Baking Christmas cakes for QE Girls’ 75th anniversary in 1963 – just one of the memories of guest speaker at school’s awards evening

Prizes at the annual celebration of excellence at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, were presented by a former pupil who was later awarded an MBE for her contribution towards supporting young people.

Alison Mihail, who lived in New Barnet, passed the 11-plus exam in 1957 to gain a place at what was then Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School for Girls.

She followed her father Ronald Orton, who studied at QE Boys when classes were still being held at the Tudor Hall in Wood Street, and who went on to become clerk to the trustees for the two QE schools.

Ms Stephanie Rodgers (above, right), newly appointed interim headteacher at QE Girls, welcomed Ms Mihail who inspired the assembled students with an amusing account of her time at the school.

Her aim was to encourage students to take advantage of challenges and opportunities whenever they occurred.

The only mention about herself which she had found in QE Girls’ records was for 1963 when she was commended for decorating Christmas cakes baked by the pupils to celebrate the school’s 75^th anniversary.

Cookery, then included in QE’s domestic science classes, was one of the skills which changed the course of her life.

After leaving QE in 1964, she did her teacher training at Bath University and became a home economics teacher.

Home economics – now rebranded once again as food technology – was a subject taught to boys and girls and included instruction in cooking, cleaning, laundry and other household chores.

During the covid lockdown – when Ms Mihail was on Facebook – she recognised boys and girls whom she had taught at her first school in the 1970s. She reminded them she was the teacher who showed them how to bake a Victoria sponge sandwich cake.

Being awarded the MBE for her voluntary work with the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust) was “absolutely brilliant” but being told on Facebook by five boys that in the 1970s she was their “best ever teacher” was perhaps the biggest reward of her career – and a valuable reminder for the pupils of today that going through life “you don’t forget people” you knew and worked with.

Perhaps the biggest event during her time at QE was a visit by the late Queen Elizabeth in November 1957.

“QE Girls was the first state school she visited after becoming Queen. She was 31 years old, and she came into our classroom, 3B, where Miss Bradshaw was telling us all about Egyptian hieroglyphics.

“The Queen was wearing a wine-red velvet waistcoat…and I remember her beautiful skin.”

On her return visit to the school, Miss Mihail said she had walked along one corridor and noticed that the parquet flooring was just same as in the 1960s, as were the tiles on the wall.”

After 11 years as deputy head of a secondary school at Aylesbury, she enrolled in 1996 as a volunteer with the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust) which helps young people build confidence, develop essential work skills, and find jobs or start a business.

Looking back on the great job satisfaction of 30 years with the trust – work for which she was awarded an MBE in 2015 for her outstanding contribution to young people in the Thames Valley area – she said was proud to have contributed to their extensive fund raising.

She had helped to raise £3 million, which had gone towards supporting 3,000 young people.

Miss Mihail said she had been asked to give the prizes at the celebration of excellence after being approached at a QE old girls’ lunch earlier this year by Violet Walker, the outgoing headteacher, who retired at the end of the summer term.

See above, from left to right, Violet Walker, Alison Mihail, and the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Zahra Beg.