Viewing archives for Uncategorized

Promit Anwar, a Year 13 Economist, has been announced joint winner of The Royal Economic Society Young Economist of the Year Competition 2008. He will receive a £1,000 prize.

Nearly 400 entries – from as far afield as Singapore – were received for the 2008 competition. The task was to write up to 2,000 words on which economic idea or policy has most power to improve our lives. A wide variety of topics were covered by entrants including investment in sports facilities, the economics of happiness, micro-finance, mass collaboration and feed-in tariffs.

Promit chose international finance policy for his topic. He put the case for the creation of an international currency to supplant the dollar, arguing that this would help economic development by improving investment efficiency, ease macro imbalances and provide an international policy instrument.

A team of twelve experienced Economics teachers met in June to read and judge every entry, identifying the shortlisted entries. The final judging process was performed by Charles Bean (Deputy Governor, Bank of England), Stephanie Flanders (Economics Editor, BBC) and John Vickers (RES President). The joint winner with Promit was Lizzy Burden from Withington Girls’ School.

Commenting on the results, John Vickers said: "The Young Economist of the Year Competition, now in its second year, has again excited great interest and brought forth impressive talent. Two entries stood out: Promit Anwar’s thoughtful analysis of global reserves policy and Lizzy Burden’s sharp and engaging account of the power of game theory. We are delighted to congratulate and announce Lizzy and Promit as the joint winners of the Royal Economic Society Young Economist of the Year 2008."

The competition was organised for the RES by tutor2u. Commenting on the 2008 competition, tutor2u’s Jim Riley said: "The overall standard of entries for the 2008 Competition was even higher than 2007 and a significant number of high quality entries made it through to the final shortlist. The RES Essay Competition is now firmly established as a challenging and rewarding extension activity for the increasing number of A Level and IB Economics students in the UK and overseas."

Promit has been congratulated by the Mayor of Barnet and received a special invitation to meet the Mayor in person. The official prize-giving is being held at the start of the RES Annual Public Lecture. This year the lecture is being given by Tim Besley (Bank of England MPC) and is being held at The Royal Institution of Great Britain on Tuesday 18th November 2008.

Old Elizabethan Tom Aggar has won a gold medal this morning at the Paralympics in Beijing. Headmaster, John Marincowitz, said, “Tom’s fortitude and courage is truly inspirational – what a magnificent young man!”

Tom, the reigning world champion, was pushed hard by Oleksandr Petrenko, but always held a slight advantage over the Ukranian and showed his strength in the latter stages to triumph in 5:22.09.

He said: "It has been an amazing journey since I started rowing one-and-a-half years ago. To come to the Paralympics and end up on top is incredible." 

Tom is 24 and a graduate of Warwick university. He was a pupil at Queen Elizabeth’s between 1995 and 2002.

Read the BBC’s coverage of Tom’s victory here.
Read Tom’s profile here.
Read Tom’s latest blog entry here.
Watch an interview with Tom here.

Two of Queen Elizabeth’s music students achieved exceptionally high marks this year in their public exams.

Rowan De Souza gained one of the ten highest marks in the country in GCSE Music, while Jason Poon was one of the top ten students in the country taking A Level Music Technology.

Rowan has now embarked on the A Level Music course and Jason is starting his degree in modern languages at York University.

Kieron Howe, Director of Music, said, "Congratulations to them both for these extraordinary achievements."

Akhil Amlani (OE), the 18-year-old winner of Defra’s 2007/08 Climate Change Champions competition, met with Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, at City Hall last week, to discuss climate change issues.

The meeting took place following the recent launch of the Mayor’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, which considers the impact that past and present carbon emissions will have on London’s climate.

Akhil was particularly keen to ask the Mayor if he thought the Thames Barrier was still adequate to protect London from extreme weather. He also wanted to know about future plans to encourage cycling, roof garden planting and other green initiatives across the capital.

Boris Johnson said: “Akhil is a superb example of how everyone, young and old, can get involved in tackling emissions and fighting climate change in London. It was a pleasure to meet him and discuss his sterling work as a Climate Change Champion. I wish him every success in his role and look forward to his involvement in relevant mayoral projects in the future.”

After the visit, Akhil Amlani, London Climate Change Champion from Hendon said: “Meeting the London Mayor was a great experience and he answered my questions about climate change in London, reduction of carbon emissions and becoming increasingly energy efficient. I was keen to learn that the Mayor shares my views on increasing cycling provision in London and hope that soon it will become safer and easier to cycle around the capital.”

He continued: “The Mayor was particularly interested in the ecological garden I created with my friends this Summer at the Queen Elizabeth‘s School in Barnet, using the prize money received from Defra, when I won the regional climate change champion competition earlier this year.

“I built the garden on previously unused land and incorporated British grown drought-resistant plants; solar energy lighting; and recycled materials. This is similar to the Mayor’s plans to create green ‘cooling’ areas in the form of public gardens that are ‘water efficient’ and will also be aesthetically pleasing.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School has been named The Sunday Times State Secondary School of the Year 2007. The School was featured in ‘Parent Power’ in The Sunday Times on 18 November 2007. 

Read the article here

Four QE boys were selected as regional finalists for the London area in the Doodle4Google art competition.

Movin Abeywickrema, Matthew Chew, Ciaran Deasy and Mohammad Moinuddin, who are all in Year 9, were among only ten finalists chosen from across the capital. They were awarded with certificates from Google.

The competition on the theme of ‘My Community’ attracted 70,000 entries from schools around Great Britain.

• Two Lower Sixth Art students, Nicholas Ward and Makoto Takahashi, have been taking part in ATTRACT, a programme run by the Royal Academy to involve A Level pupils in the life of the institution.

The U15 rugby squad have had an excellent start to the season – progressing to the fifth round of the Daily Mail Cup. This is the furthest that any QE team has ever gone in this competition.

Overall QE teams will have taken part in 183 matches by the end of this term; a record number of matches in recent times. All the teams have shown great commitment to training and have displayed excellent teamwork and spirit.

Twenty pupils competed for the four places available in the Engineering Education Scheme. Under the scheme a team of four Sixth-Formers interested in engineering as a potential career will work in partnership with local company Lovell on an environmental brief.

Year 13 pupil Urmil Mehta has successfully completed his first year as an Arkwright Scholar. The Scholarship encourages engineering as a career and funds pupils during their Sixth Form to help them with any materials they may need to assist their studies.

All Year 12 Mathematics students, as well as nine from Year 13, sat this year’s Senior Maths Challenge run by the UK Mathematics Trust.

Of these, nine boys received gold, 16 silver and 34 bronze certificates. Jacob Hilton was best in school. Four boys – Jacob Hilton, Jian Siang Poh, Promit Anwar and Akhil Shah – have now qualified for the next round, the Olympiad.

Four members of staff and 47 Year 12 geographers enjoyed a very successful trip to Eagle’s Nest in the Cevennes National Park in South Central France.

The boys carried out the full fieldwork process in preparation for the A Level examination in January, including site selection, methodology, piloting, data collection, data presentation/analysis, drawing conclusions and evaluating their work. Temperatures were freezing, as the centre is located at the same height as Ben Nevis.

“The boys were exceptionally well behaved and worked hard all week. I am sure they will remember the trip for a long time – but hopefully at least until the examination in January!” said Anne Flook, Head of Geography.

To view these photographs, click on one of the thumbnails to start a slideshow.