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Head of Chemistry Amy Irvine was picked from among hundreds of teachers at competing schools to win the only award of its kind in a global competition.

Dr Irvine picked up the sole Teacher Award for Most Final Round Participants from the organisers of the International Chemistry Competition, which attracted schools from 190 countries.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We are very proud of Dr Irvine’s success – a just reward for all that she does to encourage enriching co-curricular activities and to promote a love of her subject.”

The award honours teachers who have shown outstanding dedication in supporting their students and in fostering a strong engagement with Chemistry and Science.

Fifty QE pupils from across the year groups took part, with 36 passing the final round. They included silver medal-winner Raihan Ahmed, who has just entered Year 13, as well as 20 boys who took bronze.

Pupils had to read challenging research papers and then combine their knowledge with problem-solving skills to answer the questions.

News of the International Chemistry Competition results came after a year of Chemistry competition participation.

This has included:

• Sixty-eight sixth-formers competing in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s (RSC) UK Chemistry Olympiad winning a silver (46) or gold (22) medal, putting them in the top 8.5% of more than 17,000 competitors nationally. The paper involved tackling questions on henna tattoos, urine and chlorine in swimming pools, and malodorous isocyanide chemicals. The gold winners are listed below;
• Thirty Year 12 (now Year 13) students taking on the role of crime-busting analytical chemists helping the police in the RSC’s Schools Analyst Competition. First place in the QE round was awarded to Team Chemystery Club (Ishan Nakadi, Tuhin Mitra, Rahul Wimalendran). They were tasked with investigating a mysterious illness that had struck a person working in a local pharmacy. This involved completing challenging practical analytical techniques such as gravimetric analysis, titrations, and thin-layer chromatography;
• Fifty-two Year 12 pupils winning an award in the Cambridge C3L6 competition, with 31 of them gaining a gold award. Alex Kronabetter, Nayan Santheepan and Param Patel achieved very high scores, putting them near the top of the 15,000-plus pupils who took part nationally. The questions tested their knowledge of topics such as rates and isomerism that went far beyond their classroom syllabus.

“I am very proud of every student who has taken part in chemistry competitions and enrichment activities in the department in the past few months. They are fantastic role models who show a love of learning beyond the taught school curriculum!” said Dr Irvine.

UK Chemistry Olympiad gold medal-winners:

Year 12 (now Year 13 – pictured here)

Ashaj Vyas, Shashank Pothuganti, Adib Asfi, Mohith Sigirisetti, Ishan Nakadi, Wilson Xu, Ayaan Amin, Ishaan Mishra, Vihaan Salunke, Tuhin Mitra and Siddhant Pochalwar.

Year 13 (this summer’s leavers)

Shreyas Chandrasekar, Pranay Chawla, Ram Chockalingam, Ayan Hirani, Rohan Iranganti, Krithin Jaichandran, Hisham Khan, Robert Kotwinski, Ranajay Mehta, Timothy Mok and Zayn Phoplankar.

As they already start looking ahead to next summer’s GCSEs, three new Year 11s are celebrating their AI-powered revision app winning a top award.

The Blertly app developed by Abhiram Kakarla, Dhrishiv Panjabi and Eshwara Masina took first prize in the Best Use of AI category at this year’s TeenTech Awards.

Another QE team, whose project was also among those selected to go through to the  awards finals, won an Honourable Mention in the Next Gen Home Innovation category with their smart alarm clock.

The School’s Head of Technology, Bilaal Khan, said: “My congratulations go to these pupils, who showed a great deal of initiative and talent in using technology to provide solutions to real-world problems.”

In their promotional video for the competition, Abhiram explained what problem their app aimed to solve: “We realised that students spend far too long figuring out how to revise – [more] than actually revising. Notes in one place, flashcards in another, and AI somewhere else. So, we built Blertly to bring everything we know together into one unified platform.”

Dhrishiv added: “It plans your revision, connects with apps you already use, and adapts around your schedule. And instead of just giving answers, it actually helps you learn through personalised lessons, active recall, and exam practice.”

The TeenTech Awards were first run by the charity in 2012–2013. This year’s finals were held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology at Savoy Place, London, hosted by TeenTech’s CEO, Maggie Philbin, the veteran technology broadcaster.

The charity announced that the Best Use of AI category had been especially popular this year.

The award, which went jointly to the QE team and a team from Merchant Taylors’, was announced by Andy Kiln, Chief Technology Officer from sponsor SSCL, a large UK public sector-support company. He thanked entrants “for the huge dose of positivity” and asked that “they continue to dream big and shape the world”.

As well as individually receiving gift cards and a goody bag, the trio’s success secured a £1,000 award for the QE Technology department.

Aarav Abhijit Pathak and Adyansh Sahai, both of Year 11, entered the Next Gen Home Innovation category with their AquaLux Alarm Clock – an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) project. The awards programme summarised the problem it aimed to solve: “We’ve all been there. The alarm screams. You hit snooze and wake up forty minutes late, groggy and dehydrated.”

The alarm clock used some creative ways to encourage users to get out of bed and start their day on time – including checking whether a bedroom light is on and only stopping if the user has consumed his or her morning bedside drink. Their fully functional prototype was built from salvaged components.

QE’s long-running outreach programme to local primary schools this year included a special Humanities Challenge where activities included, planning a party, designing a castle for William the Conqueror, and devising a sustainable business.

Year 6 girls and boys came to QE for the event run by the History, Economics and Geography departments.

The 2026 primary outreach work has also involved a morning of literacy and numeracy challenges for Year 5 pupils, as well as Art and forensic science sessions.

Separately, QE’s partnership with technology specialists Atom Learning offers children aged 7–11 from disadvantaged backgrounds – those eligible for Pupil Premium – free access to online learning resources, including preparation for grammar-school entrance tests.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “QE is proud to be part of our local community, so it is always a joy to see children from Barnet primary schools participate in our outreach programme.

“My thanks go to the teachers and QE pupils who welcomed our young visitors here with successful and exciting activities that gave them the chance to sample life at secondary school. As the new academic year begins, I am sure my colleagues will already be thinking ahead to activities for 2027!”

Led by Head of Economics Krishna Shah, the Economics activity gave the Year 6 children just 30 minutes to plan the perfect party. Teams from Whitings Hill, Underhill and Foulds primary schools worked together to create a plan before presenting their ideas to the audience from the stage using colourful posters.

Following the presentations, pupils reflected on the economic decisions they had made, considering the concept of scarcity and looking at what they could have done differently. They quickly identified that their greatest scarce resources were time and budget, prompting thoughtful discussions about prioritising spending and exploring alternative options.

The competition was judged by three Sixth Form Economics students – Aahan Shah, Vyom Srivastava, and Hygreev Vangari – who afterwards declared themselves impressed by the creativity, teamwork and reasoning demonstrated by all of the groups.

After a closely contested competition, Team A from Underhill School was crowned the winner by the narrowest of margins.

History teachers Helen Edmunds and John Haswell told the Year 6s that they had 1,000 gold pieces to design and build a castle on behalf of William I.

They had to decide whether to build the castle for noblemen Richard of Durham or Roger de Montgomery, carefully managing their budget while researching which features to include. Using a ‘castle catalogue’ as a guide, pupils selected different buildings and defences, earning points for each item.

In a second activity, the children explored the succession crisis following William’s death. They considered the claims of his two sons, debated the evidence, and decided which side they would support. Both activities were won by teams from Foulds School.

For the Geography activity, led by Geography teacher Nathan Lawson, the focus was on sustainability. The session began with a recycling quiz, where the girls and boys identified the purpose of different coloured bins, before discussing the social and environmental impacts of landfill in their teams. They impressed QE teachers with their knowledge of issues such as: the effects of waste on marine life; toxic emissions from burning rubbish; the impact of bioaccumulation within the food chain; greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change; visual pollution affecting wellbeing; and the dangers faced by children in some countries who search through landfill for recyclable materials to sell.

The primary pupils then worked together to develop their own definition of sustainability. Their ideas included repurposing materials, designing products for longevity, and using renewable energy sources. such as solar panels and wind turbines. They also learned about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, discussing how sustainability is closely linked to fairness, equality, and protecting our planet for future generations.

To conclude the session, pupils worked in teams to design their own sustainable business and create an innovative product – an activity designed to encourage creativity, teamwork, and entrepreneurial thinking, while reinforcing the importance of sustainable design. They pitched their ideas to their teachers in a Dragons’ Den-style presentation, considering key factors such as reducing carbon emissions, minimising environmental impact, affordability, the intended target audience, and ensuring their product could be reused.

The School’s younger pupils amassed a remarkable tally of 16 medals in this year’s Junior Maths Olympiad – 8% of all the prizes issued throughout the whole of the UK.

The five gold, seven silver and four bronze medals went to boys from Years 7 and 8 (entering Years 8 and 9 respectively in September) who were among the 62 QE pupils to sit the Olympiad. They qualified for it by achieving a strong score in the earlier Junior Maths Challenge (JMC) round.

Kirtan Shah, Assistant Head of Mathematics, said: “To have 16 of our students achieve medals in the Olympiad is an exceptional milestone so early in their mathematical journeys. Given that the UK Maths Trust only awards medals to the top 200 scorers across the entire country – the top 40 gold, the next 60 silver and the next 100 bronze –this is a phenomenal, élite achievement.”

He added: “We are incredibly proud of our entire Year 7 and 8 cohorts, who recently sat the Junior Maths Challenge. This competition is a wonderful opportunity to stretch our pupils and encourage them to embrace complex problem-solving.

“Whether securing a national medal or tackling the very first round, every single pupil demonstrated tremendous perseverance, enthusiasm, and a willingness to embrace a challenge. Congratulations to everyone involved!”

QE pupils qualified in some numbers for both follow-on rounds of the JMC – the Junior Mathematical Olympiad and the Junior Kangaroo. QE’s 62 Olympiad qualifiers had to fight off competition from around 1,140 pupils qualifying nationally from the JMC each year.

The Olympiad consisted of a two-hour challenge comprising six questions.

The medal-winners also received a certificate and a book, A Problem Solver’s Handbook by Andrew Jobbings, which provides guidance for those entering the UKMT’s competitions for slightly older pupils, including the Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad.

The medal-winners were:

• Gold (pictured top): Year 7 – Giritrah Ghosh, Sasha Karunaratne and Adhruth Parlattaya; Year 8 – Noah Bai and Huy Bui
• Silver (middle image): Year 7 – Siddhant Sharma; Year 8 – Ehan Islam, Anirvinn Lakshmipuram Sudarshan, Arjun Mulamalla, Duc Ta, Arthur Wang and Xuen Wu
• Bronze; Year 7 – Hercules Li, Ekansh Ponnaganti and Harry Xuan; Year 8’s Dhruv Srinath.

The junior boys’ successes follows strong QE performances in both the Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad and in the British Mathematical Olympiad itself, which is considered the UK’s hardest youth Maths competition. Two of this summer’s leavers, Hisham Khan and Joshua Wilkinson, reached the second round of the BMO, with Hisham named among the top 25% of the élite competitors in that final round. In the Intermediate Maths Olympiad, Year 10’s Liam Chen won a gold medal, which placed him in the top 20 nationally.

Five QE musicians who together raised money for underprivileged children were winners at the Wings of Hope children’s charity annual awards, with two further QE teams among the runners-up.

Team Ember, who all entered Year 10 this month, took the top prize in the Excellence in Arts category in the awards’ grand final at London Business School.

Teams Saroya and Helios, who also progressed beyond the semi-final, were runners-up in the Community Action and Excellence in Sports awards respectively.

Assistant Head (Co-curricular and Partnerships) Crispin Bonham-Carter said: “Charitable fund-raising has long been important for pupils at QE, and it is therefore heartening to see these boys showing such initiative and creativity in helping those less fortunate than themselves. I congratulate Team Ember on their award and commend all our participants on their efforts.”

Ember’s Dilan Amin, Arnav Ghoshal, Vihaan Jain, Rushil Matta and Aadhithya Muthukumar used a YouTube channel to raise £1,424 for the education of underprivileged children in India and Sierra Leone. They uploaded guitar and piano pieces, including a number of guess-the-song challenges.

The awards were presented by: fashion designer Zandra Rhodes; Barbara Campos, CEO of the Joseph fashion house, and Kapila Ireland, Editor at DFNI Frontier travel magazine.

Previously, the three QE teams were among just 20 teams to be selected from among 200 entrants to present their entries at the Wings of Hope semi-final, which was held at Westminster Central Hall.

Team Saroya showcased their creative fundraising, which included a poetry competition that earned them recognition in local newspapers. The members of Helios demonstrated remarkable dedication and physical commitment, raising more than £500 by completing triathlons between them — including a three-quarters marathon.

The members of Helios, who are now in Year 11, are: Pranav Bonagiri; Nicholas Grobler; Joel Jeon; Anirudh Premkumar; and Aadhav Ranga. Team Saroya, who are from the year below, are: Arjun Ladva; Sai Rushil Manchiraju; Ojas Mendse; Yaksh Patel; Rishabh Satsangi; and Akshaj Vasdev.

Founded more than 20 years ago, Wings of Hope helps UK pupils develop transferable skills through its annual achievement awards programme.