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QE’s Combined Cadet Force have received a glowing report following their biennial inspection.

Major Andrew Hart visited the cadets during a number of training sessions and inspected and addressed the whole force on parade during the course of his day.

Contingent Commander Captain Alexander Masson, Major Mev Armon, 2nd Lieutenant Richard Scally and School Staff Instructor Charlie-Maud Munro all received Major Hart, who was carrying out the inspection. Lance Sergeant Shapland from the British Army (London District) Cadet Training Team also attended the day to provide weapons training.

The visitors were met by the Cadet Quarter Guard (senior boys) before enjoying tea and cakes with the Headmaster in his study. At the end of the day, Major Hart met Mr Enright again and summarised his findings with him before departure.

Major Hart said: “From the outset, it was very evident that the CCF played a major role within the School and was an integral part of the after-curricular activities offered. The Headmaster was proud that the CCF helped to develop his students in line with the ethos of the School.”

He noted that the CCF seemed to be very popular: not only does it have more than 100 members, but there was also an ‘on parade’ strength of more than 75 cadets. Such attendance levels are understood to compare very favourably with other schools. This showed, said Major Hart, “a very committed and motivated detachment”.

He was also impressed by the Quarter Guard: “All…were 16 years of age and had been in the CCF for three years or more. They were well turned out and spoke very confidently and competently. All had enjoyed, and continued to enjoy, the time within the detachment.”

Major Hart witnessed some of the training taking place and noted that, with the exception of a lesson being run by the visiting L/Sgt Shapland, they were run by cadet instructors. Both a lesson led by a Cadet Under Officer on firearms and another, on field craft, led by a Cadet Sergeant, were “extremely good and well delivered and well received”. He further noted: “The real estate at the School was excellent, allowing creative training to take place.”

The Headmaster, Major Hart reported, “is a strong believer in the benefits [the CCF] brings his students and was keen to highlight how it is treated as an integral part of the School.

“During the whole visit it was evident that the welfare and morale of the cadets was excellent,” he concluded.

Sixty Year 13 boys took part in two workshops led by researchers from Imperial College London.

Entitled Spectroscopy in a Suitcase, the workshops were organised and funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).

Two PhD candidates and one M.Chem. student from Imperial ran the two sessions for the Sixth-Formers. Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between light and matter and is an integral part of the A-level Chemistry course.

Boys had the opportunity to hone their skills in analytical chemistry and to try out two different spectroscopic techniques, infrared spectroscopy (IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).

Each workshop started with a review of IR and NMR and then students were introduced to applications such as police breathalysers. They also learned about recent developments, particularly in the area of cancer treatment, where analytical tools have been developed to differentiate between cancerous and non-cancerous cells during surgery. Boys were then able to carry out some investigations themselves using both the IR and the NMR.

Chemistry teacher Dr Niamh Hickey added that after the workshops, the Royal Society of Chemistry generously allowed the Chemistry department to borrow the IR spectrometer for the rest of the week. This allowed Year 12 boys to be involved in extra lunchtime sessions that she was running and also enabled this year’s QE team in the RSC Top of the Bench Chemistry competition to have access to the equipment.

QE has won the regional heat of a national chemistry competition – adding to an impressive record of success in the prestigious event in recent years.

The victory in the Middlesex and Chilterns round of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench competition means that the team now go through to the national final at Loughborough in April.

QE’s Head of Science, Dr Malcolm Russell, praised the work of Chemistry teacher Elizabeth Kuo: “We have now won the regional competition four times out of the past six years – a striking level of achievement that, I am sure, is due in no small part to the weekly lunchtime training sessions that Dr Kuo organises.”

Under the competition rules, each team must include four pupils drawn from across Years 9-11.

QE’s competitors were selected by their teachers as showing outstanding promise in Chemistry. The team comprises Year 9 boys Vincent Tang and Alejandro Lynch Gonzales (seated front, left to right) as well as Ashish Khimasia, of Year 10, and Michael Takla, from Year 11 (seated back, left to right).

The regional heat was hosted by St Benedict’s, an independent school in Ealing, west London. There were around 20 teams competing, including a number from leading academic schools including Westminster and Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’. The heat featured eight rounds, all of them theoretical: a practical element is, however, included in the final.

For winning the heat, the four QE contenders won £20 each and individual certificates, together with a silver plate and £100 for the School.

The Top of the Bench competition has been running for more than 20 years. It aims to foster children’s interest in Chemistry, encouraging them to study it in higher education and eventually to pursue it as a career.

Former Cabinet Minister Sir Vince Cable gave a robust defence of the Liberal Democrats’ role in the Coalition Government and took a sanguine view of his party’s prospects when he spoke at Queen Elizabeth’s School.

Although ostensibly a Politics Society event, his talk in the Main Hall was very well attended by pupils from across the School.

Organiser Adrian Burbie of Year 12, (pictured below with Mr. Cable), a Senior Vice Captain of School, reported afterwards on the thoughts of the visiting politician, who lost his seat at the 2015 General Election. Sir Vince is the latest in a number of public figures and academics to give talks and lectures at the School during the current academic year.

Sir Vince, 72, contrasted his own route into politics with the typical route followed by today’s ‘career politicians’, namely a Philosophy, Politics & Economics (PPE) degree at Oxford, followed by a post as an assistant or advisor in Parliament. He was born to working-class parents and attended a grammar school in York.

He initially studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge, before switching to Economics. After further study at Glasgow, he was a lecturer and research fellow both there and at the London School of Economics.

He spoke at great length about his period as Treasury Finance Officer to the Kenyan government, describing his time in Kenya as an “enriching and eye-opening” experience and recommended that students of Economics should seize any chance they are offered to go abroad. Sir Vince then took up a post as Chief Economist for Royal Dutch Shell from 1995-97.

He then recalled his transition into the world of politics, which began when he became a Labour councillor in Glasgow. He joined the SDP when they split from Labour in 1982. Six years later, the SDP merged with the Liberals to become the Liberal Democrats.

Sir Vince has held a variety of notable roles – Lib Dem Trade Spokesperson, followed by Lib Dem Treasury Spokesperson, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems from 2006-2010, and Acting Leader of the Lib Dems in 2007.

Notwithstanding the loss of his seat in 2015 and the Lib Dems’ disastrous performance in the same election, Sir Vince vigorously defended both his own and his party’s record. His talk included:

• His claim that he had correctly predicted the global financial crisis of 2007-10. (He wrote two well-received books, The Storm, of 2009, and last year’s After the Storm, in which he analysed the circumstances that precipitated and followed the crash.)
• A defence of going into coalition with the Conservatives after it became clear that a coalition with Labour was not numerically feasible. He felt that such a step was a necessity to avoid the financial meltdown that many at the time feared.
• Highlighting his proudest moment, in answer to a question by Year 7 pupil Manomay Lala-Raykar – which was his time as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, running such a major government department and negotiating with George Osborne and David Cameron.
• Justifying his department’s tripling of tuition fees to £9,000 – a point on which he was quizzed by pupil Year 12 pupil Maaz Shahzad. His department was forced to make cuts of over 25 per cent and he did not believe that the Scottish system of no tuition fees was sustainable or right, as it meant that universities were underfunded. He described the fees not as a debt, but as a ‘graduate tax’. He stated that the new system his department introduced was fairer and he pointed to statistics showing increased numbers of people (including those from deprived backgrounds) going to university. “The policy itself was good – I’d give the policy about 8 out of 10 – but the politics of it was poor – about 2 out of 10.”
• An emphatic answer to Year 12 pupil Craig Robertson, who accused him of “not doing enough to make the rich responsible and help the poor”.  The Lib Dems had managed to implement more than 80 per cent of their manifesto commitments in a coalition, he said, pointing out that inequality had risen in all western, developed economies, not just the UK.

Compared with their Conservative coalition partners, the Lib Dems had come off worse, and had been unfairly victimised and blamed, he said, having been especially tainted by the tuition fees episode. He had expected the Lib Dems’ share of seats in the Commons to go down to about 30, not eight.

Questioned by Year 13 pupil Bhavik Somani about whether the Lib Dems would come back as a credible political force, he responded that Labour’s move to the left represented a new opportunity which the party would be working to seize over the coming Parliament, capitalising on the “vacated” centre ground.

Although focusing on the serious business of politics, his talk was not without its lighter moments. He referred to his well-known love for ballroom dancing and spoke about his appearance on the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special in 2010, where he scored an impressive 36/40 including, as he reminded the boys, 10/10 from Len Goodman – a recollection which drew laughter from the audience.

Sixth-Former Yuta Tsuchiya has added a fresh triumph to his record of mathematical achievement. 

Having reached Round 1 of the British Mathematical Olympiad with a perfect score in the UK Mathematics Trust’s Senior Maths Challenge, Yuta has now qualified for Round 2 – one of only 100 candidates nationally to do so.

Yuta, of Year 12, has been one of the School’s leading mathematicians for some time: when he was in Year 10, he finished in the top 100 nationally in the Intermediate Olympiad.

He was one of four QE Sixth-Formers to sit the Senior Olympiad’s first round: Lucas Duke, Daniil Slavin and Manos Spanoudakis (pictured below) all achieved certificates of qualification, while Yuta gained a certificate of distinction and a silver medal.

Round 1 consisted of six extended questions which had to be completed in three-and-a-half hours.  Round 2, which is of the same duration, will involve four extended questions. Success in Round 2 will result in an invitation to participate in training for the International Mathematical Olympiad.

A further 18 sixth-formers took part in the Senior Kangaroo, a separate follow-on round from the Senior Challenge for those not awarded places in the Olympiad. Merit certificates, which are awarded to the top 25 per cent of participants (those achieving scores of 50-plus), went to Jas Shah, who scored 70 out of 100, Sam Carling (60), Tochi Onuora (60), Hayato Murata (55) and Nitharsan Sathiyalingam (55) (pictured below). The remaining 13 Kangaroo participants received certificates of qualification.

The Senior Kangaroo is a one-hour paper that is sat in School. All the questions require three-digit answers, which are entered on to a machine-readable sheet similar to those used for the Senior Challenge. This is the first UKMT competition of its kind, in that it is not multiple-choice but is nonetheless marked by machine. 

QE’s Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Warmest congratulations to all our students and best wishes to Yuta for the next round.”