It is with regret that the Association announces the death of Maurice Gent who passed towards the end of May 2018.
It is with regret that the Association announces the death of Maurice Gent who passed towards the end of May 2018.
It is with regret that the Association announces the death of Hugh Sinclair. Hugh passed on 1 May 2018.
It is with regret that the Association announces the death of John Mills. The Association has only recently been advised of his passing which occurred some years earlier.
It is with regret that the Association announces the death of John Kearey. The Association has only recently been advised of his passing which occurred in January 2016.
It is with regret that the Association announces the death of David Broome. The Association has only recently been advised of his passing which occurred in February 2015.
It is with regret that the Association announces the death of LCdr R Bell. The Association has only recently been advised of his passing which occurred on 14 October 2016.
It is with great regret that the Association announces the death of Vice-President Graham Barnes on Thursday 19th April 2018 after a long fight with illness. Graham ran the 200 Club for many years raising thousands of pounds for projects at the Memorial Playing Field and the School.
His funeral will take place on Saturday 5 May 2018 at St Francis of Assisi Church, Church Road, Welwyn Garden City AL8 6QT at 11:00am.
Family flowers only. Please send donations in Graham’s memory to Pancreatic Cancer UK or donate at the funeral.
A QE team were placed in the UK’s top 10 schools in the national finals of the Bar Mock Trial competition – with numerous aspects of their defence case scoring full marks.
The team of senior boys had reached the national final of the prestigious legal competition in Cardiff after competing successfully in three qualifying rounds. They were placed ninth on the day.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We encourage our boys to enter such competitions because participation develops their oracy skills, enhances their ability to think on their feet – especially in a high-pressure situation such as cross-examination – and pits them against some of the brightest and most talented young minds in the country.”
“It also introduces them to the pressures and demands of the legal profession – a field to which many of our boys aspire.”
English teacher, Lucy Riseborough added: “I’m very pleased with the result, especially against such strong competition. Our defence team of Laurie Mathias and Mipham Samten was outstanding, and a special mention has to go to Mipham for his 10 out of 10 score.”
The final mirrored earlier rounds of the competition in which mock criminal trials were held in a Crown Court in front of real judges. The QE team took part in three trials, overcoming Woodroffe School from Lyme Regis by 91 points to 82 but losing narrowly to two other schools. This year’s overall champions were Wilmslow High School from Cheshire.
The QE team were the prosecutors in two of their cases and defendants in the third. All the boys took various parts, from barristers to witnesses, jurors, court reports and ushers.
“I was especially pleased to see the way in which our boys took on the feedback from the judges and markers and improved from round to round,” said Miss Riseborough. “The boys had picked up from Round Two the importance of restricting their questioning to crucial facts. They also performed with confidence, which put the opposition under pressure.”
The Bar Mock Trial Competition, now in its 27th year, is run by the Citizenship Foundation and supported by the Bar Council of England and Wales, the Faculty of Advocates, the Bar Library of Northern Ireland, HM Courts & Tribunal Service, the Circuits and the Inns of Court.
It is open to young people from state schools aged 15-18 and aims to give pupils insights into the justice system and an opportunity to develop skills such as logical reasoning, clear communication and teamwork. Two hundred schools entered this year.
The QE participants were: Nathan Chu, Shivam Masrani, Laurie Mathias, Mipham Samten, Anake Singh, and Benjamin Suen, all from Year 12, along with Alex Beard, Rivu Chowdhury, Hector Cooper, Kieran Dhrona, Haider Jabir, Viraj Mehta, Saifullah Shah and Sajan Suganth from Year 11.
With the recent media furore over Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, the topic of this year’s Elizabethan Union Dinner Debate held particular resonance.
The Old Elizabethans secured a decisive, although not totally one-sided, victory, as they and a pair of sixth-formers debated the motion: This House believes that in the digital age we should not expect our online activities to remain private.
Pupils Akshat Sharma and Tej Mehta put forward the motion for the 53rd annual debate, which was held on the day of the 445th anniversary of the founding of the School. It was opposed by Jonathan Hollingsworth, who opened, with support from Pravin Swamy (both OEs 2006-2013).
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The debate itself was a typically lively and good-humoured affair. The whole event serves to help prepare boys for handling similar such formal, but social, occasions as they progress through university, their careers and life more broadly.”
Captain of the School Aashish Khimasia proposed the customary toasts to Her Majesty, the Queen, and The Pious Memory of Queen Elizabeth I, whilst Ross Lima (OE 1995-2002) proposed the toast to The Elizabethan Union.
Ross read Law at Sheffield and now works for Shell as Lead Legal Counsel for the sale of catalysts across large areas of the globe. In his speech, he reminisced about his first day at QE and meeting friends Laurence Burrows and Panicos Petrou, both of whom attended the dinner debate as his guests, along with Ross’s wife, Sarah. He remembered how the then-Headmaster, Eamonn Harris, told them to look around at the prefects: “He told us we were wearing the same blazers, but we hadn’t earned ours yet.” Looking at his Dinner Debate audience, Ross said: “You are now in the same position as those very boys that I looked up to on that day, and through your achievements at this School you have earned the right to wear that blazer.”
He spoke of the challenges the boys have already faced in their School careers and encouraged them to continue to seek out new challenges and opportunities, and to learn to overcome their fears.
The indicative vote at the outset indicated that the floor was leaning against the motion.
The debate began with Akshat putting forward the proposal. He and seconder Tej set out their case that it was, in fact, a reality that our online activities are not private – using state surveillance, as an example. They also argued the importance of being aware of how others use the data they hold, via social media or online gaming. They put forward the view that if people agree to the terms of surveys and ‘apps’ they use, then companies like Cambridge Analytica had, in law, not necessarily done anything wrong.
They also expounded the case for the positives of monitoring online activities, for the purposes of detecting and preventing crime and acts of terror.
The opposition countered these arguments, claiming the price of giving up our online privacy would be to give up part of our humanity, including our freedom of speech. Facebook came in for criticism, and the alumni said that even Mark Zuckerberg has now opined that such companies need regulating. They argued that people would not expect more traditional forms of communication – the Royal Mail or faxes, for example – to be open to others to view, so why should the internet be any different?
They also questioned whether the good citizens represented on the floor should be subjected to privacy breaches by the state in the name of security, advocating a higher threshold. They proposed a series of policy interventions to ensure better data protection online.
The floor debate saw enthusiastic contributions from Year 12 speakers and guests. These ranged from the question of how to monitor and deal with the terrorist threat, through to the different expectations there should be users in terms of the sharing of social media posts and messages between, on the one hand celebrities (and those who court social media attention) and, on the other, ordinary users. They also raised the already-strict financial and criminal penalties that exist for those who breach data laws.
The three-course meal started with leek and potato soup. There was a choice of main course between vegetarian tart and salmon, which was served with crushed new potatoes, green beans and tomato and basil sauce. Dessert was lemon and lime tart.
Fifty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, QE’s Music department commemorated the civil rights leader with a concert based on the themes of his most famous speech, I have a dream.
Director of Music Cheryl Horne said: “In 1963, five years before his death, Dr King made the I have a dream speech in which he quoted the words of the American Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’. The concert explores ideas of brotherhood and unity, relevant not only then, but equally today.”
The event in the Shearly Hall was the final major concert for the Year 13 leavers, representatives of whom made speeches and presented gifts to Miss Horne and her fellow Music Department staff, Jen Brown and Tom Jack. A number of boys were also presented with Senior Music Colours.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It was an excellent evening; I was particularly impressed with the scale of the current School Schoir and how they filled the stage.” The choir performed Man in the Mirror, composed by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett, but made famous by Michael Jackson.
The repertoire ranged from reggae to Beethoven and was performed by an array of ensembles and bands. From the Barbershop group’s rendition of One love/People get ready to the Symphony Orchestra’s performance of The world in unity, the themes were frequently revisited.
The concert opened with Benjamin Britten’s Fanfare for St Edmundsbury, performed by the Trumpet Trio, and closed with the Chamber Choir’s offering of selections from the musical, Hairspray.
Although it sat outside the overall theme for the night, the winning entry from the inter-House Music competition was also performed – Pearce’s arrangement of I’ve had the time of my life, from the 1980s film, Dirty Dancing. Run recently for the first time in five years, the reformatted contest featured specially formed ensembles drawing boys from across all year groups. Each House’s ensemble had to choose a piece based on the theme of the Oscars and then arrange and rehearse it. The competition culminated with a performance of all the pieces to the whole Lower School (Years 7-10) at a special assembly in the Shearly Hall.