica Steer, have current leadership roles within the charity.
Mr Enright set out several other steps the School takes to promote scholarship, all of which, he said aimed at “trying to create and maintain a culture whereby curiosity, ambitious thinking and intellectual risk-taking feels safe”.
Forty-nine boys – well over a quarter of the 180-strong Year 11 – gained A* grades (8s & 9s) across all of their GCSEs. Over 55% of examinations were given the highest grade possible, a level 9. And 13 of the 49 achieved the ultimate clean sweep – all grade 9s.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This is a lovely day of great celebration at Queen Elizabeth’s School. We made a big leap at the very top end in last year’s GCSE results, so it is most impressive that this year’s cohort have been able to extend that record.
Individual success stories included that of Aqif Choudhury, who was the top performer across the whole country in his GCSE Economics examination (OCR board).
*The EBacc is achieved by gaining passes at levels 9-4 (equivalent to A*–C) in all of the following: English, Mathematics, History or Geography, Science and a language.
The proportion of A*-B grades – a benchmark measure used widely by the country’s leading schools – remained above the 95% threshold, where it has now been for a remarkable 14 consecutive years.
“Having secured their places on degree courses through achieving the grades they required, many of our leavers will now be going on to leading universities in the UK and abroad.
“QE really is a state school like no other, offering a very broad experience in the Sixth Form – not just A-levels, but also AS and the Extended Project Qualification, as well as a host of enriching activities including sport, music, drama and opportunities to participate in competitive events up and down the country and internationally,” said Mr Enright.
“This is a very exciting period in our history, in which we are reaping the rewards of the thoroughgoing work that has been done over recent years to regain the School’s high standing. QE is the reigning top state school in the Sunday Times Parent Power survey; recent Government analysis showed that we sent more pupils to Russell Group universities than any other state school over the past three years, and we are also the top selective school when measured by the Department for Education’s Progress 8 figure, which charts academic progress between the last year of primary school and GCSEs. Furthermore, we have recently had the exciting news of the success of our funding application for a new Music School – a major addition to our facilities,” Mr Enright concluded.
The formal ceremony in the School Hall took its traditional form, with the audience of prize-winners, their parents, VIP guests and staff treated to classical music interludes during the prize-giving.
“Try new things and broaden your base of skills and knowledge, as your generation will need to adapt in an economy and a society disrupted by technology and associated structural change.”
The implications of this for QE’s pupils were clear: “It is through a rounded combination of academic, technical, creative and social skills that progress on the biggest issues facing us in the future will rely. This is a roundedness we try to prepare you for…You are in a privileged position to be well set to face that future with confidence and optimism, building on your prior success to progress further and further, to thrive in a changing world, and to change it.”
The Headmaster also welcomed the Guest of Honour, Old Elizabethan Akash Gandhi (2005–2012), who, he told the audience, had himself picked up no fewer than five Junior Awards when he was in Year 7, for Geography, Mathematics, Science, Stapylton House and the overall Charles Fitch Memorial Award for Outstanding Commitment.
On leaving, he went up to Queens’ College, Cambridge, to read Medicine, taking a first-class degree with prize & honours. From there, he went to University College London, for his clinical training, again excelling in his studies. Akash is now a Junior Doctor in Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, but carves out time every year to support QE’s aspiring Sixth Form medics with their UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) preparations.
And Akash had three specific areas of advice. The first was to find and follow your passions. “During my time at QE, my passions were my culture, cricket, charity work and football. And so, at university I found myself as the Vice-President of Cambridge University’s India Society. I also captained my college’s cricket team all the way to the final of the cup tournament – despite only ever representing QE’s C team.”
“I can safely say that I am still surrounded by the values, ethos and ethic that I felt whilst studying at QE. I suppose that’s easy to say when I got to work last Friday to find that four out of the five doctors on my team were also QE boys. And as for the fifth? She’s a proud mother of a son who currently goes to QE!
and the Bohemia-born Josef Fiala, who died in 1816. A Recessional piece was composed by Year 12’s Ifeatu Obiora and Federico Rocco.
The Minister of State for School Standards highlighted the fact that QE was in the top 1 per cent of all state-funded mainstream schools for its performance in two separate areas. One was the School’s score in the Government’s Progress 8 measure, while the other was for the proportion of QE pupils – in fact, 100 per cent – entering the English Baccalaureate.
The EBacc is not a qualification but a combination of core GCSE subjects recommended by the Department for Education, including English, Mathematics, Science, History or Geography, and a foreign language.
In response, Mr Enright said: “I am grateful to the Minister for recognising the achievements of the boys here and of my colleagues. We are committed to providing a rounded education and to stretching all our boys to ensure they reach their full potential.