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QE has won first prize in the Chemistry Challenge – a regional competition run by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The team of four Year 10 boys attended the final at Kingston University and, said QE Chemistry teacher Susanna Butterworth, they achieved a “resounding victory” over the other three finalists.

“Their engagement, enthusiasm and the way in which they worked as a team were impressive and they made me very proud,” said Dr Butterworth.

The team comprised Alex Beard, Alejandro Lynch-Gonzalez, Bhiramah Rammanohar and Vincent Tang.

Their engagement, enthusiasm and the way in which they worked as a team were impressive and they made me very proud

They were invited to the final after previously qualifying with the highest score in the first round, which was held over two lunchtimes in the Autumn Term, with the answers submitted by post.

In the final in the university’s Chemistry laboratories, the boys successfully completed four exercises – two practical and two written – to produce the highest score of the day. The practicals involved an acid/base titration and iodometric analysis, while the written section comprised a quiz about lanthanides (the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers 57 to 71) and a multiple-choice test.

The South East regional competition is designed to test teams’ chemical and general knowledge, their ingenuity, their practical laboratory skills and their ability to work together.

The other finalists were Headington School from Oxford, Tonbridge School from Kent and Glenthorne High School from Sutton.

The proportion of pupils gaining the top A* grade at A-level at QE has risen, as the School maintained a decade-long record of performance at the very highest level.

National education reforms meant teachers and pupils had to adapt to major changes in A-levels, but QE boys responded strongly, with fully a quarter of them achieving three or four A* grades.

This year’s results build on the successes of 2016, when the School enjoyed its best-ever A-level performance and, according to recently released figures, sent more pupils to Cambridge University than any other state school. (Its total of 27 Cambridge entrants was the joint-highest, together with independent Westminster School and with Hills Road, a sixth form college in Cambridge.)

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I am thrilled that our results are so stellar, given the enormous changes in the system introduced with the new-style ‘linear’ A-levels, which focus much more on the final examinations, rather than coursework, and have updated content intended to be more academically rigorous.

“Because the changes have been so extensive, it is unwise to draw too many direct comparisons with previous years, but I am nonetheless delighted to see that our results at the very top – the A* grades – have gone up: nearly 41% of A-levels taken at QE gained this grade this year.”

It is the third consecutive year in which the figure has topped 40%, while the proportion of examinations awarded A*–B grades at QE has now remained above 95% in every year since 2005.

Mr Enright added: “My congratulations go both to our pupils – who are very able, focused and committed young men – and to our inspirational staff: teachers here reflect our philosophy of ensuring that students engage with their subjects fully, often developing their knowledge and understanding well beyond the bounds of the syllabus. QE teachers are not content for boys merely to reach the standard required to achieve top grades; they want to do more than that in their lessons, piquing their pupils’ interest and academic curiosity.  I must also thank them for their diligent hard work to develop courses based around the new A-level specifications.”

Among the many individual success stories are Adrian Burbie, whose four A* grades secured his place to read Law at Merton College, Oxford. Prominent in the Sixth Form for his role in attracting well-known external speakers to the Politics Society, Adrian praised the school for teaching him the value of “hard work, integrity and striving for excellence”. He added: “QE made me more than just a set of grades: it equipped me with the skills I will need in my later life.”

Nabil Haque, who has been captain of the rugby First XV, will take up a place to read Architecture at Cambridge. Through sport and other areas of school life, he has not only learned the importance of excellence but has had his character moulded, too: “It’s made me a well-rounded person.”

QE made me more than just a set of grades: it equipped me with the skills I will need in my later life.

The Headmaster added: “Our A-level candidates come from all social, ethnic and religious backgrounds, and their success underlines the fact that QE is a thoroughgoing meritocracy: boys arrive here after succeeding in our competitive admissions process and then benefit from our ongoing commitment to empower all of our pupils to achieve the best possible outcomes.”

“Moreover, our leavers are well-rounded, positively engaged individuals, resilient and equipped to cope when things are not going well – balanced and able to maintain a sense of perspective in life.

“Once again, we have seen very good performances across all departments, while the achievements for Biology, Economics, Further Mathematics and Sociology have been quite extraordinary: six of the seven boys taking Sociology gained an A*, and 94% of our economists achieved A* or A grades.”

Boy gets straight A*s at A level at Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet following bouts of chronic illness – The Barnet Times, Thursday 17 August 2017

QE is the country’s top-ranked state boys’ school for its GCSE results, according to The Times newspaper.

The School has also drawn national media attention for the exceptional performance of 14 boys who achieved a clean sweep of the new top grade of 9 across Mathematics, English Language and English Literature. Both 8 and 9 are deemed equivalent to the previous A* grade in these subjects.

Since announcing its results, QE has been contacted by, or featured in, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Daily Mail and has also received extensive local media coverage.

Many journalists focused on the new-style GCSEs for English and Mathematics, which feature new course content as well as the 1–9 grading system, and both The Times and the Telegraph quoted Headmaster Neil Enright on this. “Our boys have taken this challenge in their stride and I am thrilled that so many have achieved the highest possible outcome,” he told the Telegraph.

The Telegraph noted that the number of pupils receiving the top GCSE mark is expected to be cut in half by the new system, and across the country, examinations regulator Ofqual estimates that only 2,000 pupils have achieved 9s in all three of the new GCSEs.

Of the 14 boys who did so at QE, 9 also achieved straight A* grades across all their other subjects.

Mr Enright told The Times that GCSE grades are likely to become of increasing importance for university entrance, since fewer pupils nationally are taking AS levels, which no longer contribute to A-level grades and are a stand-alone qualification.

QE’s results this year constitute a new record for the School, with 69.8% of all examinations taken awarded the top grades – grades 8 and 9 for English and Mathematics, or grade A* for all other subjects – thus beating the 2015 A* figure of 69.6%.

All 181 pupils in Year 11 achieved grades 7-9 (equivalent to A*-A) in Mathematics, with 96% achieving grades 8 or 9 and 70% gaining a 9.

The Times placed QE in third position overall among state schools for its GCSE results, behind two girls’ schools, The Henrietta Barnett School and The Tiffin Girls’ School.

QE pupil Rahul Doshi has been named Child Genius 2017 after seeing off his young rivals in the national Channel 4 show of the same name.

Rahul, who goes into Year 8 next month, took the title after six days of competition by beating another boy, nine-year-old Ronan, in a quickfire buzzer round. As quizmaster Richard Osman read out the question: “In which artistic brotherhood were William Holman Hunt and John Everett…?” Rahul interrupted with his buzzer to give the correct answer: “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood”, thereby taking his total to a winning 10 points.

In the show, Rahul was originally pitted against 19 other contestants, aged eight to 12, who were gradually whittled down to just five – four boys and a girl – for the final, and then only two – Rahul and Ronan – for the last round.

His performance on one of the programmes earlier in the week had generated headlines of its own when he correctly answered all 14 questions he was asked. He impressed Richard Osman by achieving full marks in a spelling test – knowing words such as accouchement and hyponatraemia (low level of sodium in the blood) – and by general knowledge answers to questions such as “What is the scientific name for apricot?” (answer: prunus armeniaca).

Rahul has an IQ of 162, which, at the age of 12, already qualifies him to be a member of Mensa and places his figure in the same bracket as the estimated scores of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to Rahul and his family: this was an excellent result for him, which was the result both of Rahul’s great natural ability and of his very careful preparation.”

Rahul was mentored by his father, Mr Minesh Doshi, who is an IT manager. Both Mr Doshi and Rahul’s mother, Komal, were interviewed by the Child Genius programme-makers.

Earlier in the week of the programme, before the final was screened, Rahul spoke to interviewer Christine Lampard on the ITV morning show, Lorraine. He said: “The key is to block out everything else and remain calm. So just focus on your goal. Mine was to answer as many questions as I could correctly and that helped me stay calm and do quite well in the early stages.”

Asked what he wants to do when he grows up, he added: “I want to do something with maths because I really love maths, maybe be a financial advisor or something like that.

“I like to also help others as well, because I want to use my talents wisely. It’s not good to be selfish, you should help others as well.”