From the Headmaster's Study
For well over four hundred years, successive generations of boys have benefited from an education at Queen Elizabeth’s School.
Our rich heritage is reflected in the School Chronicle, which is read annually on Founder’s Day and which records the Governors’ requirement that the education we provide should be as much in “good manners as in nurture for learning”. Similarly, our mission has long been “to produce young men who are confident, able and responsible”. In our strategic vision plan, Building on Distinction, we have re-defined what that means for the 2020s, gleaning the best from our historic traditions and from our experience as one of the country’s leading academic schools, and then combining that with the qualities which a new generation of Elizabethans will need to flourish in an inter-connected and fast-changing world.
To this end, we are committed firstly to the pursuit of academic development at the highest level. We lay good foundations such as hard work and perseverance, and, as a meritocracy, we regularly celebrate intellectual accomplishment. The School seeks to nurture broad, analytical thinkers who will thrive at university and beyond. The fruit of this approach is seen in our public examination results: QE is consistently placed at or very near the top of national league tables.
Secondly, we aim to inculcate in our boys attributes such as resilience and the ability to act appropriately in any situation, helping them to become principled young men secure in their own identity. This is achieved partly through our bespoke tutoring system and carefully structured pastoral arrangements, and partly through our expectation that all boys participate fully in the life of the School. We have an exciting, diverse range of extra-curricular activities through which every boy can pursue his interests and stretch himself as he learns new skills and talents.
Finally, through an emphasis on service within the School and through initiatives such as our Sixth Form external volunteering programme, we promote generosity of spirit and civic engagement, with boys learning to devote time and energy to the greater good. We emphasise kindness, consideration and compassion, encouraging boys to play their part in fostering our happy, inclusive School community.
Queen Elizabeth’s School, then, offers a meticulous and richly faceted holistic approach to the education of the boys in our charge. It is this approach, combined with our excellent facilities and a proud history dating back to 1573, that make the QE experience truly a state school experience like no other.
Neil Enright, Headmaster
The Good Schools Guide
"A remarkable school that offers...an exceptional and rounded education that even private schools struggle to compete with."
Mr Neil Enright: Biography
Neil Enright MA (Oxon), MBA, NPQH, FRSA was appointed the 40th Headmaster of Queen Elizabeth’s School in September 2011, succeeding Dr John Marincowitz on his retirement.
Having grown up locally, Mr Enright attended The John Lyon School in Harrow, where he was Deputy Head Boy. He went on to St John’s College, Oxford, to read Geography and subsequently took his Post-Graduate Certificate of Education teaching qualification at the University of London’s Institute of Education. His first post, in 2000, was at St Gregory’s RC Science College, Kenton, where he not only taught Geography but was also Gifted & Talented Co-ordinator and the college’s Co-ordinator for the Government’s Excellence in Cities programme.
In September 2002, he came to Queen Elizabeth’s School, where he has since remained. Before his appointment as Headmaster, he held positions as Deputy Headmaster, Assistant Headmaster, Head of Year and Head of Geography. Mr Enright was awarded his National Professional Qualification for Headship in 2007 and an MBA, from the Institute of Education, in 2010, with a dissertation on 'Growing your own leadership in a context of change'.
He fulfils a number of roles on a voluntary basis:
• Deputy Chairman of Governors at his alma mater, The John Lyon School – an independent 3-18 co-educational school - where his responsibilities including chairing the Management Board of Quainton Hall (the John Lyon preparatory school).
• Trustee of John Lyon’s Foundation, an educational foundation, comprising three main members (Harrow School, John Lyon School and John Lyon's Charity) and six connected entities (Harrow Association, Old Lyonian Association, Harrow School Enterprises Limited, Harrow Development Trust, The John Lyon Development Trust and Harrow International Schools Limited). In this capacity Mr Enright serves as a governor of Harrow School.
• Governor at Longfield Primary School – a maintained primary school in Harrow.
• Governor at St Albans High School for Girls – an independent girls’ school.
Mr Enright’s previous voluntary positions have included serving as Chair of the Management Committee for Northgate School, a Pupil Referral Unit for young people with severe mental health conditions, and as a Trustee of the Ashmole Academy Trust - a local multi-academy trust board. They have also included serving as an interview panel member for undergraduate geography applicants to St Hilda’s College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and undertaking various roles for the University of Hertfordshire’s Faculty of Education. He was also involved in development of the Post-Graduate Certificate of Education course in secondary-school geography at the Institute of Education and for several years delivered training for this course to trainees and subject mentors.