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Old Elizabethan and 2008 Paralympics gold medallist Tom Aggar and current pupil Kem Onubogu both received prestigious awards at the annual Barnet Celebrating Sports Awards.

More than 300 guests and nominees attended the event at North London Business Park, including the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor John Marshall, Olympic triple jumper Larry Achike and QE’s Headmaster, Dr John Marincowitz.

The prizes were presented by Larry Achike and Barnet Principal Inspector Schools and Learning, Mick Quigley.

Tom, who triumphed in the men’s single sculls in Beijing and is also the reigning world champion, won the borough’s overall Sporting Achievement of the Year Award. He had in fact been nominated by the School for the Disability Award even before his achievement in the Paralympics.

A graduate of Warwick University, Tom, 24, was a pupil at Queen Elizabeth’s School between 1995 and 2002. He started rowing to keep fit in 2005 after a serious accident had left him paralysed.

As well as receiving his award, Tom also took part in a question-and-answer session at the ceremony.

Kem outstripped two other local young people to take the Young Volunteer of the Year Award for his work supporting sport and PE at a local primary school. He was required to do a minimum of 10 hours’ work as part of the Community Sports Leadership Award scheme, but in fact put in more than 50 hours. He was nominated by the primary school.

Dr Marincowitz said: “The borough’s award for Tom Aggar marks a fitting end to a tremendous year in which his dedication, his strength of character and his skill in his chosen sport have been richly and deservedly rewarded. I would also like to congratulate Kem for his award. At QE, we seek to ensure that our boys not only achieve academic success and personal fulfilment, but also make a contribution to society: Kem is an excellent example of that.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School has qualified for the knockout stages of a prestigious Mathematics competition for schools across London and the Home Counties.

QE emerged as group winners in the Hans Woyda Mathematics Competition after victories in all three group matches, against North London Collegiate School, St Alfred’s School and St Michael’s School. The team comprised: Year 13 student Akhil Shah; Ariel Weiss, of Year 12; Hone Cheung and Kamran Tajbakhsh, of Year 11, and Year 9 boy Nigethan Sathiyalingam.

The tournament, which has been running for 29 years, involves 64 top schools from the state and independent sectors. It was named after a former Head of Mathematics at Kingston Grammar School.

The Music department is pleased to announce that along with his offer of a place to read Physics at the University of Durham, Benjamin Yadin, in Year 13, has been awarded a Music scholarship.

Benjamin is one of 25 recipients from a pool of candidates applying in music, sport and drama.

Sixth-Former Jacob Hilton has qualified for the second round of the Senior British Mathematical Olympiad – the first time a QE boy has progressed so far in this prestigious competition. Jacob is also celebrating the offer of a place from Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Mathematics.

He was placed 49th out of 1,308 candidates in the first round of the competition, which is entered mainly by pupils who have already performed well in the earlier UK Senior Mathematics Challenge. He won a bronze medal as well as a book prize, The Backbone of Pascal’s Triangle by Martin Griffiths.

“Jacob has excelled himself with this performance. We congratulate him on this fantastic achievement and wish him well for the second round of the Olympiad taking place on Thursday 29th January 2009,” said Head of Mathematics Gee Scarisbrick. 

• A total of 23 boys in this year’s Year 13 at QE currently (January 2009) have Oxbridge offers, with 19 at Cambridge and four at Oxford. The most popular subjects amongst these are Law, with four offers, and Economics, Engineering and Natural Sciences, for which there are three offers each.

Queen Elizabeth’s School has been awarded a rare and prestigious accolade in recognition of its achievements in chess and its work to promote the game.

Just two schools are selected annually to receive the British Chess Educational Trust Award. The awards, which are administered by the English Chess Federation, began in 1913. QE was last chosen in 1952.

The award citation details the high priority given to chess development at the School over many years, pointing out, for example, that it has entered the Times chess competition since at least 1959 and consistently enters the largest number of teams of any school into the UK Schools Chess Championship. The citation also highlights QE’s “growing reputation” in chess, as evidenced in recent years by its invitation to compete in an international tournament in Dubai.

QE Chess Master Geoff Roberts says: “We have in excess of 100 boys of a wide variety of standards, who regularly participate in a wide variety of chess activities. We are very pleased to have been nationally recognised as a school that makes a significant contribution to the development of chess.” 

• The citation and the list of current and previous winners of the award are published at www.bcf.org.uk/events/bcfawards/bcet.htm.

On 2nd March, 19 boys took part in the Bollywood workshop with Sam Suriakumar. The boys worked for three hours putting together over six minutes’ worth of music.

They played a version of A.R.Rahman’s Raga’s Dance including elements of improvisation. The boys worked with very different notation to that which they were used to, having to listen to, work out and remember the rhythms and structure of the piece. The boys played a mixture of both Western and Indian instruments and combined them seamlessly. The performance will go forward to form our entry for the Music for Youth festival. Listen to the recording here.