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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.

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.

Three sixth-formers won first place in an international economics competition with their exploration of why some life-saving medicines in the US can cost more than a car – and what should be done about that.

Keshav Aggarwal, Yash Mehta and Jasmaan Sahota, who entered Year 13 this month, took the top spot in the Youth Economics Initiative’s (YEI) EconOlympiad.

As a result, they received YEI’s backing to enter the International Economics Olympiad – an élite competition which requires an organisational endorsement for each team taking part.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to Keshav, Yash and Jasmaan on this impressive achievement. Their entry not only represents a great deal of hard work, but is also an excellent example of the free-thinking scholarship we seek to nurture here at QE.”

Yash said: “US drug pricing is one of the clearest examples of economics directly affecting people’s lives. Behind every graph, market failure, patent, and policy debate are patients who may be forced to choose between financial stability and essential medication. That made this challenge especially meaningful for me.”

The QE team, Veblen Goods*, and 52 other teams entering from around the world spent ten weeks researching a complex real-world economic issue and delivering a ten-minute policy presentation. Entrants were challenged to act as policy advisers to the US Department of Health and Human Services, developing innovative solutions to address the growing crisis of soaring prescription drug prices.

The QE boys’ ten-minute presentation video proposed a balanced policy package. They examined structural challenges within the American pharmaceutical market, including patent monopolies, information asymmetry and the influence of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). The team argued that while drug price caps may improve affordability in the short term, they risk significant adverse long-term consequences, including medicine shortages and substantial reductions in investment in early-stage medical research and development.

Instead, they proposed a sophisticated three-stage policy framework designed to reduce costs while preserving incentives for pharmaceutical innovation:

• Short term: expand Medicare price negotiations using existing legislation;
• Medium term: increase competition through reforms that encourage the production and uptake of generic medicines;
• Long term: introduce government patent buyouts with immediate generic licensing, based on the economic framework developed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Michael Kremer. This approach, they said, would eliminate monopoly power while fairly compensating pharmaceutical companies, ensuring continued investment in the development of new medicines.

You can see the team’s winning pitch here. 

 * Named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, Veblen goods are types of luxury items for which demand increases as the price rises, which contradicts the typical relationship between price and demand.

With drought continuing to hit London and the South East, Year 12 geographers braved soaring temperatures to hear from academics at University College London who specialise in disasters.

Their trip to UCL’s Department for Risk and Disaster Reduction was hosted by Dr Mohammad Shamsudduha, Professor of Water Crisis and Risk Reduction, who sent the sixth-formers on their way with a stark warning and a resounding appeal: “The world is facing multiple crises and needs people who can work across disciplines and in varied contexts, and who can think in new ways to help solve those problems. Business as usual cannot continue.”

The group also heard a taster lecture from Dr Ting Sun, Associate Professor in Climate and Meteorological Hazard Risks, while other members of the department each shared their own expertise on topics that included Middle Eastern migration and natural hazards across South Asia.

Deputy Head (Academic) Anne Macdonald said: “Dr Sun’s research interests include the impacts of climate extremes in cities – especially appropriate at the moment!”

Reflecting on the visit as a whole, she said: “The themes that were covered are central to our A-level Geography curriculum, particularly in the topics of Water Cycle and Water Insecurity, Carbon Cycle and Energy Security, and Health, Human Rights and Intervention, as well as through our enrichment programme.

“It is essential that students consider questions such as: ‘How do my actions impact the world? How will societies of the future function in the face of challenges such as climate change and inequality? How can I prepare to make a positive contribution?’”

“Experiences like this encourage our students to develop the confidence, ability and responsibility to shape a more sustainable future.”

The visit began with a tour of UCL’s main campus, led by a postgraduate Architecture student. The 13 sixth-formers were also joined by Old Elizabethan Hamza Mohamed (OE 2018–2025), who has just completed his first year studying Medicine at UCL. Hamza spoke to the QE boys about university applications, student life and his experiences at UCL, offering advice and encouragement as they begin considering their own higher education.

The group received a warm welcome at the Department for Risk and Disaster Reduction. (“The risk of heat stroke was averted due to their generosity in providing a full spread of afternoon refreshments!” said Mrs Macdonald.) They heard from:

• Dr Shamsudduha, whose research focuses on hydrogeology, water security, public health, sustainable development and climate resilience, particularly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa;
• Dr Estella Carpi, Associate Professor in Humanitarian Studies, a social anthropologist specialising in conflict, migration and humanitarian responses in the Middle East;
• Dr Dan Haines, Associate Professor in Disaster and Crisis Response, an environmental historian whose work explores the politics and culture of natural hazards across South Asia;
• Dr Sun, whose research investigates the impacts of weather and climate extremes in urban environments.

“Dr Sun delivered a fascinating taster lecture on urban heat islands, explaining how artificial intelligence and climate modelling can be used to evaluate strategies for reducing heat in cities,” said Mrs Macdonald. “Students also saw a demonstration of the Surface Urban Energy and Water Balance Scheme (SUEWS), an urban climate model that Dr Sun helped to develop.”

Dr Shamsudduha then introduced the boys to one of today’s most pressing global challenges: freshwater salinisation. Using Bangladesh as a case study, he explained how a country with abundant monsoon rainfall can still experience severe water insecurity due to drought, flooding and climate change-induced sea level rise.

The Year 12s also took part in a practical demonstration, using conductivity meters to compare the salinity of a bottle of drinking water with seawater collected from Brighton earlier that day.

Throughout the afternoon, staff highlighted UCL’s BSc in Global Humanitarian Studies, an interdisciplinary degree launched in 2021. The course equips students with the knowledge and skills needed to address complex global challenges. Graduates progress to careers in organisations including the United Nations, governments, NGOs and international charities.

Two very different London trips provided fresh inspiration for QE’s musicians: a visit to a hit West End musical brought a GCSE set piece to life, while the opportunity to play one of the capital’s great organs deepened keyboardists’ appreciation for the instrument.

Year 10 Music students headed for the Apollo Victoria Theatre, where they watched the award-winning musical, Wicked. One of the show’s most iconic numbers, Defying Gravity, is a GCSE set work.

On their trip, members of QE’s Organ Club not only played the historic four-manual organ at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, but also heard an internationally acclaimed organist perform in the City of London in what is believed to be the world’s longest-running organ recital series.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The happy circumstance of QE’s location within easy striking distance of central London means that when we plan trips, we can take full advantage of all the wonderful possibilities that the capital has to offer. These two trips are a great example of that.

“As our GCSE Music students attested afterwards, there’s really no substitute for experiencing a theatrical piece in its original dramatic context. For our organists, playing on Westminster Central Hall’s magnificent organ was not only thrilling in itself, but also enhanced their ability to adapt to different instruments – an important musical skill.”

Wicked, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, has been running at the Apollo Victoria since 2005. It is based on a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, which was derived from a 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Known in full as Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, the musical explores the relationship between the witches. Defying Gravity forms the finale to Act One.

Assistant Director of Music Caroline Grint said that experiencing the work on stage helped the boys develop a deeper understanding of the music, its dramatic purpose, and its emotional impact, supporting their GCSE studies.

The pupils reported afterwards that they had found the trip both enjoyable and inspiring. Aaditya Pimple said: “It is the first time I have seen Wicked. It gave me context about the story, and it was interesting seeing the instruments in the pit band.” Zhekai Mao added: “It made me appreciate live performances, after only ever watching movies on a screen. We now know the entire storyline and how it is set to music, supporting our GCSE work.”

Eight organists and 13 pianists from the Organ Club visited Methodist Central Hall, which hosted the first session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946.

Each pupil performed a prepared piece on the organ, which was built by Hill & Son in 1912, rebuilt and enlarged by Rushworth & Dreaper in 1970, and had its layout altered by Harrison & Harrison in 2010–2011. The boys received expert advice from the hall’s Director of Music, Gerard Brooks, on both registration and performance.

Assistant Director of Music Jas Hutchinson-Bazely said: “I am incredibly grateful to Gerard Brooks for his invitation and kind words of encouragement for our pupils. Adapting to new and unfamiliar instruments is an essential skill for an organist, and our pupils rose to this challenge admirably. These experiences are invaluable for our young players, and they are incredibly fortunate to play on one of London’s most significant instruments.”

The visit continued with the recital at St Michael’s, Cornhill. The church has a foundation dating back to before the Norman Conquest; its present building is traditionally attributed to Sir Christopher Wren. Its organ is another famous London instrument, with origins dating back to 1684. The recital series began in 1914.

The recital the boys listened to was given by English organist and recording artist, Christopher Herrick. His programme showcased contemporary organ repertoire.

“As well as hearing a performer of the highest calibre, pupils were reminded that organ music is not only a rich historical tradition but also a vibrant and evolving art form,” Mr Hutchinson-Bazely said.

The pianists and organists who went on the trip were in no doubt as to its benefits:

• Justin Lo, Year 7: “It gave me the chance to look at two beautiful organs as well as play a piece on one of them – a great opportunity that has definitely inspired me to learn the organ.”
• Anay Banerjee, Year 8: “I think that I really learnt a lot about real-life organs, how each one is different and unique, and also how it felt to play one in real life.”
• Parth Gulati, Year 7: “I particularly enjoyed playing at Methodist Central Hall, as I have never played on such a big organ.”
• Kai Nam Tsang, Year 8: “It was a great feeling to be able to play on the organ, especially such a large and grand one with so much history behind it.”