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Henry Yang has been awarded a place at Central St Martin’s College of Art to pursue his Fine Art studies at Foundation Level. Fellow sixth-former, Lucca Ferrarese has gained entry to the prestigious Architectural Course at Bartlett College, UCL.

“Upper Sixth work was extremely adventurous this year, including a number of very playful, larger-scale assemblages,” reports Head of Art, Ashley West.

A number of Sixth Form Art students entered the Royal Academy A-level Summer Exhibition Online competition.

Shyam Thacker and Adrian Chua had work selected for the exhibition itself, while Yanni Pitsillides and Vinujan Sivananthan were shortlisted. The work of all four boys can be viewed at www.royalacademy.org.uk/alevel.

An internal lower school competition to design a poster for Founder’s Day was won by Year 7 student, Ricky Eatough.

The School’s Big Band performed with professional female vocal group, The Polka Dot Dolls, at the London Festival at Hendon St Mary’s.

The Dolls, who specialise in 1940s & 50s songs in the style of the Andrews Sisters, performed 15 songs including Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, with the Big Band providing the accompaniment. The School’s Director of Music, Kieron Howe, joined in a rendition of Don’t Fence Me In – singing the Bing Crosby vocal line. The boys also played some items on their own including Chattanooga Choo Choo and American Patrol. The evening, entitled From Byrd to the Blitz, also featured the choir of Hendon St Mary’s singing sacred and secular choral music by London composers.

“The concert was very well attended and the audience was enthralled by the boys’ professionalism and how they captured exactly the right sound and balance of this genre, which was unknown to them before,” said Mr Howe.

Other musical highlights of the term included the Brass Fanfare Group’s performance of Processional No. 1 and Recessional No. 2 at the Junior Awards. Both pieces were composed, rehearsed and directed by Year 12 student Chris Wong. And 42 boys took part in a Concert Tour to Durham, where they performed at venues including Beamish, the ‘living museum of the north’, and Durham Cathedral.

The work of the four QE boys who took part in the Lovell’s Engineering Education Scheme is to be presented to the Government’s Health & Safety Executive for consideration.

Burhan Ashraf, Sachin Leelasena, Karan Dewnani and Chris Wong were set a brief to design a more effective way to rescue an ill or injured operator from a tower crane.

Syd Appleyard from Select Cranes, who Chairs the Tower Crane Interest Group, was so impressed with the QE Team that he has asked them to present their project to the TCIG’s monthly review meeting and the HSE. “The team’s proposals were assessed by a team of engineering professionals and it’s clear that they solved many underlying issues that current solutions have missed,” said Mr Appleyard.

Meanwhile Osanne Gbayere, Keeran Sivalingam, Niraj Shah, Rushab Badiani, Michael Zhao and Sebastian Feszczur-Hatchett have all been offered final interviews to secure a place on the prestigious Arkwright scholarship scheme. This entitles students to a financial subsidy to help towards their academic studies and provides close working connections with cutting-edge engineering firms.

Over the last 10 years QE has forged strong exchange programmes with schools in France and Germany.

This term, QE boys visited the UNESCO Heritage site in Lyon, the Roman Amphitheatre and the Monastère de Brou in Bourg en Bresse. The boys also spent a day in the Collège St. Pierre in Bourg in lessons. During the trip to Bielefeld, there was a special visit to the Dr Oetker factory.

“The best way to learn a language is through immersion,” said Head of Languages, Caroline Mulderij. “These exchanges offer a great opportunity to practise language skills in a real-life context.”

A Year 12 QE student has secured a place on a much sought-after American summer school. Joseph Vinson faced stiff competition – with only one in ten applicants achieving a place on the Sutton Trust scheme. The initiative aims to widen the pool of talented UK youngsters studying in America.

The selection process involved the completion of a comprehensive application form which required Joseph’s GCSE results as well as details of his extracurricular activities and volunteering. Joseph also had to submit two essays, one on why he wanted to study in the United States and another on an influential figure. “I wrote about Carol Dweck, an American psychologist who developed the growth mindset theory, which I’ve been studying for my EPQ [Extended Project Qualification],” said Joseph.

Joseph, who is currently studying English, History, Politics and Geography, is spending this week in Yale and will also have the opportunity to visit other Ivy League colleges, such as Harvard, during his stay.