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In a letter dated 26th May, Michael Gove, the new Secretary of State for Education, invited the Governors to consider acquiring Academy status as soon as possible.

Mr Gove pointed out that as Queen Elizabeth’s is currently rated outstanding by Ofsted this means that the School automatically meets the criteria for Academy status. Details are available on www.education.gov.uk under the Academies tab where interested parties may find the list of frequently asked questions helpful.

The Governing body will now address each of the issues that need to considered at an extraordinary meeting on Thursday 10th June. Those wishing to comment may email here.

QE boys were the toast of the town during a new exchange with a school in France.

Thirteen boys from Years 8 and 9 took part in the week-long French exchange with Collège St-Pierre in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon.

QE Teacher of French Océane Jullien, a former pupil at Collège St-Pierre, said: "During this exchange, the first of hopefully many to come, the boys were warmly welcomed by their host family, the French school and were even honoured at a welcome ceremony in the town hall."

In course of their stay, they enjoyed an intensive immersion into French life. The boys discovered the secrets of wine-making, explored the historical towns of Bourg-en-Bresse and Lyon and shopped at a traditional French market. They also experienced a typical day in a French school, which involved some cycling and a game of Ultimate Frisbee.

Their visit to the ‘salon d’honneur’ in the town hall, where they were each presented with a special information booklet, was reported in Le Progrès, the Lyon area’s daily newspaper.

"The boys were praised for their effort in speaking French, so it came as no surprise when they greeted the English passport control officer in French on our return to London!" said Ms Jullien. "They’re now looking forward to receiving their exchange partners in London on 14th October."

Team-building exercises and a GCSE Geography assessment made for a highly successful field trip to Norfolk.

A total of 132 boys from Year 10 were split into two groups and spent three days at the Kingswood Field Studies Centre investigating the characteristics of the River Glaven. They had to collect data on the width, depth and velocity of the river, observing the downstream changes.

Various team-building activities were run during the field trip; ranging from quad-biking to aeroball. One particularly challenging exercise was the ‘Nightline’ which required boys to wear a blindfold and trust others to guide them through an obstacle course.

“The trip was very successful. The boys worked very hard to plan their fieldwork and collect data, which will help them to achieve very good results in their coursework. It was also very rewarding to see the boys enjoying the fieldwork experience and improving their team work and communication skills,” said Anne Flook, Head of Geography and RS.

Underne House raised just over £150 for charity with three days of space hopper races.

Boys from Years 7-10 took part in the first two days’ races in the gym, with Tom Selek, of Year 7, winning the Year 7 and 8 races and Stuart Tang, of Year 9, triumphing among the Year 9s and 10s.

The teachers’ competition took place in the Shearly Hall – the first charity event in the new building to be allowed by the Headmaster. Organisers unleashed the hall’s new sound system, with some energetic music adding to the lively atmosphere. House Co-ordinator Will Beaumont won the teachers’ event.

“We chose space hopper races as it was an original, innovative idea which diverged from common events such as volleyball and football,” said Shahil Mehta, House Captain of Underne.

The £152.59 raised goes to Community Link Up, a registered charity which supports and promotes friendships between people with a Learning Disability and others in the Harrow community (www.linkup.org.uk).

All Year 12 geographers spent a day in High Wycombe investigating whether the town has its own urban microclimate.

The fieldwork, which is part of the preparation for an A-level examination in January next year, involved testing the temperature, wind speed and the effect of change in relief (elevation) on the heat island created by the town.

“This is an excellent and challenging fieldwork exercise for the A-level geographers; the concepts, equipment and decisions which need to be addressed, used and justified are highly complex,” said Anne Flook, Head of Geography. “It prepares boys well for the examination in January but also for fieldwork that they might carry out at university.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School’s History Department took a leading rôle in a conference for History teachers on the Cold War.

Organised by the Prince’s Teaching Institute, the event updated GCSE and A-level History teachers on recent research and debates, as well as providing an opportunity to discuss how to use recently released archival material in their teaching.
Twenty-five delegates took part in the conference hosted by QE at the Edgwarebury Hotel in Elstree, including three members of QE staff and two Sixth-Formers. QE gained Training School status last year and this event was one of its Training School opportunities.

It included three talks and a teacher workshop. The workshop was led by QE’s Head of History, Annette Liston, who shared teaching resources from QE with the delegates. She also welcomed delegates and gave an overview at the start of the conference.

The talks were:

Political Violence in Germany since 1968, by Dr Martin Ruehl, Lecturer in German at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, Cambridge University. He linked the left-wing violence of the R.A.F/ ‘Baader Meinhof Komplex’ with developments in the Cold War, arguing that events in West Germany could not be understood in a vacuum but were only explicable by looking at the wider context of the struggles of the Cold War.

The Onset of the Cold War in Europe, by Professor Matthew Jones, a member of the School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. He set out the various historiographical approaches to the start of the Cold War, providing teachers with the framework for their own teaching of the controversy. He explained the arguments of the different approaches and schools of thought, and encouraged teachers and students to look for the strengths and weaknesses in each.

Crossing the Lines, by former Soviet journalist Andrei Ostalski, who started his career at the TASS News Agency and became special correspondent at Izvestia in 1986. He spoke of his personal recollections of journalism and politics in the era of the Cold War, especially of his time in the Middle East, and of the fall of the USSR. He pointed out the contradictions inherent in the communist state, which eventually led to its downfall, and the rôle of Gorbachev.