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A Sixth Form team came second in London and third across the whole country in the long-running Náboj Math competition.

The Year 12 boys’ performance in the London heat of the competition, which was hosted by Dulwich College, placed them among the leading élite of the 70 teams competing nationally.

Head of Mathematics Jessica Steer said: “This was an impressive performance by our students, who entered the competition on their own initiative.”

The London heat was one of four run in the UK this year: the others were in Oxfordshire, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Team member Vinujan Sivakumar said: “We had an incredible experience at Dulwich College. In the London heat, we secured second place out of 20 highly competitive teams, missing the top spot by just two points to King’s College London Mathematics School.”

The same school went on to be named overall UK winners. QE finished in third place in the national rankings, its 35 points placing it just ahead of Dulwich College and Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School, Marlow, on 34 points apiece.

In the international rankings, QE came 28^th out of around 800 teams.

Vinujan’s teammates were Ram Chockalingam, Sasen Kankanamge Don, William Joanes and Joshua Wilkinson.

The competition lasted for 120 minutes, during which the five-person teams tried to solve as many problems as possible. At the beginning, each team received six problems. As soon as it correctly solved a problem, it was given another one.

The competition website states: “Problems in Náboj differ considerably from the routine school exercises which usually require only direct application of a given method: the Náboj problems require certain amount of inventiveness and ingenuity. Success in the competition does not depend on the individual abilities of the team members only but also on their efficient cooperation.

“Apart from enhancing imagination and logical reasoning our goal is to attract people to the endless beauty hidden in mathematics.”

A team from Poland were the international winners. This year, the competition was also run in Austria, Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Uzbekistan.

 

After the School’s triumphs at the VEX robotics national championships in Telford last month, it has now been confirmed that four QE teams have qualified for the world championships in Dallas.

At Telford International Centre, Team Rogue (working in partnership with a team from Haberdashers’ Boys’) were overall champions for the Year 10 (VR5C) event and also took a highly prized Design award. They now qualify for the global finals being held next month in Texas, together with fellow Year 10s in Team Nova and Year 9 teams Constellation and Omega.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “QE has had a stellar record of getting teams to the world championships, but that success should not be taken for granted: it represents a great deal of hard work and preparation, not to mention talent, on the part of the boys.

“It was a truly impressive performance by our robotics teams at Telford, who excelled in their performance, in the awards they won, and, I understand, in terms of the way they conducted themselves at the national championships.”

Team Constellation took a Design prize in the junior VIQRC competition.

Nova won the Innovate Award, gaining their place in the world championships through their high-ranking finish in the Skills Challenge. Team Omega won their division and were runners-up in the VIQRC Overall Teamwork Championship.

Here are all the QE teams’ results at Telford:

High School (Year 12)

• HYBRID: Seventh in Skills; 15th in Teamwork; beaten in the quarter-final

V5RC

• Rogue: tournament winners; Design award; third place for Skills and for Teamwork
• Nova: Innovate award; fourth place for Skills; eighth for Teamwork; beaten in division semi-final
• Bread: seventh place for Skills; 13th for Teamwork; beaten in quarter-final

VIQRC

• Gearsquad: 11th in Skills; 13th in their division; sixth in division finals; won Amaze award
• Omega: eighth in Skills; 6th in division; first in division finals
• Constellation: ninth in Skills; 12th in division; tied second in division finals; won Design award
• Gear Grinders (Year 8): 20th in Skills, 15th in division, sixth in division finals, won Create award
• CircuitBreakers: 58th in Skills, 15th in division, sixth in division finals

Earlier this term, QE followed up on hosting a VIQRC event in December by hosting a successful V5RC regional round, the Battle of Barnet.

And more recently, since Year 12 teams are unable to go to Dallas in May because of their examination commitments, QE’s Team Hybrid instead headed off to the CREATE US Open Signature event in Council Bluffs, Iowa – and came away with a Judges Award.

Head of Digital Teaching & Learning Michael Noonan said: “The standard of competition was amazing and the team had an absolute blast!

“The event featured many state champions and champions from similar élite signature events from across the US. This drove our students to improve their autonomous robot routines, their driving and their strategy. Day 1 featured a new challenge for our teams in the ‘Programming Palooza’, which tasked our programmers with rapidly developing routines for their bots to respond to individual and paired tasks. We were delighted to finish fifth from a highly competitive field, using a purpose-built ‘basebot.

“Along the way we thoroughly enjoyed the Super Mega Alliance, which features many team-building challenges by using pure robots in non-conventional, non-competitive challenges intended to build friendships with those from other parts of the world. Our boys loved this challenge, and finished with a highly respectable second place!

“The competition proper was intense, and had a game every 20 minutes during the competitive phases. Having come in the top 40 out of 160 teams in Skills, we were now free to put together a strong performance on day one, ranking 13th of our 40 on day 1. Day 2 brought its challenges, and unfortunately our team succumbed to four losses. Undeterred, they battled well alongside a team who had been their alliance partner, losing out 39-30 in the round of 16.

“It was then an incredible honour for them to be awarded the Judges Award, making us the first UK team to win at this event.“

Mr Noonan thanked the School’s robotics sponsors, Kingston Technology, for their support.

 

 

 

 

 

Having already blasted through the regional round, a dozen QE scientists and engineers have lit up the national finals of a design competition that challenges competitors to plan for a future in outer space.

The boys were part of the winning inter-school ‘company’ at the weekend-long finals held at Imperial College London.

Competitors now wait to hear whether they will be among the dozen individuals selected for sponsored places representing the UK in the International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) in July, which is held at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Headmaster Neil Enright said:  “This is an exciting competition which looks forward to a future in which living in space is common and which tests entrants’ skills in science, engineering and business. Many congratulations to our students. Having won their regional finals, they rose to the occasion magnificently again at Imperial, working together well with boys and girls from other schools to produce some great designs for a future asteroid settlement.”

The UKSDC is part of a global family of Space Design Competitions running events across Africa, America (North and South), Asia, Australia, Canada, and Europe. These competitions culminate in the International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC).

As in previous years, the UKSDC set its challenges for the national competition in a fictional version of the solar system where significant infrastructure has been built.

This year, competitors were assigned into ‘companies’ and tasked with designing a theoretical asteroid belt settlement called ‘Astoria’. The other schools working alongside QE were: Sevenoaks School, Kent; North Liverpool Academy; South Hunsley School, Yorkshire; Westminster School, London; and Wycombe Abbey School, Buckinghamshire.

Members of each company needed to work collaboratively to create a proposal in 22 hours, summarising all aspects of the settlement: operations, mission systems, structural, business, and human.

The challenges included creating a Human Factors Department, to look after residents’ mental and physical wellbeing – an aspect designed to appeal especially to Biology students. Chemists and physicists were able to thrive with the Operations Department, which took a deep dive into the essential processes required to keep the settlement operational. Jasmaan Sahota praised the CAD (Computer-Aided Design) skills of fellow QE competitor, Snehal Das, who had impressed the judges in the regional finals.

After the teams presented their proposals to a panel of judges from industry, academia and business, the Olympus Mons Trading Company was proclaimed the winner.

Vinujan Sivakumar (Year 12) said: “We came up against some very tough competition and gruelling questions, but after a nail-biting period of deliberation, we won! Most of us barely had any sleep, but the effort definitely paid off!”

Keshav Aggarwal (Year 11) added: “It was truly a great experience to not only attend the UK Space Design Competition’s National Finals at Imperial College but take on a leadership role (VP of Business) and win! Many thanks to the entire UKSDC organisers for their support, my teachers, Mr. Xu and Mr. Brooke, who made this possible, and my fellow teammates. It was great to collaborate with so many new people as part of the extended team. I’m looking forward to attending again next year!”

The QE competitors were:

Year 11
Keshav Aggarwal
Snehal Das
Rithwik Gururaj
Vu-Lam Le-Nguyen
Ishaan Mishra
Jasmaan Sahota

Year 12
Timi Banjo
Karthik Kalaiarasan
Giuseppe Mangiavacchi
Sai Murarishetty
Rayan Pesnani
Vinujan Sivakumar

 

Sixth-former Soham Kale has won a national medical essay competition for a piece of writing that combined humour with a serious look at preventing disease.

Soham took joint first place in the Medic Mentor Magazine National Essay Competition with an essay investigating how mapping human cells could help doctors with both the early detection and the prevention of disease.

Headmaster Neil Enright is among many to have congratulated him on his success. “Soham has shown great originality and skill in putting together an essay that greatly impressed the judges. He aspires to be a doctor: I am sure that he will succeed in this ambition, and that a bright future awaits him in Medicine.”

Soham’s scrupulously referenced essay will be published in the spring edition of Mentor: the magazine produced by Medic Mentor, which is a national medical organisation dedicated to nurturing those who wish to become doctors. The edition will be themed under the heading Under the Microscope.

His writing answered the question How could the detailed mapping of human cells contribute to early disease detection and prevention efforts?

Thanking the judges, Year 12’s Soham said: “This has been such an incredible opportunity to explore the exciting prospects of cell-mapping to both current, and future healthcare. This couldn’t have been possible without all of the support that my inspirational teachers, friends and family have provided me with along the way. Progressing into the future, I will forever cherish this milestone.”

Human cell-mapping was, he said, a topic “completely alien” to him, but he soon got to grips with it, deriving “great satisfaction” as he learned the subject matter by initially “mind-mapping almost random information” and then quickly forming links to join up this information.

In the introduction to his essay, he gave the following example drawn from his daily life to illustrate the importance of such cell-mapping.

“My parents simply refused to use Google Maps when travelling, and then always ended up in the completely wrong place after taking the wrong exit on the motorway roundabout. Taunting them, saying ‘Using Google Maps wouldn’t have hurt’ felt good.

“Notice how my family and I could’ve ended up at two completely different places from the same roundabout? In the same way, the same biological pathway could lead to diseases ranging from schizophrenia to autism.

“All diseases are fundamentally mechanical problems at a genetic and molecular level, interacting with cells via an interconnected biological pathway.

“Cell-mapping (Google Maps) allows us to unravel these biological pathways (roads), creating opportunities for efficient, directed treatment so that my family doesn’t get lost again.”

The whole essay then adopted the language of satnav as Soham set out his argument, from “Proceed to the route” to the final line, “You have arrived at your destination!”

In announcing his victory, Medic Mentor quoted his conclusion, which highlighted the role of human cell-mapping. This has led to “significantly enhanced early disease detection” and to “improved patient outcomes both in the short term through potential earlier diagnosis, and in the long run through the provision of a wider variety of treatment options”, Soham wrote.

• Read Soham’s essay here.

 

QE was named as one of the top-performing schools at the Dubai International Academy Model United Nations conference, with three of QE’s delegates picking up awards.

The seven sixth-formers joined around 800 other delegates from across seven countries for the three-day debating event.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I congratulate our students for taking the initiative and organising this visit, for the preparation they did ahead of taking part in the debates, and for the level of their performance in the debates: they did the School proud!”

The long-established DIAMUN annual conference is affiliated to The Hague International Model United Nations, which specifies standards and procedures. It was held at the Dubai International Academy’s Emirates Hills campus, with a social event on the evening of the second day organised at the Jabal Ali resort.

Delegates came from more than 50 schools in Mauritius, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, UAE, Uganda, and the UK for the conference, which, like all Model United Nations (MUN) events, is closely modelled on the work of the real United Nations.

QE’s experienced MUN group, all from Year 13, were: Saim Khan, Koustuv Bhowmick, Chanakya Seetharam, Hari Kumarappan, Kanusan Naveendran, Uday Dash, and Kyshaan Ravikumar.

The delegation as a whole won a certificate recording QE’s honourable mention as a top-performing school.

Koustuv won a Best Delegate award for his work with the Arab League – one of the conference’s special committees.

Two other QE delegates, Chanakya and Uday, won Best Position Paper awards. Position papers are single-A4 page documents written to outline the views of the country or group the delegates are representing. Chanakya’s was for his paper for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and Uday’s award was for his work for the Economic and Financial Committee (ECOFIN). Uday also received an honourable mention when it came to selecting the best delegate across all the committees.

And Saim Khan, who afterwards penned a report on the event, was runner-up for Best Delegate for SPECPOL (Special Political & Decolonization Committee). “I lost out by one mark! – 29 to 30 – to the delegate who also ended up winning the Nirav Passi award – best delegate across all committees.

“We chose to arrange this for ourselves as a ‘last hurrah’ MUN – everything from reaching out and emailing the school, to organising flights and accommodation, to getting the absences authorised, was managed entirely independently,” Saim continued.

The group found time for sightseeing, including a desert safari and a visit to Old Dubai. One or more of the group also visited: Museum of the Future; Museum of Illusions; the Burj Khalifa skyscraper;  Aquaventure Water Park; and Kite Beach.

Saim, who managed to procure a full Saudi robe and headgear for the second-day social, particularly relished the multi-cultural nature of the event. “Despite London itself being a rather multicultural city, it was taken to the next level in Dubai – in my committee there were people from four different continents (including a Palestinian-Russian and a French-Indian).”

This experience was not without its lighter moments – Saim tried to learn local styles of wearing the shemagh (traditional headscarf). “According to one Lebanese person, I had at one point worn it in the style of someone about to get married!” said Saim.

“The conference gave an invaluable insight into how the lives of people of similar ages and educational background from around the globe can vary. Whether it was practising my (somewhat rusty) GCSE French with native speakers, picking up Arab phrases from a local Emirati, it was an amazing trip all around.”

 

In a QE first, an entire year group headed off to a West End theatre to watch a Shakespeare production.

The 190 Year 9 boys saw Hollywood A-lister Sigourney Weaver starring in The Tempest at the Theatre Royal, Old Drury Lane.

Their visit came shortly after QE’s Year 12 English Literature students took part in a two-day joint event with The Henrietta Barnett School that included a visit to a performance of Richard II at the Bridge Theatre in Bermondsey. QE has a long-standing partnership with the girls’ school, and this event was designed to stretch pupils of the two schools, giving them a taste of what studying Shakespeare at university might be like.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “Giving students opportunities to experience live theatre remains a central part of our philosophy as an English department. In particular, given the density of language in Shakespeare’s plays, seeing them performed brings them to life in a way which the classroom simply cannot achieve.

“We were very lucky, therefore, to secure tickets to see two sell-out shows in The Tempest and Richard II. Taking just under 200 Year 9 students to see The Tempest will remain a highlight of the academic year. For many, it will have been their first experience of professional theatre, and one which I hope will last for many years after they leave the School. Even afterwards, I could still hear students around the School and in class discussing features of the performance, which hopefully balanced enjoyment with a richer and deeper understanding of the text.

“Working with our colleagues at Henrietta Barnett allowed us to put on a brilliant day and a half of activities. From a standing start, students became fully acquainted with the characters and themes of the under-appreciated Richard II. It was a treat to see students fully engaging in the dramatic activities, and speaking so knowledgeably about the Bridge Theatre performance.”

The Year 9 boys students studied The Tempest in the Autumn Term, with the trip therefore forming a conclusion to their studies. Sigourney Weaver, the star of films including Alien and Avatar, played Prospero in a Jamie Lloyd Theatre company production. It was, said Mr Hyland, “a rare opportunity for students to see a world-class actor and production company in real life”. Fourteen staff, drawn from all departments, accompanied the pupils.

Asked to write their own reviews, the Year 9 boys were enthusiastic about their visit. Ridit Bhor praised the “wonderful chemistry” shared by the characters, Miranda and Ferdinand, while others praised the set design, described by Pothan Bobba as “nothing short of spectacular” and by Avi Aggarwal as “hauntingly beautiful”.

The two-day Sixth Form event centred around the production of Richard II at the Bridge Theatre production, which starred Jonathan Bailey, of Bridgerton and Wicked fame. In addition to seeing the production, the event involved:

• An introductory lecture on the play from Dr Diana Hallam, A-level specialist and founder of Literary Lectures, which explored the contextual significance of the play;
• A drama workshop from Mandy Dassa (from QE’s drama partners, RM Drama), exploring the play from a practical perspective;
• Seminars exploring key scenes and speeches from the text, led by Mr Hyland and teachers from the girls’ school;
• A tour of the Globe Theatre combined with a drama workshop on Richard II, led by Royal Shakespeare Company and Globe Theatre actor Chu Omambala.

“We wanted to take students away from their exam specification, and help them understand what it might be like to study Shakespeare at a higher level and through different methods than the A-level allows,” said Mr Hyland. “By picking a text they were unfamiliar with, and allowing them to explore it beyond the normal classroom setting, students were able to develop their skills of interpretation and analysis. And by pairing up with our colleagues at HBS, they could also work with new faces, gaining new ideas and original perspectives.

“With the range of activities on offer, from university-style lectures, seminars, drama, and fieldwork, this partnership event really did give a sense of how exciting and varied studying English at a higher level can be.”