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Upper Sixth-Former Jian-Siang Poh has been selected to participate in the second round of this year’s Chemistry Olympiad. Last year, only 23 students from across the country reached this stage of the competition.

Round 1 consisted of a two-hour examination which Jian-Siang sat at QE earlier this term, together with classmates Jimmy Lam and Jack Scannell. Rounds 1 and 2 of the competition are organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

“Jiang-Siang scored very highly, achieving a score of 55 out of 64 to secure his place in the next round” says QE’s Head of Science, Malcolm Russell.

The second round takes place at Cambridge University on 27th-29th March and will this year involve around 25 students. From these, four or five will be selected to represent the UK in July at the 41st International Chemistry Olympiad, which is also being held in Cambridge – the first time the international competition has ever come to this country.

The 33rd annual Rugby Sevens tournament at Queen Elizabeth’s School was a great success, with good rugby underpinned by excellent organisation.

The annual seven-a-side tournament, believed to be the country’s second-biggest schools sevens competition, takes place on the second Sunday each March. This year, it featured 40 leading schools, with teams from as far afield as The Wirral, Gloucestershire and Wales. Games are played on fullsize pitches at the School and at Barnet RFC.

Teams compete in group stages at U14 and U16 levels, with 32 teams in each age division. The winner of each group goes through to the Main quarter-finals, while the second-placed team proceeds to the Plate quarter-finals.

QE U16s reached the semi-final of the Plate competition, while the U14s were knocked out following the group stage.

Head of Games Mark Peplow said: “This was another highly successful tournament that ran smoothly throughout the day, with very competitive rugby played in an excellent spirit of good sportsmanship.”

Mr Peplow paid tribute to the contributions made by the staff, the London Society of Referees and by the QE ‘tea mums’, who raised £250 for the North London Hospice.

Four Year 12 boys taking part in the national Engineering Education scheme are working at the forefront of environmental technology.

The boys, Jack Evans, Andrew Kettenis, Ibiyemi Ogunyemi and Rikesh Poonja, who were selected from 20 QE candidates, are working in partnership with local company Lovell Partnerships to design an energy system based on a hydrogen fuel cell. The system will be suitable for incorporation into new developments to power heating and lighting in a more sustainable way, meeting Government eco-targets.

The team, along with QE Head of Design Simon Vincent, attended a three-day residential workshop in the University of Hertfordshire, where they worked alongside Lovell engineers to clarify their concepts and start testing. 

• QE pupils Priyesh Patel, Sam Catchpole-Smith, Sergio Ronchetti and Nikul Vadgama have taken the Arkwright Scholarship examination and are waiting for the results. Under the national scheme to support young engineers, successful candidates receive a scholarship in their Sixth Form years. Other recent developments in QE’s Design and Technology Department include the installation of new sanding tables to reduce dust contamination in the workshops.

The Government has given Queen Elizabeth’s School its Sportsmark Award in recognition of the amount of sport played by its pupils.

The award from the Department for Children, Schools and Families celebrates the fact that “at least 90% of pupils do at least two hours’ high quality PE and sport a week”.

Headmaster Dr John Marincowitz welcomed the award and added: “Many of our boys, of course, exceed this significantly with their participation in the School’s extensive programme of extra-curricular sport.”

The School has received a certificate to mark the achievement and is also entitled to use the Sportsmark logo on its stationery.

As a result of the award for QE, Barnet Central School Sport Partnership (of which QE is a member) qualified for the related Partnershipmark Award, since 96% of children in its schools are now participating in two or more hours’ sport a week.

The Sportsmark Award is awarded to secondary schools, with primary schools given the equivalent Activemark Award.

The outstanding achievement of boys whose successes mark them out even in the high-achieving culture of Queen Elizabeth’s School were publicly recognised and celebrated at the Senior Awards evening.

Some 120 prizes for both academic and extra-curricular achievement were awarded at the event, which is one of the academic highlights of QE’s year.

They were presented to the boys from Years 10 and 11 and from the Sixth Form by the Guest of Honour, Professor Christopher Higgins, Vice Chancellor and Warden of the University of Durham.

Welcoming him and the other guests to the ceremony in the School Hall, the Headmaster, John Marincowitz, said: “Truly outstanding achievements warrant a measure and those who have distinguished themselves in a context where standards are generally very high are truly exceptional and worthy of our celebration. Such is the talent and commitment of the young men whom we celebrate tonight.”

Dr Marincowitz highlighted the public examination successes of QE boys, who typically achieve 10A*s at GCSE and three A grades at A Level – sufficient to place them consistently in the top 5% of their age group nationally. A total of 37 boys recently took up Oxbridge places.

However, Dr Marincowitz added that QE boys enjoy a “wide and rich educational diet,” which is by no means solely focused on examination performance. “Indeed, some of the best things in education are derived from enriching experiences that lie beyond the confines of examination board syllabuses and in all manner of activities that take place outside the classroom.”

Musical divertissements during the evening were provided by the School’s musicians, led by the Director of Music, Kieron Howe. The programme covered a wide range of styles, from JS Bach’s Prelude from the Sonata in C Major (featuring cellist Benjamin Yadin) to Gershwin’s The Man I Love, with Jin-Min Yuan at the piano. The processional and recessional were both compositions by Mr Howe. For both of these, Kalil Rouse played the trumpet and Nathanael Jackson played the trombone, with Mr Howe directing and also playing the trombone himself.

Two ensembles from Queen Elizabeth’s School took part in the first-ever Eisteddfod run by the Musicale, a community music teaching project in Harpenden which has been running for 25 years.

QE’s Saxophone Quartet, comprising Jonathan Wright (alto), Bhaven Murji (tenor), Adeel Haque (alto) and Punit Rawal (baritone) performed Round Midnight by Williams & Monk and Subway by Karen Street. The School’s Wind Ensemble, made up of Joseph Vinson (clarinet), Matthew Chin (oboe), Jonathan Wright (alto saxophone), Jason Yong (flute) and Akin Ogunseitan (flute) played Matyas Seiber’s Dance Suite.

Both QE groups played in the Ensemble Age Open section of the Eisteddfod, which was sponsored by the Harpenden Music Foundation. All the boys received medals and certificates for taking part.

The Eisteddfod was held over a weekend in an informal atmosphere, with helpful advice for the musicians being given by the adjudicator, Dominic Seldis. According to the organisers, Gillian and David Johnston, he was chosen “not only because he is a hugely experienced musician, but also for his untiring enthusiasm, his ability to make everyone feel at ease and for his infectious smile!” Mr Seldis, who is known for his appearances as a presenter on various BBC television music programmes, has recently moved to the Netherlands to take up his new post as Principal Bass of the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Other musical highlights of QE’s Spring Term included the Junior Mid Winter Concert, with performances from boys in Year 10 and below. The funding for the Junior String Orchestra and the Indian Music ensembles is made possible through our Specialist Music College status.

At the concert there were solo performances from some of the Year 7 boys awarded Music Scholarships – Tatsuma Otani, Ermos Chrysochos, Bolun Sun, Yosef Phillip-McKenzie, Joseph Huber and Daniel Chen.

The QE Concert Band enjoyed a memorable opportunity to play next to a Lancaster bomber at the RAF Museum in Hendon. The Concert Band is made up of boys who have reached at least grade V and is drawn from all year groups. It has performed many concerts at venues as far afield as Holland and Paris. Directed by QE’s Director of Music, Kieron Howe, the band also performed at St Mary’s Church in Hendon for last year’s Vaughan Williams celebrations.

In addition, 19 boys took part in a 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 played a mixture of both Western and Indian instruments and combined them seamlessly.