Viewing archives for

Headmaster Neil Enright has announced the names of QE’s 2017 School officials – including the new School Captain, Oliver Robinson.

Oliver will succeed the current School Captain, Varun Vassanth, when the Spring term gets underway on 3rd January 2017 and will have his name engraved on the Captains of School board in the Main Hall alongside those of every School Captain back to 1876. Working alongside him will be the other senior officials – two Senior Vice-Captains, Keenan Dieobi and Abbeykeith Kugasenananchettiar, together with ten Vice-Captains. These senior officials are supported by 89 prefects, who include House Captains and their Deputies for each of the six Houses. All the appointments are drawn from Year 12.

Congratulating the new team, Mr Enright said: “Becoming a School official is a signal honour which reflects the achievements of these Sixth-Formers and the commitment they have shown throughout their time here.”

“Oliver was Form Captain in his first term at the School in Year 7 and has thus shown leadership from the very outset. He represents the school at rugby and is a particularly strong mathematician, who approaches his studies and other commitments with confidence, yet with humility. Keenan is very committed to extra-curricular activities, especially rugby and drama, and his approach to School life is characterised by diligence and good humour. For his part, Abbeykeith is known for being very academic, focused and responsible.”

The senior officials and prefects have a key role to play in the day-to-day operations of the School, as well as on significant occasions in the School calendar, such as Founders’ Day during the summer.

“These appointments entail a significant responsibility for each of these boys, but it is one from which they will all gain a great deal,” Mr Enright added.

Forty lucky ticketholders were the first to sample hundreds of new fiction books at a special lunchtime event in The Queen’s Library.

During the Book Bonanza, which was hosted by Librarian Ciara Murray and the 25 pupil librarians, the Library was closed to the rest of the School. The fortunate 40 therefore had exclusive access to the new books purchased following a substantial donation from the School’s trustees. Library staff have been busily cataloguing these books since October.

The event also featured a Who’s that author? quiz and the pupil librarians’ Mystery Books – the boys had chosen a little-known book that they had enjoyed, wrapped it in paper (so that people could not judge it by its cover) and written a recommendation, which was stuck on the front of the book.

“The Book Bonanza really highlighted how much reading is treasured here at QE,” said Ms Murray. “There was a lot of excitement, with over 250 applications for tickets in the first two days – I had to pick names out of a hat!

“It was a real pleasure to see the pupil librarians in their element, recommending reading to their peers and creating a buzz around books. We are very grateful to the trustees, whose donation has allowed us to purchase a wealth of up-to-date, exciting fiction.”

Other talking points at the event included the pupil librarians’ Christmas Reading Advent Calendar – with a different book behind each window.

Members of the staff book club and QE’s senior management team were invited to join the boys for mince pies and to chat about what they were reading.

As Britain faces an uncertain economic future, a trip to central London gave QE Economists valuable insights into the role of the Bank of England and into the country’s changing relationship with Europe.

Open to all Year 11 pupils studying Economics, the trip took in a tour of the Bank of England Museum, discussion of the work of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), a ride on the London Eye and a visit to Europe House, the information office for the European Parliament.

The day started at the museum with a presentation on the role of money, interest rates and inflation in the UK economy. The boys found out about the vast vaults holding the UK’s and other countries’ gold reserves and also discovered how to identify genuine banknotes from counterfeits. Economics teacher Sonia Strnad said: “The most popular exhibit by far was the real gold bar: the boys were very surprised at its weight as well as its value.”

There were also direct curricular benefits arising from the day. At the Bank, the boys had the opportunity to discuss factors affecting the MPC when it sets the base rate, thus enhancing their understanding of monetary policy. “This was a valuable supplement to their knowledge and understanding of the Unit 12 topic, Managing the Economy,” Mrs Strnad said.

Next stop was the London Eye – the world’s tallest cantilevered observation wheel, as the boys learned. After examining the London skyline from their vantage point 135 metres above the River Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament, the group walked through Westminster to Europe House. There they attended a workshop and acted the part of European parliamentarians in a debate on the UK’s future relationship with the EU, whilst learning about the role of key European institutions.

“The boys took their role-playing as MEPs very seriously and their debate was not only well-informed but delivered with confidence and passion,” said Mrs Strnad. “In fact, they were exemplary throughout the day, displaying a keen interest in all the activities.”

Year 7 boys took part in a specially arranged workshop designed to keep pupils safe on the roads by highlighting the dangers of being distracted by music, mobile phones or friends.

A theatre group, The Riot Act, performed a play called Deadly Distraction. This was followed by an interactive session in which the pupils were encouraged to reflect on the key road safety messages they had heard.

Assistant Head Michael Taylor said: “We seek to promote safe, responsible and positive behaviour amongst pupils on their journeys to School and home again.

“It was a great performance, with important messages about road safety, which will help the boys keep themselves safe on dark winter evenings.”

The workshop was arranged in association with the Borough of Barnet.

Form tutors are following up the themes covered with the boys in their Personal Development Time (PDT) sessions.

Veteran Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins threw down the gauntlet to today’s QE pupils when he visited the School for the first time in more than half a century.

Politics had become “full of extreme egos – selfish, self–centred and in search of fame” and its “intellectual culture” had gone. “I’d like to see it restored… perhaps you will do that,” he told the audience at the Politics Society meeting.

Kelvin (OE 1952–1959) traced his inspiration for entering politics back to his School days, when he could see the front of the QE Main Building from the bedroom window of the family home near Ravenscroft Park. He remembered seeing poor boys come to School hungry; this, he said, meant he “naturally became a person of the left… and I retain that passion all these years later”.

During his visit to the Politics Society, which was arranged by Year 13 pupil Adrian Burbie and chaired by Rehaan Bapoo, of Year 12, he answered some wide-ranging questions from the floor in a good-natured and thoughtful manner. He was welcomed to the School – his first time on the premises since he came to play in a jazz band in 1960 – by Headmaster Neil Enright and Head of Politics Liam Hargadon, who is also Head of Year 13.

Kelvin had a long career within the trade union movement, including roles with the TUC and, latterly, Unison, and it was only in 1997 that he became an MP, taking Luton North with a 17.4% swing from the Conservatives – the sixth-largest swing to Labour in the country. And yet, although he entered Parliament as part of the landslide that swept Tony Blair to power, he is firmly on the left of his party and no fan of the former PM. There was much discussion during the meeting about the relative merits and faults of Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair.

Blair, he said, had not won the three General Elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005: instead, the Conservatives had lost them, with New Labour holding on only because “the Tories were still too unpopular”. He labelled Tony Blair the political son of Margaret Thatcher and argued that free trade and neo-liberalism had produced “lower growth, higher unemployment and greater instability”. The world had become a “worse place” since Blair’s decision to support President George W Bush in Iraq, he believed, warning that we should beware “charismatics” in politics.

A former supporter of Tony Benn and longstanding member of the Eurosceptic left, Kelvin was one of the MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the party leadership in 2015, and he continues to support the present Leader of the Opposition. People were “looking for someone different”, and this could be Jeremy Corbyn. But he acknowledged the difficulty of winning former Labour supporters back, describing the task of getting the party back into power as a “serious challenge”.

Having served (twice) on the Public Administration Committee, as well as on the European Scrutiny Committee and Transport Committee, he was briefly Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (July – October 2016), following the wave of resignations triggered by the removal of Hilary Benn as Shadow Foreign Secretary.

Kelvin campaigned for a ‘leave’ vote in June’s EU Referendum. He felt the fact that the Labour Party establishment campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU was a problem, given that 70% of Labour constituencies outside London voted ‘leave’.

Topics raised in questions asked from the floor included:

• Trident – he is against nuclear weapons, having been a leading member of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament)
• Free trade – he is more in favour of managed trade, based on Keynesian principles
• Voting age – he supports the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds.