QE boys submit more applications to leading law, finance and management firms than pupils at any other state boys’ school, according to new research.
Specialist recruitment consultancy Rare examined the applications made by more than 160,000 graduates in 2017-2018 to more than 60 graduate recruitment programmes run by blue-chip companies including Linklaters, Deloitte and Deutsche Bank.
It found that QE came second in its national list of state schools, topped only by local girls’ school, The Henrietta Barnett School (HBS).
Although schools such as QE and HBS have exceptionally strong A-level results, other schools with very good A-level performances failed to make Rare’s list, while some with more modest examination results do feature. According to Raphael Mokades, Rare’s Managing Director, one key factor in this concerns the quality of a school’s careers advice and contact with recruiters.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I am very pleased to see us topping this table alongside our friends at HBS.
“We invest a great deal of effort into careers education, both through tailored schemes, especially for those in the Sixth Form, and through major events such as our annual Careers Convention for Year 11 boys and their parents.
“Much of this effort goes into engaging the help of our alumni network in supporting those who are currently at the School. We are mindful that many of our students will be the first in their families to seek entry to the most competitive professions. They therefore benefit greatly from the inspiration provided by those who have gone before them at QE and from the opportunity to establish early connections in those professions.”
QE’s longstanding academic success was underlined by this summer’s A-level and GCSE results – which led to its first place nationally in the Sunday Times’ influential Parent Power survey. QE is also the top selective school in England when measured against the Department for Education’s Progress 8 figure, which records progress between the end of Key Stage 2 (the last year of primary school) and GCSE results in Year 11.
“Value-added measures such as Progress 8 show that boys from disadvantaged backgrounds (and, indeed, all our students) do better than might otherwise be expected in terms of progress made at QE,” the Headmaster added.