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The diligence of QE's Year 12 Physicists has been rewarded with a grand total of 14 awards in this year's Physics Olympiad, run by Oxford University.

Two QE boys, Bhavik Mehta and Robert Swan, were awarded gold with a further five gaining silver and seven winning the two levels of bronze available (listed below). Nationally, most entrants are not placed.

The Olympiad’s AS Challenge is designed to stretch lateral thinking skills and encourage participants to apply fundamental physical principles to novel situations. It comprises a single, one-hour paper made up of a section of multiple-choice questions and a short-answers section.

“This is a very good result and a just reward for the hard work of the boys taking part,” said Physics teacher Ashley Dyson, who organised QE’s participation in the event. “The competition is very challenging as it is aimed at the very top tier of Year 12 students.”

Silver award winners
Anoshan Ananthajeyasri, Ralph Flint, Vinul Wimalaweera, Alex Zanre and Tianlin Zhang                   

Bronze I award winners
Aronya Roy, Samkit Shah and Jason Wong                    

Bronze II award winners
Harshil Joshi, Kishan Makwana, Vishnu Pahwa and Harshil Sumaria                

QE boys produced a 25-minute video news programme as part of the nationwide BBC News School Report initiative, covering topics ranging from immigration to the impact of the winter’s floods.

More than 20 boys from Year 9 worked closely together to plan and make the programme, which was shot at locations around the School. It included reports on topics including: a visit to the School by Holocaust survivor, Mala Tribich; global warming; the rising cost of going to the cinema; national changes to GCSEs; immigration and unemployment, and an account of how the flooding affected the family of QE boy Aravindh. (Following guidance, only first names were used.)

There was some adventurous use of on-screen graphics during the programme, which was presented by anchormen Keenan and Suraj. Before the final credits, QE’s own weatherman, Ajanthan, presented a national forecast “powered by QE weather systems”.

Working with Head of English Susannah Sweetman, English teacher Tom Quinn led a team in which each boy had his own designated role, ranging from editor to cameraman. The boys were also mentored by Old Elizabethan Peter Sumpter (1968-1974), a member of the BBC 10 O’Clock News production team.

Mr Quinn (seen right with the boys and below with the BBC's Huw Edwards) said: “All in all, the boys worked tremendously hard towards the end product, scripting, filming, directing, and editing it all themselves (with the occasional nudge in the right direction). I’m very proud of all the effort and creativity they have put in.

“It has certainly served to hone their skills in time-management, working towards a deadline, cross-curricular research, writing, technical composition and general teamwork.”

The BBC News School Report aims to interest young people in news of all sorts, while also providing them with an opportunity to inform their audience about the stories which are important to them.

An initial version of the programme can be seen here. The problems with sound quality apparent in some places are the result of technical problems: these will be resolved in due course.

Year 13 pupil Gabriel Gendler is celebrating after achieving the remarkable feat of being selected as a member of the UK’s International Mathematical Olympiad squad for the third consecutive year.

The squad is drawn from those who have achieved success in the British Mathematical Olympiad and thus brings together an élite group of the country’s finest mathematicians.

“This selection represents a substantial achievement for Gabriel,” said the Headmaster, Neil Enright. “Two years ago Gabriel was the reserve; last year he was selected for the team that competed in Santa Marta, Colombia, and achieved a silver medal – the first QE boy ever to reach the team. His ambition is to achieve a gold, if picked for the team this year, and our best wishes go with him and the rest of the UK squad.”

Gabriel was selected as one of 20 pupils from schools all over the UK to participate in the UK IMO’s training camp at Trinity College in Cambridge last month.  The invitations were based on performances in earlier selection rounds and previous experience in the competition. At the end of the Cambridge training camp he learnt that he had been selected as one of the nine-strong squad for this year’s IMO which will take place in Cape Town, South Africa. He will learn later this month whether he will form part of the six-strong team or be one of the three reserves.

Gabriel has been offered a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, to study Mathematics in the autumn and is looking forward to a career closely linked to the subject.

Contestants in the IMO must answer six problems, each worth seven points. It was first held in Romania in 1959 and has since been held annually, except in 1980. Participants must be under the age of 20 and must not be registered at any higher education institution, so this will be Gabriel’s final opportunity to take part before taking up his university place.

Twelve-year-old Ben Domb represented England at his first international Tae Kwon-Do competition. Ben, of Year 7, was part of the England National Squad who travelled to Minsk in Belarus to compete amongst more than 500 competitors from 25 countries in the European ITF Tae Kwan-Do Championships. 

The United Kingdom Tae Kwon-Do Dojangs organisation picked out Ben in their post-competition report, saying: “We extend our congratulations to Ben. It was his first time competing internationally, and he looks forward to continuing his training with the team in preparation for future European and World Championships.”

Having gained black belt at an unusually young age some years ago, Ben, 1^st Dan, has progressed strongly in the sport. He trains on Sundays with the England squad in Oxford and on Fridays after School with his local Tae Kwon-Do club.

His father, Eytan Domb, said: “I would like to thank the School sports teachers who have been most understanding in allowing Ben on occasion to prioritise this when conflicts have occurred with out-of-hours rugby training in the run-up to this event.”

QE reached the semi-final of a national competition for schools raising money for under-privileged children in Asia and East Africa.

The rewards for the team of six Year 9 boys included an opportunity to meet celebrities such as actor Sir David Jason, who was a member of the judging panel for the semi-final at the House of Lords.

Calling themselves Team Ed-Spread, the six entered the Wings of Hope Achievement Awards (WOHAA) and raised more than £2,000 for Wings of Hope, a charity which provides free education to children through schools projects in India and Malawi. WOHAA is a free social enterprise scheme for schools throughout the UK and is open to pupils from Year 9 – 13. It aims to develop students’ skills whilst encouraging them to raise awareness of its international education projects.

“I was told by the organisers that the competition was fierce and the standard extremely high this year, but Team Ed-Spread’s efforts had shone through,” said Martin Bassett-Jones, Head of Extra-Curricular Enrichment, who organised QE’s entry. “The team had to prepare a five-minute presentation for the judges, which was followed by a three-minute Q&A. The boys did extremely well to rise to all the challenges and raise such a substantial amount of money.”

Udai Arneja, Abhishek Balkrishna, Aravindh Manivannan, Yashwanth Matta, Mark Thomas and Abhinav Vudathu took part in the semi-final after being short-listed. The panel of judges included Sir David (famous for roles including Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses and as the eponymous star of Inspector Frost), Sean Biggerstaff (who played Oliver Wood in the Harry Potter films) and Sophie Kinsella (author of Confessions of a Shopaholic).

The team spent six months fund-raising, organising activities that included a sponsored run and swim, an archery shoot, a talk in Pinner Library, the sale of wristbands and promotional activity on social media.

The prizes were presented at a separate event at the Royal College of Surgeons at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. During the ceremony, Abhinav performed a dance to entertain the audience and judges, who included the High Commissioner for Malawi, Bernard Sande.

The competition attracted entries from schools such as Merchant Taylors’, Henrietta Barnett and North London Collegiate.