Beyond King’s

It’s been a busy week at King’s with Orchestral Workshops, the Intermediate Maths Challenge and lots of sporting fixtures too. Our former pupil this week is OV Julius Baghdadi (Br 95-06) who was always involved in school activities and was a lively and involved member of the King’s community, enjoying playing for the 1st XI Football team and being Head of House.

On leaving King’s, Julius went to the University of Bristol to study Environmental Geoscience. During his final year at Bristol, Julius became an Assistant Researcher, particularly focusing on developing new methodologies to understand gas propagation in volcanoes.

Leaving Bristol University in 2011, Julius went on to work at energy supplier OVO Energy, as Trading Analyst, Financial Planning Analyst, and Product Manager. This final role at OVO saw Julius and the team he managed acting as the link between the commercial and technology sides of the business. Since OVO, Julius has founded Octopus Energy Hatchery, an incubator for innovative sustainable and energy related ideas in partnership with Octopus Energy.

This week our former pupil is Rachael Stokes (Cr 94-96) who is a great example of how to continue learning and enjoying hobbies after leaving King’s. As a pupil, Rachael was in the Choir, Young Enterprise and was a Monitor and Head of House. After King’s, Rachael went to study Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh and then an MA in Social Development at the University of East Anglia.

Rachael’s career has been in the charity sector working primarily for international NGO’s including Christian Aid, VSO, Penal Reform International and Unicef UK. She has also served on charity boards and advisory committees including for the Gender and Development Network. Rachael continued her love of singing after leaving King’s as was a member of the London Philharmonic Choir between 2002 and 2014.

In 2014, Rachael was elected as a local Labour Councillor in her home ward of Earlsfield (London Borough of Wandsworth). Rachael now works as an international development consultant and has recently been working with the Mothers’ Union to help them with strategic planning. She balances this alongside her current studies in Horticulture with the RHS and raising a young family.

This week we were delighted to welcome our newest member of the Barnabas group, Kathryn Pugh (W 93-95). At King’s, Kathryn was a keen rower and member of the Boat club as well as enjoying Drama and Theatre.

On leaving King’s, Kathryn went on to Cambridge University gaining a First in English Literature. Kathryn stayed at Cambridge to complete a PGCE in English and Drama. Kathryn has enjoyed a varied teaching career including teaching English and Drama at Riddlestown High School in Croydon.

Kathryn is currently Headteacher at St Marylebone School in London, an outstanding non-selective State School in central London where they place particular value on the positive role the arts play in all young people’s education. On her appointment in this role Kathryn was noted as one of the youngest Headmistresses.

Lots of pupils are interested in entering the health profession and this week we are delighted to feature Paramedic Clinical Mentor, Ben Rean (Os 02-09) as our former pupil. Ben got involved with lots of activities at King’s including cross country and rowing as well as being a house prefect.

After King’s, Ben started a degree in outdoor leadership at Cumbria university but left after 6 months, realising that it was a hobby and not a career. Ben then looked in to the role of the paramedic. Ben completed an FdSc in Paramedic Science at the University of Worcester and registered as a paramedic with the HCPC in 2016.

Ben was based at South Central Ambulance Services’s (SCAS) Adderbury ambulance station, in Oxfordshire until December 2019 when he joined West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) and now works at Hollymoor Hub. Ben also worked shifts on the Helicopter support vehicle that runs alongside Thames Valley Air Ambulance.

We are back for the start of a new term and a new year and we are delighted to feature OV and King’s parent, Steve Perera (Cr 86-93) as our first OV of the week for 2020. At King’s, Steve was involved with CCF as well as playing for the 1st XV. He was also fully involved in house activities during his time at school, representing Creighton House in most sports including football, basketball and tug of war. Steve then went to Swansea University to study Economics and Politics.

Steve worked for a number of large companies in corporate pensions including Aon and PwC before becoming a Lifestyle Financial Planner in 2004. In 2006 Steve set up his own company, ‘Britannic Place’ and he qualified as a Chartered Financial Planner in 2007. Steve has gone on to provide financial advice to other OVs, King’s parents and even a couple of ex-King’s school teachers since he set up his business.

Steve’s business had a good 2019, having been shortlisted for the Retirement Planner awards and the Money Age awards. This success has continued with a great start to 2020, as he has just qualified for VouchedFor’s guide as one of the UK’s Top Rated Financial Advisers.

We are looking forward to the 10 Year Reunion on Saturday 14^th December and we are delighted to feature as our OV of the week, 10-year leaver Hayley Weaver (W 07-09). At King’s, Hayley was a mentor and was involved in Duke of Edinburgh, swimming and netball.

Hayley went to the University of Birmingham to study Sport and Exercise Sciences and then started her career in the healthcare industry at Spire Healthcare before also completing a Masters in Paediatric Exercise and Health at the University of Exeter.

Hayley now works for Nuffield Health where she is a Health and Wellbeing Physiologist as well as an Executive Healthcare Programme Physiologist. Hayley provides health assessments for clients and ensures the smooth running of a busy Medical Centre. Hayley is also Regional Clinical Lead Physiologist and manages a team of clinicians, ensuring they are adhering to the highest clinical standards, as well as driving the overall clinical quality for the company.

Sixth Form is a very important time for King’s pupils and this week our OV of the week is Lizzy Bennett (Ch 08-10) who attended King’s for Sixth Form and studied Maths, Biology and Design Technology. As Lizzy discovered, choosing the right career path can take some time…and travelling around! Following the completion of a Child Psychology degree at Birmingham and a Masters in teaching, Lizzy spent 2 years as an international Early Year’s teacher at The British School of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

Lizzy then jumped into international management consultancy for 2 years, working on projects based in the United Arab Emirates and The Philippines. With an increasing interest in the finance industry and developing coding skills, Lizzy won a scholarship to return back to the UK to complete an MSc in Investment Risk and Finance.

Graduating with distinction, Lizzy was hired by the US investment giant, Vanguard, who currently have $5.3 trillion in assets under management. She has a front office role on the London trade floor as an Operational Risk Analyst. Lizzy works directly with traders and portfolio managers globally to enhance and develop internal processes through machine learning, forensic analysis, and automation. This year, her global risk team won the Risk.net ‘2020 buy-side risk managers of the year’ award.

With all the exciting racing news recently for both OVs and pupils we are delighted to feature F1 Trackside Control Systems Engineer Chris Nelson (Cr 89-96) as our former pupil this week. Chris was involved with D of E, Drama and Music whilst at King’s and went on to study at the University of Southampton where he achieved a Masters in Mechanical Engineering.

Following University, Chris went straight into the automotive engineering industry working for Ricardo, followed by a move into motorsport with MoTeC Europe working on electronic systems. He realised a childhood dream 10 years ago by securing a role in Formula 1 with McLaren Applied Technologies, attending all races to support the F1 standard electronics. Chris was there for 8 years starting as an F1 Track Support Engineer and working his way up to Senior Track Support Engineer before moving to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team in 2018.

His current role is that of Trackside Control Systems Engineer, which involves working on one of the cars to ensure all of the chassis-related control systems are correctly configured for the requirements of the event, and monitoring their performance over a race weekend. This weekend Chris will be in Abu Dhabi for the last race of the F1 season. The Mercedes team have had an incredibly successful year and have already secured their sixth consecutive Constructors Championship and 1st and 2nd place in the Drivers Championship.

This week our former pupil is horticulturist Roger Savage (Ch 72-77). At King’s, Roger was Head of Choir House, school prefect and 1st XI cricket captain and hockey captain. After undertaking work experience in offices, Roger decided it was not for him and studied for a degree in Horticulture at Wye College, London University.

After graduating, Roger worked for a progressive top fruit grower in Suffolk where he learnt practical fruit growing skills. From there he joined the Ministry of Agriculture as a horticultural advisor and spent three years at the National Fruit Trails at Brogdale where he was part of a team researching aspects of fruit growing and new fruit varieties. Roger moved into commerce and secured a job with ICI as a sales representative selling garden products. Although he enjoyed the work, Roger wanted to work for himself and so he started a plant nursery that specialised in hanging baskets. Within three years he was producing over 15,000 mossed summer baskets and today he has a very successful retail nursery that also has an ice cream parlour, cafe, craft centre and a pottery.

Roger says, “Horticulture is a wonderful profession, it is very technical, full of applied science, there are horticulturists employed in many industries that include, banking, insurance, crop production, agrochemical, pharmaceutical, government, supermarkets, distribution, you name it … a horticulturist is never far away!”