Our Academy community joins the whole country in a period of national mourning for the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We are flying our flag at half mast, and we will be paying our respects to the Queen through tutor time and assembly activities. Where students need support, we will provide it.

We will be encouraging all students to respect one another, using the Academy’s value of kindness. Not everyone will feel the same thing. Some people will be feeling this loss deeply. Even if others do not share that feeling, we should all be respectful and sensitive.

The Queen has reigned throughout my life. I have the utmost respect for her as a model of public service; as someone who dedicated their life to the service of the nation. I will remember the shock and sheer joy I felt when she participated in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, accompanying Daniel Craig’s James Bond on a mission to get to the Olympic Stadium in the most epic way imaginable.

She showed that same mischievous spirit at her Platinum Jubilee, enjoying a marmalade sandwich with Paddington Bear.

But my abiding memory of Her Majesty will be her address to the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the midst of a national crisis, when so many of us were uncertain and afraid, Queen Elizabeth found the words we needed. She used all the experience of her long reign, including her wartime broadcast to children during World War II in 1940, to assure us that “better days will return…we will meet again.”

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: thank you, Ma’am.