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Boys took part in a broad range of activities to mark Climate Week 2015 – including one day when computers, projectors and even electric lights were banished from Geography lessons.

Run by the Geography department with help from Sixth-Formers, the programme aimed to engage pupils and inspire them to learn more about climate change. It featured a different event on each day.

The boys particularly enjoyed eating popcorn as they watched Avatar on a special film day. The film tells the story of how mining operations threaten the existence of an indigenous tribe on the planet Pandora.

“Climate Week is the biggest climate-change campaign in the UK,” said Geography teacher Sarah Jones. “It aims to raise awareness of the issues, and to showcase practical solutions for a sustainable future.”

Each year half a million people participate in approximately 3,000 events run by schools, businesses, councils and charities.

Other events at QE included a quiz, with eight teams competing in an inter-house competition. The winning team (pictured above) was Sanjeayan Mathivannan, Rahul Patel, Pranay Pindoria and Bishoy Yassa, representing Pearce.

Questions included: ‘What cold-weather phenomenon did Scotland experience in February?’ (Arctic Weather Bomb); ‘In which South American country has the first football pitch been installed, where electricity is produced when football is played on it?’ (Brazil) and ‘By how many degrees has the planet warmed up by since 1880?’ (0.850C).

The Geoexplorers Club enjoyed a ‘climate change special’ at which they were asked to simulate a business environment where they had to decide how to make their business more environmentally friendly, whilst increasing their profits.

“Working with the Sixth-Formers to organise the events has been very rewarding,” added Dr Jones. “Special thanks go to Kischan Sivayoganathan, of Year 12, for helping put the quiz together and to Sajjad Dar and Toby Feszczur-Hatchett, also of Year 12, for helping on the day.”
 

More than twice as many QE boys as last year have qualified for the prestigious Olympiad after success in the Intermediate Maths Challenge.

This year, 280 boys from Years 9–11 entered the Challenge; 25 have qualified for the élite Olympiad, compared to 12 last year, and a further 53 for the separate follow-on Kangaroo round.

Thousands of pupils from more than 30 countries entered the Challenge this year and the top 500 from each school year across these countries have been invited to participate in the Olympiad, with a further 5,500 in the Kangaroo.

“We’re delighted with how well the boys have done,” said Assistant Head of Mathematics, Wendy Fung. “We are particularly pleased with the increased proportion of pupils who have reached the Olympiad.”

Those taking part in the competition, run by the UK Mathematics Trust, are given one hour to answer 25 multiple-choice questions at school under normal examination conditions.

QE’s top scorer was Year 11’s Nitharsan Sathiyalingam who scored 130/135 and received a ‘Best in School’ certificate. Souhardh Kotakadi was the highest scorer in Year 10, with 104, whilst the best in Year 9 was Varun Wignarajah, with 98.

Altogether 92 QE boys were awarded gold certificates, 102 silver and 61 bronze, placing these 255 boys (91% of QE’s entrants) in the top 40% of participants. The certificates are awarded in the ratio of 1:2:3.

A team of four QE boys has been placed second in the country in the Top of the Bench Chemistry competition – the best-ever result by a QE team.

Sanchit Agrawal, of Year 11, James Tang, of Year 10, and Year 9’s Bashmy Basheer and Nico Puthu were narrowly beaten by King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys, Birmingham, in the final of the prestigious competition organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry, which took place at Loughborough University. They received £15 Amazon vouchers and certificates and the School received a silver plate.

“This is a great performance at a very high level of competition,” said Second Master Colin Price, who paid tribute to Science teacher Dr Elizabeth Kuo for her role in supporting the team’s participation. “It’s very gratifying to see the preparation work paying off so clearly; it was an excellent opportunity for these boys.”

The team overcame 19 schools in the regional round, winning through with a score of 90% and tackling both individual and team questions. In the final, a series of short, factual tests and practical, problem-solving team exercises provided a rigorous examination of the boys’ chemical knowledge.

Entrepreneur Kumar Hindocha (1999-2006) is hoping to secure the backing of Sir Richard Branson for an innovative parcel delivery business that makes use of existing train and coach services – including Branson’s Virgin Trains.

First, however, he needed the specific support of Old Elizabethans for one day only (voting was on 19th May 2015).

Kumar already runs Islington-based PitchWise – a live booking website for private and public football pitches across London. Now he is hoping to launch the new delivery business, YouniMover, as part of Sir Richard’s nationwide Pitch to Rich competition.

“I have been accepted on to the next stage, which is about getting as many votes for our online 'pitch' as possible,” he says. He is therefore appealing for Old Elizabethans and others connected with QE to give their support online.

Kumar left QE in 2006 to take a degree in Management at Warwick University. “After graduating, I moved to south London and worked for Sky Television, learning the advertising ropes. I then moved into finance and then shortly after worked as a Student Career Advisor at King’s College London, before finally taking the leap into starting PitchWise.

“I saw a gap in the systems that schools, local government and sports centres were using in order to promote their sporting resources to local public, so I developed software in order that customers could find and book their local resources in one place and in real time,” Kumar explained.

He applied a similar philosophy when devising YouniMover. “I have a passion for disrupting industries with ingrained customer service problems and operational inefficiencies – and this time my focus is firmly on the parcel delivery industry. I mean to create a platform that makes it cheaper and easier for people to transport their items around the country leveraging existing transport services. You can see why we need Virgin! The prize on offer is also an unmissable chance for me as a budding entrepreneur to learn from Sir Richard.”

Kumar entered the competition in the New Things category, which is for “ideas that might disrupt a market and shake things up”.  Out of a reported 6,000 entries, YouniMover was one of 2,000 entries to be given a pitch page on the competition website. “We were actually outside the top 150, but the Virgin team were impressed with the high standard of submission, and are holding one more day of votes, 19th May,  to narrow the selection. So with the School’s help I hope to make it!”

To read more about YouniMover, click here.

Year 8 boys got an insight into just what a lack of access to clean water can mean from two visiting speakers from international charity WaterAid.

Miriam Poulton has worked on community-based projects in several African countries, while May Sule is an expert in sustainable water management in Nigeria. They explained to 90 Year 8 boys how organisations like WaterAid are working with local communities in Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs) to improve access to clean water and sanitation.

“The boys were deeply interested and absorbed a great deal of factual information about the challenges involved with providing clean water in LEDCs,” said Sarah Jones, the Geography teacher who organised the event. “The top three facts that the boys said they had learnt were: that pneumonia is the biggest killer of children; one-third of people in the world do not have access to a toilet, and the thinner you are the higher is your body’s water content.”

After the presentation the boys took part in a workshop. They were given an imaginary budget of £5,000 to spend on a village of 300 people in Ghana who do not have access to clean water or sanitation.

The exercise required them to decide whether to spend the money immediately on installing pumps, wells and latrines, or whether to hold a consultation with the villagers – at a cost of £1,000 – to ask them what they thought would be best for the village.