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Award-winning academic and Old Elizabethan Mustafa Sarkar returned to QE for the 51st Annual Dinner Debate as a special guest.

In his toast to the Elizabethan Union, QE’s formal debating society, Mustafa (OE 1997–2004) emphasised the importance of luck – and, in particular, of making your own luck. A sports psychology specialist who last year gained his PhD from Loughborough University, Mustafa has won a number of awards for his work over the past few years, including, most recently, the British Psychological Society (BPS) Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) PhD award for 2015.

Drawing upon his academic research, Mustafa offered his audience of Year 12 boys, guests and staff advice around a number of themes. These included: always saying ‘yes’ to opportunities when presented with them (and working out how to do something afterwards); turning adversity into advantage; listening to your inner voice and making good use of social support networks. In this last connection, he spoke about the importance of his family, including his wife.

After enjoying a three-course formal dinner in the Dining Hall, which featured Moroccan chicken tagine, the assembled company moved to the Shearly Hall for the debate. This pits two old boys of the School against two current pupils.

Proposing this year’s motion, This House believes that marriage is an outdated institution, were Year 12 boys Ché Applewhaite and Ridwan Uddin. They were opposed by Gabriel Gendler (OE 2007–2014) and Ethan Axelrod (OE 2007–2014), with Adrian Burbie, of Year 12, in the chair.

The QE proposition started with only 30 or so votes and there were a great many abstentions. At the end, there were no abstentions and Ché and Ridwan had increased their share to 45, while the OE opposition had also increased their share of the vote, but by a smaller amount. The swing is crucial in determining the result, so although in absolute terms more people voted against the motion, the two current pupils won the debate.

Head of Academic Enrichment, Nisha Mayer, said: “Both sides were enormously persuasive and some excellent oratorical skills were seen from all four speakers.

“The debate touched on the progressive nature of gay marriage, the comparative merits of civil partnership and the global context, including arranged marriages, as well as the nature of romantic relationships today defined by technological advances such as the Tinder dating application. The evening was a great success.”

The Queen’s Library continues to forge a place at the heart of School life, playing a central role in competitions, clubs and activities.

After a QE team won their regional round of the international Kids’ Lit Quiz last year, this term the School launched its own Interhouse Kids’ Lit Quiz in the Shearly Hall, which saw teams of six drawn from Years 7–11 compete to show their literary knowledge over five gruelling rounds. The competition was won by Broughton.

Year 7 boys aspiring to represent the School in the wider competition later this year have been able to train in the Library in the KLQ Club on Wednesday lunchtimes. Librarian Ciara Murray, who organises the club, explains what the training involves: “Reading as widely and as much as we can, doing book quizzes, writing reviews, recommending things to each other and learning about obscure myths and nursery rhymes!”

Another highlight of the term was the QE Big Book Exchange, masterminded by Year 10 pupil librarians Binu Perera and Mipham Samten, where boys donated their old books in the eight days leading up to World Book Day. They received tokens which could then be exchanged for books on the day itself.

In the Monday Book Club, which is run by Ms Murray and Tomas Vieira-Short in Year 12, boys have been taking the Reading Passport challenge to ‘read around the world’. This involves them selecting a book from each continent and then writing write a short review, earning themselves a stamp in their Reading Passport for each continent they complete.

Another lunchtime club in the Library was Bookchat, which took place on Mondays and Tuesdays in the first half of term. Boys were invited to look at the Library’s latest stock and to come and read in the library at lunchtimes, as well as discussing what they were reading with other book-lovers.

In the Baker Street Society on Tuesdays, run by pupil librarians Saifullah Shah and Viraj Mehta, of Year 9, boys channel their inner Sherlock Holmes, using logical thinking to solve murders.

For comics fans from Years 9–11, the Excelsior Award Club ran in the Library on Thursday lunchtimes, while boys from Years 7 and 8 could take part in the Comic Club. The former focused on the Stan Lee annual Excelsior Award for graphic novels, comics and manga. Boys have been reading through the shortlist and writing reviews, leading up to defending their favourites and coming to a final decision. In the Comic Club, run by pupil librarians Hector Cooper and Rishi Shah in Year 9, boys designed their own superheroes using their own favourite comics for inspiration.

The latest Library newsletter, edited by Rishi Shah and Hector Cooper, both of Year 9, has been published, carrying 12 pages of news and information.

Next term will see the Library team up with the English Department to run a new creative writing club called INK, which is being billed as ‘two parts inspiration, one part knowhow, for all budding writers of poetry, short stories and novels’.

Another new club, the Carnegie Club, will involve a small group of the Library’s top borrowers shadowing the Carnegie Medal – an award given annually to a children’s author. The club will involve reading all the books in this year’s Carnegie Medal shortlist and writing reviews on the Carnegie Shadowing website.

QE’s Ridwan Uddin and Nabil Haque have won awards from the Bangladesh High Commission for their GCSE results – and Nabil used his acceptance speech to pay fulsome tribute to the role his grandfathers played in the country’s independence movement.

Year 12 boys Nabil and Ridwan, who are both from families of Bangladeshi origin, received Outstanding Achievement Awards at the High Commission in Kensington after being nominated by Head of Year 12 Liam Hargadon. The awards are offered to British-Bangladeshi pupils gaining at least ten A grades at GCSE or three As at A-level.

Since his tally of 13A*s was the highest of those at his ceremony, Nabil Haque was invited to give an acceptance speech on behalf of his fellow winners. He spoke of his pride at being “recognised as one of my home country’s highest achievers – an honour I deem to be at the pinnacle of my 17 years of life thus far”.

Nabil, who hopes to study Fine Art at Oxford University’s Ruskin School or University College London’s The Slade, congratulated the other award-winners and paid tribute to his parents for their support. He also thanked “all the teachers, friends and my School – whom I owe much gratitude to”.

However, he reserved his highest praise for his paternal and maternal grandfathers. Both had made the “bold and brave” decision to move to England in the 1950s, but had then constantly travelled to and from Bangladesh “fighting for what they believed in and the independence of our nation”. His mother’s father, Mushtaq Qureshi, had in fact been a freedom fighter, Nabil said. Bangladesh won its independence in 1971.

“My Nana and Dada were the most unselfish men I have ever met. Not only would they provide for their close families with what was not the most generous wage, but they would give freely to the British Bengali community around them, and simultaneously, send an abundance of money back to their homes in Sylhet. I have heard countless parables from both my parents about how strongly both men believed in education, knowledge and culture, tirelessly repeating the mantra that ‘education was the key to success’ as they, too, tirelessly toiled and worked for their family.

“These two characters were the stalwart figures in the respective sides of my family and, I believe, provided the basis for all I have achieved and wish to achieve in the future,” Nabil said. “As British Bengalis therefore we must remember the dichotomy of our identity; we live in Britain now, but our Bengali links will always stay fundamental to who we are as people. We are the next generation. We are the future of both Britain and Bangladesh.”

After delivering his speech, Nabil was complimented on it by other speakers, particularly MP Desmond Swayne, former Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister David Cameron.

He was also selected to represent the High Commission in an interview with the Bengali International BBC News Network. And Nabil was invited back to the High Commission for this month’s celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence by the High Commissioner, Md. Abdul Hannan, himself.

Fifteen Year 8 boys worked with girls from an independent school to design a shelter capable of sustaining life on Mars.

The Science Fair, held at St Albans High School for Girls, was the latest collaboration between QE and girls’ schools – although, unlike most other such collaborations, this involved younger boys.

Organiser Sarah Westcott, Head of Lower School Science, said: “This collaboration with St Albans enabled our students to develop key problem-solving as well as team-working skills. It was also a good opportunity for them to meet and work with female students of the same age group and share ideas about the difficulties of interplanetary survival.”

Working in mixed teams of three, pupils spent the first part of the day in a design-and-build session, with testing of the shelters occurring later in the afternoon. The shelters were tested to withstand structural damage and to see how well they would protect inhabitants from UV light.

Boys were also treated to a session in an inflatable planetarium and saw a presentation about how life on Mars might unfold.

The influential chair of one of Parliament’s most prominent Select Committees explained its work on a visit to QE – but lamented the fact that it had neither the power nor resources of its US equivalent.

Keith Vaz MP, who has been Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee since 2007, came to the School to give a Politics Society talk organised by Year 12 pupils Adrian Burbie and Ragul Premanathan.

A former Minister for Europe and a Privy Councillor, the high-profile Mr Vaz, who represents Leicester East, is the longest-serving Asian MP.

Born in Aden to parents from the Indian state of Goa, he moved to Twickenham with his family in 1965 and went on to take a first in Law from Gonville and Caius, Cambridge.

His talk, which was intended to complement the AS and A-level Politics syllabus, focused on the role of select committees and the work they do in scrutinising the executive in Parliament. Among the insights he gave was that Theresa May is the hardest Home Secretary to deal with in terms of “getting answers out of her which can be used against her”.

He spoke with particular emphasis on the contrast between the British Parliament’s Select Committees and Congressional Committees in the US.

Congressional Committees have the power to “cause Presidents to quake”, block bills and budgets, while their equivalents here have little power – they can only make recommendations. “When you go to Washington, you can just feel the power,” he said.

Furthermore, he felt British Select Committees were woefully under-resourced, comparing them again unfavourably with the US situation. His committee only had six part-time staff, while Congressional Committees had at least 30 full-time staff.

When asked by Adrian Burbie whether he would support George Osborne’s proposed sugar tax in the Budget, he said: “Well actually, George Osborne supports my sugar tax.” Mr Vaz has been a long-time campaigner on diabetes prevention, being a diabetic himself. He therefore strongly approved of the tax’s introduction – the only part of the Budget that he actually liked.

He was questioned by Liam Hargadon, Head of Year 12, on whether he thought Parliament needed to be more diverse and representative of the wider population. Mr Vaz, who is seen as a voice for the British Asian community, responded that Parliament had made great strides in representing ethnic minorities and women, but that work remained to be done.

Light relief was provided in an impromptu competition staged by Mr Vaz, who had brought along prizes: Big Ben pencils, a signed copy of one of his recent reports and a coveted coaster from high-flying Leicester City FC.

The questions and answers were:

• Who is the President of the European Commission? (Jean-Claude Juncker)
• Which Republican candidate dropped out of the race recently? (Marco Rubio)
• Who scored the winning goal for Leicester City’s in their game against Watford? (Riyad Mahrez)

Callum Murphy, of Year 13 and Neelay Sumaria-Shah, of Year 12, were among the winners.