Drama features for the first time in the 12th edition of The Arabella – QE’s pupil-run creative magazine.
Drama joins art, music, poetry & other creative writing, politics, science and foreign languages & linguistics as areas covered, with the latest edition focusing on an overall theme of Expression.
The theme has been widely interpreted by the boys. Their hugely diverse contributihassanons range from a poetic exploration by one of the School’s younger pupils, Huy Bui, of the famous opening line of Hamlet’s soliloquy, ‘To be or not to be’, through to a coruscating take on the Democrats’ performance in the recent US election written by another Year 7 pupil, Hassan Omer.
The boys were assisted by a staff team including Library Services Assistant Corinna Illingworth. She said: “The student editorial team have once again produced a high-quality publication. There is surely something to interest everyone in its 54 pages: in exploring the theme of Expression, the boys have expressed themselves creatively and in very diverse ways!”
The magazine is named after Arabella Stuart, fourth in line to the throne, who in 1610 secretly married William Seymore, a descendant of Henry VII and himself sixth-in-line to the throne. To prevent any chance of a Tudor attempt to seize the crown from the Stuarts, James I sent Seymore to the Tower of London and committed Arabella to the care of the Bishop of Durham. Her connection to the School is that she stayed for some months in Barnet in the house of Thomas Conyers, a QE Governor, after falling ill en route to Durham, while Rev. Matthias Milward, a Governor and subsequently Master of the School, attended to her spiritual needs.
Anyone with access to the eQE portal may read The Arabella here.
Head Editor Timi Banjo, of Year 12, leads a 12-strong team of editors and advertising managers drawn from the senior year groups. He said: “This edition of The Arabella captures the spirit of creativity, exploration, and expression that defines our school community.”
Year 11’s Soham Sapra got the drama content off to a good start with an essay on the ‘spell-binding performance’ of comedian Robin Williams’ in his voice-acting for Disney’s 1992 animated film, Aladdin.
Here is a small selection of the many other contributions:
- The above artwork produced by Year 11’s Kyaan Syed
- A poem by Danyal Rahim, of Year 10, extolling the praises of sweets and chocolate
- Year 10 boy Nikhil Francine’s analysis of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto
- A piece of creative writing by Elijah Bedion, of Year 7, entitled The Window
- Year 11 pupil Vu-Lam Le-Nguyen’s exploration of The Intertwined
- Lexicons of France and its Former Colonies
- Sixth-former Harshith Sharavana’s account of the work of 19th-century doctor Ignaz Semmelweis in introducing antiseptic procedures in hospitals and thus reducing fatal infections
- A short Classics essay by Felix Calder, of Year 12, on Is Roman Satire a genuine expression of feelings? A defence of Juvenal’s Satire 6.
Before the visit organised by the Geography department, the whole of Year 8 had been asked to interview family members about their own migration stories and journeys.
The session for the Year 8 boys ended with a Geospatial analysis of their journeys (using ArcGIS).
She believed that Britain’s migration history should be placed at the heart of the national story, arguing for the establishment of the museum based on her time as Minister and on visits to similar museums in other parts of the world – notably Ellis Island in New York.
The studio, created from two existing large rooms towards the rear of the Main Building, hosted early rounds of the English Speaking Union’s Schools’ Mace debating contest and of the national Performing Shakespeare competition.
At the Mace, the country’s oldest and largest debating competition for schools, a senior QE team – including School Captain Chanakya Seetharam, as well as Zaki Mustafa, and Koustuv Bhowmick, all from Year 13 – took on Haberdashers’ Girls’ School. Other leading schools from North London and Hertfordshire also competed. The QE team won the event to progress to the second-round heats in January. 
Head of English Robert Hyland said: “There are some things which reading Shakespeare simply as words on the page can never give – so much of the impact of his work comes from how performers have chosen to interpret, following the rhythms and the imagery of the poetry to bring the words to life. 
The special English lesson held in RDS also focused on Shakespeare, looking at scene 3 from act 3 of 
“We subsequently returned to the language, thinking about the delivery of the speech which Ariel gives, and what key or words ideas come to light when presented dramatically.” 
ENB dancers and a musician later came to QE and gave the boys a two-hour contemporary ballet workshop, testing the RDS’s audio equipment to the full. They explored ways of moving, inspired by the plot, characters and choreography of 
“Best of all though was the enthusiasm and energy the boys put into their dancing. Who knows – maybe the next Akram Khan has just learnt his first dance steps?
Having first won the initial QE round, Aarav went on to impress the judges with his colourful, information-packed poster on the theme of Choose Geography.
With schools hosting their own heats and submitting only their winners, the 1,000 entries received by the society represented just a fraction of the overall number of participating pupils.
Twenty sixth-formers headed to London for a tour of the Palace of Westminster, also enjoying an interactive workshop on elections run by the UK Parliament’s education department.
Prior to the tour of the palace, boys had a walking tour of Whitehall and Westminster, during which they saw some major Government departments and passed the UK Supreme Court. In Parliament Square, they noted all the statues of significant political figures, from UK Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli, and suffragist Millicent Fawcett, to international statesmen Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.
Their visit coincided with the Armistice Day ceremonial around the Cenotaph. “Being in Parliament Square for the traditional silence was a particularly moving experience,” said Mr Neagus.
With the international olympiad open to people aged up to 25, Andreas Angelopolous and Saim Khan fought off competition from undergraduate & postgraduate students and potentially from young climate professional scientists to claim their place.
Parth took the national title in the AI Changemakers ages 13–18 category after impressing judges in the Intel AI Global Impact Festival 2024 with his multilingual GenAI-powered NavigateNinja app.
He spent many hours researching, developing, and refining the project. His app provides unique content across different subjects, based on skill level; it aims to enhance comprehension and information retention.
One team, pictured top, took first place – and thus qualified for the national finals in the spring – with a score of 40 out of 43. Another QE team was only one point behind, beating Harrow and Watford Grammar School for Boys into joint third place.
Congratulating all the QE entrants, Myles Worsley, an RSC Chilterns and Middlesex Section committee member, commented on the “excellent” scores of the winners and runners-up. “They showed an impressive knowledge and understanding of Chemistry,” he said.
Other rounds included:
“This caused me much amusement, as some of the boys were discussing what the difference was between baths salts and smelling salts!” Dr Irvine said.