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Hundreds of boys from the first four years of the School took part in QE’s 2017 Sports Day, with Harrisons’ House emerging as the overall winners after hours of hard-fought competition.

Almost all pupils in Years 7-10 participated in the day, which featured 53 separate track races, as well as many field events, and competitions in sports as diverse as Eton Fives, rowing, tug of war, volleyball, tennis and table tennis. When the scores were all tallied up, Harrisons’ had beaten Stapylton into second place.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It was a very good, action-packed day, with pupils engaging well and relishing the excitement of competition. The weather held out for us, despite predictions of rain storms, although at one point the wind almost made the scorer’s gazebo take off, in apparent imitation of the high jump competition taking place adjacent to it!”

Almost 30 staff undertook tasks including scoring, timekeeping and starting races, while Year 12 pupils helped out and also competed in some of the relays. Assistant Head of PE & Games Rhys Davies-Horne provided a tireless stream of commentary, with events starting at 10.30am and many extending into the afternoon.

Sports Day was rounded off in traditional style with the running of the QE Mile – a 16 x 100m relay, which saw the six Houses compete against Sixth Form and staff teams and against an additional mixed team comprising both sixth-formers and staff members. The race was won by this joint staff-Sixth Form team, with the staff team second, the Sixth Form third and with Broughton taking the honours as the best of the Houses in fourth place.

Among the athletes competing were Year 9 boys Jeff Hagan (triple jump) and Nicholas Shaw (100m). Both also competed earlier this month at the English Schools’ Athletics Championships national finals in Birmingham, where Jeff came 4th out of 16 in the Junior Boys competition with a distance of 12.56m and Nicholas ran a new personal best of 11.45 seconds, although he did not progress to the final. QE Director of Sport Jonathan Hart congratulated the pair on their impressive achievement in reaching the finals and commended Jeff on his impressive position in his event and Nicholas on his PB.

It is with regret that the Association announces the death of David (Dai) Jenkins (1953-61) on 21 July 2017.

Stapylton House have been awarded the Scarisbrick Shield after their victory in the Year 7 Maths Fair.

Stapylton’s total of 761 points gave the House first place at the completion of the two-day event, ahead of Underne with 753 and Pearce in third place with 731. Harrisons’, captained by Leo Dane-Liebesny, won the award for creating the best poster, which is now displayed in the Mathematics department.

Stapylton’s winning team captain, Rahul Doshi, said: “Our form had a lot of fun at the Maths Fair and we’re really delig hted we won.”

The fourth annual Maths Fair involved a carousel of activities, from familiar problem-solving rounds – A Question of Maths – to more practical challenges, such as ‘tangrams’ (puzzles consisting of seven flat pieces, usually made of wood or plastic, that have to be put together to form shapes). The teams then took part in the relay event, which combines speed in movement around the room with speed in solving a Mathematics problem.

All six houses were also required to create a poster entitled What is Mathematics? that encompassed the many facets of the subject. There were a number of teams within each House, each of which was given the task of creating one part of the poster. The teams were asked to prepare in advance by coordinating the different sections of the poster.

Harrisons’ poster coordinator, Conall Walker, said: “I had fun trying to coordinate the word ‘Maths’ into the poster.”

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “The idea of the Year 7 Maths Fair is to show boys that mathematical problems come in many different formats as well as to help them develop team-working skills.”

Each team was supervised by a Year 12 Further Mathematics student. “We were very pleased to be able to offer the Year 12 boys this opportunity to interact with Year 7,” said Miss Fung. “The event could not have happened without the help of these sixth-formers, who not only supervised teams but also helped with the logistics of running the fair.”

Leicester House won the end-of-year drama competition with a compelling tale of below-stairs intrigue and the murder of an abusive master – all told in less than 10 minutes.

Each of QE’s six Houses created and performed a short piece entitled A London Mystery, which they had to base on a short extract of the play, Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette.

The performers were from Years 7-9, with the directors mainly from Year 10. They performed to the rest of Year 7 and a panel of staff judges.

Drama Co-ordinator Elaine White said: “I was delighted with the amount of effort and creativity that went into these performances. The boys had very limited adult input and had to learn a great deal about how to turn an idea into an end-product.

“They came up with a broad range of plots, characters and c oncepts, from the disappearance of families from High Barnet station through to the theft of the Crown Jewels on the eve of the Coronation.

“The judges unanimously adjudged Leicester House to be the winners for a particularly praiseworthy performance of their murder mystery. The staging was simple, the dialogue clear and the acting strong: Leicester delivered a piece which gripped audience and judges alike.”

Leicester’s plot saw two servants becoming the prime suspects in the murder of their master. Two police inspectors ‘explained’ what had happened, giving motive, means and opportunity – yet each came up with a different version of events although based on the same evidence. The suspense was maintained until the end, when the denouement revealed that the cook was the culprit.

Stapylton were the runners-up, with Underne in third place.

All the Houses had begun with a single-page stimulus document. This started with some brief tips – “Don’t include too many storylines or characters” – and simple instructions, including the 10-minute time limit. Further requirements were that the finished piece must: tell a well-defined story; include one piece of music, and feature one ‘freeze-frame’ moment.

The document featured brief stage directions from the 1899 Sherlock Holmes play, including the setting, “the drawing-room at Edelweiss Lodge, an old house, gloomy and decayed, situated in a l onely district in a little-frequented part of London”.

Boys had to include the following lines of the play’s dialogue at some point in their piece:

‘Pardon, Sir, but one of the servants wishes to speak with you.’
‘I can’t spare the time now.’
‘A nice cup of tea.’

The Leicester House directors were Year 10 pupils Mahdin Choudhury, Maanav Patel and Ryan Ratnam. The actors were Aadarsh Khimasia, of Year 8, Arjun Nirmal (Year 7), Ayush Patel (Year 8), Shivas Patel (Year 8), Yuvann Sayandan (Year 9) and Ethan Solanki (Year 8).

The technical directors for all Houses’ performances were Thomas Mgbor and Hugh Westcott, both of Year 9.

QE’s young fencers competed in their own tournaments, rounding off a successful year for the sport at the School.

In the two competitions, for Year 7 and Year 8 boys, the fencers took on a number of their peers in their group – or ‘poule’ – with the winners decided by aggregating the scores from these fights.

Coaches for fencing at QE are provided by the Paul Davis Fencing Academy. In an end-of-year report, the academy’s Operations Manager, Lisa Walter, wrote that she had been very pleased with the progress made by the Year 7s during their first year of fencing. “All the boys exemplified the behaviours we look for in fencing and were an asset to the School.”

Of the Year 8s, she wrote that the academy coaches were pleased not only with the progress of the boys, but also with the atmosphere in the group: “All the boys are working towards helping each other and improving as a whole.”

This term, a Fencer of the Week programme was introduced for the Year 8 fencers. The boy given the accolade was selected by the Fencing Captain, Batu Cakir, and Vice Captain, Abdullah Chisti, and announced to the fencing class at the end of each session, with the pair also explaining why they had chosen that person. “This has been a huge success, helping to recognise hard work,” said Ms Walter.

Earlier this year, QE’s older fencers achieved league success: the A squad won the Hertfordshire Schools Spring 2017 Foil League, while the B team came second in their division.

In the end-of-term Year 7 competition, first place went to Umer Saad Rahman, second to Aaron Hare, third to Dilan Patel and fourth to Pranav Chawla. For Year 8, the final standings were: Ayush Patel in first position, followed by Batu Cakir, Sultan Khokhar and then Dilan Velani.

Ms Walter commended the boys in the Year 7 competition for fencing “brilliantly”; the Year 8 event had been “a great afternoon’s fencing to round off a great year!”