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Year 13’s James Tan sealed his long and glittering record of success in Mathematics competitions at QE with a perfect score in this year’s Senior Maths Challenge (SMC).

He was one of nine Sixth Form mathematicians who performed so strongly in the challenge that they qualified for the élite British Mathematical Olympiad.

James’s tally of 125 out of 125 secured him the Best in School title, while Abhinav Santhiramohan, with a score of 112 out of 125 was Best in Year 12. To qualify for the Olympiad, candidates had to score at least 108 points.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “James has scored perfect, or near-perfect, marks in every Maths Challenge he has sat, from Year 7 to Year 13. He has done phenomenally well throughout his School career and is so unassuming about his successes.”

In addition to the Olympiad successes, a further 29 boys qualified for the challenge’s other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo, which required a score of at least 91 points.

A total of 136 QE sixth-formers sat the challenge, which involved answering 25 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes.

The top 40% of SMC entrants nationally in the country receive certificates with gold, silver and bronze awarded in the ratio of 1:2:3. At QE, however, there were 38 gold certificates, 65 silver and 22 bronze, which means that 92% of the School’s participants gained certificates.

“We are very pleased with the boys’ success at the SMC,” Miss Fung. “The challenge provides an opportunity for our senior boys to hone their problem-solving skills with fun, yet challenging, questions, and we are grateful to the UK Maths Trust for providing these opportunities.  Many congratulations to Years 12 & 13 – we look forward to receiving the Olympiad and Kangaroo results in due course.”

She added that Abhinav had said that he particularly enjoyed solving the following question in the challenge (answer below):

• Question: Two congruent pentagons are each formed by removing a right-angled isosceles triangle from a square of side-length 1.
  The two pentagons are then fitted together as shown. What is the length of the perimeter of the octagon formed?
  A: 4
  B : 4 + 2 √ 2
  C: 5
  D: 6 − 2 √ 2
  E: 6

 

• Answer: E: 6
  Explanation: The perimeter of the octagon is made from four long sides, two medium-length sides and two short sides. The long sides are given to be of length 1. The medium-length sides have length 1 √ 2 , using Pythagoras’ Theorem on the right-angled triangle which was removed from the original square. Therefore the length of each short side is 1 − 1 √ 2 . In total the perimeter has length 4 × 1 + 2 × 1 √ 2 + 2 × (1 − 1 √ 2 ) = 6.

 

George Mpanga is among only a handful of voices to be heard on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s widely publicised first podcast, which has been issued following the royal couple’s deal with Spotify.

For the first episode of Archewell Audio, Megan explains, she and Prince Harry decided to enlist “a few friends and a lot of other folks” who “we admire, and get their thoughts on what they learned from 2020”. George (OE 2002-2009), whose relationship with Prince Harry stems from his long-standing role as an ambassador for one of the prince’s charitable foundations, joined singer Sir Elton John, American politician Stacey Abrams, presenter James Corden, and tennis player Naomi Osaka in making his contribution.

The invitation from Harry and Meghan capped a momentous year in which George the Poet has rarely been far from the headlines: he has frequently been called upon to comment and reflect on both the Covid-19 crisis and the Black Lives Matter protests.

In the past few days, he also had a big announcement of his own to make: through his Instagram account, George revealed that he had become engaged to Sandra Makumbi, who is Head of Operations at his company, George the Poet Limited. “I proposed to my best friend and she said YES!” he wrote. “Glory to God for this fairy-tale engagement… you’ve made me laugh every day since school, you’ve always uplifted and protected me, now all I want to do is take care of you for the rest of my life.”

During his recording for the royals’ podcast made earlier in the month, George, in fact, revealed his plans to get engaged  – “I would love to give a shout-out to my beautiful fiancée, Sandra” – and was duly congratulated by both the Sussexes.

In line with the royal couple’s brief, George reflected on 2020.  “This year to cope with all the change, I just took more pride in the little things – I had a deeper appreciation for going out for a walk, being able to see my loved ones, and thinking about these things consciously really opened my eyes to what was right in front of me.

“One of the hardest moments for me this year was when a loved one, who was pregnant at the time, was hospitalised with Covid and forced into an early delivery. Fortunately, she made it, the baby made it too; they are now happy and healthy, but that was quite a scary moment.”

He recalled the joy of a family birthday: “My little brother turned 23 this year. That was one of those moments: we were all on the call, six of us kids and that was one of the first times when we all got to really ‘touch base’ and it was just fun…it was like being in the room as kids again, even though we’re in different rooms as grown-ups now. That was beautiful.”

George’s family have often been uppermost in his mind in his public appearances during the year. In April, when the UK was in the grip of the first coronavirus lockdown, he paid tribute to NHS workers “like my mum” in the short poem which he performed at the opening of BBC One’s coverage of the international One World: Together at Home concert.

The following month, his acclaimed podcast,  Have You Heard George’s podcast?, was nominated for, and subsequently won, a Peabody Award – one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious media prizes. His was the first British podcast ever to receive a nomination for a Peabody Award.

In June, with the Black Lives Matter protests at their height, George was repeatedly sought out for his views by the media, appearing as a panellist on BBC One’s Question Time , an interviewee on the corporation’s Newsnight and as a guest at the online MOBO awards, to name only three examples.

His links with Prince Harry date back some years. The prince’s Sentebale charity supports the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people affected by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana. George had seen at close-hand Harry’s warmth and compassion in meeting the children helped by Sentebale and became an ambassador for the charity in 2015.

When the royal engagement was announced, George was one of the commentators interviewed by the BBC for an insider’s perspective. He was then chosen by the BBC to perform his poem , The Beauty of Union, to introduce coverage of the 2018 wedding of Harry and Meghan and was therefore seen by a global TV audience numbering hundreds of millions.

 

 

 

Linguists from every year took part in a new QE competition named after a well-known literary translator.

In the Anthea Bell Translation Competition, the Languages department invited pupils to translate a poem from either French or German into English. A separate list of winners was announced for both languages.

Anthea Bell, who died in 2018, translated works including Franz Kafka’s The Castle, but is best known for translating the Asterix comic books from French.

Through the competition, the Languages department aimed to develop boys’ sensitivity towards language and to think about the role of a translator. Teachers also encouraged boys to reflect on the importance of poetry in our everyday lives and to consider the themes covered in the poems. Boys in Years 8 & 9 were, for example, given poems to translate which dealt with racial inequality, thus sparking consideration of news topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

Languages teacher Katrin Hood, pictured last term with Year 12 German winner, Siddhant Kansal, said: “It has been fantastic to see how brilliantly the boys have engaged with the resources provided. We have had fascinating conversations in class about how to translate rhyme, how to choose the right word when you have many different ones available, and how to conserve the overall effect of a poem.

“The boys’ competition entries were of an incredibly high standard and they should be very proud of their outstanding work.”

The competition materials were supplied by The Queen’s College, Oxford, which this term plans to invite up to 50 schools to take part in a new national competition named after Anthea Bell.

The year group challenges, and the respective winners, were as follows:

• Year 7 French – making shape poems inspired by the work of Guillaume Apollinaire. Winner: Jeevan Karthick Thiyagarajan
• Year 7 German – making shape poems inspired by the work of Reinhard Döhl. Winner: Nayan Santheepan
• Year 8 & 9 French – translating Marc Alexandre Oho Bambe’s Winners: Edward Muscat, Year 8; Hadi Al-Esia, Year 9
• Year 8 & 9 German – translating May Ayim’s Abschied. Winners: Tanush Gupta, Year 8; Chanakya Seetharam, Year 9
• Year 10 & 11 French – translating Paul Éluard’s Liberté. Winners: Darren Lee, Year 10; Theo Mama-Kahn, Year 11
• Year 10 & 11 German – translating Goethe’s Willkommen und Abschied. Winners: Arjun Patel, Year 10; Olly Salter, Year 11
• Sixth Form French – translating Loubaki’s France Amour. Winners: Zeke Essex, Year 13
• Sixth Form German – translating May Ayim’s deutschland im herbst. Winners: Siddhant Kansal, Year 12.

Year 8 German winner Tanush, who is pictured, top, with Year 8 French winner, Edward Muscat, said: “I really enjoyed the challenge of translating the poem, because at first, it appears to have jumbled-up words, but after rearranging them, the poem starts to make sense.

“The poem was very heart-touching and made me think more about how precious life is – which someone only finds out when they have very little time left.”

Darren, the Year 10 French winner, pictured left, added: “It was a fun and interesting experience that helped push me beyond the curriculum.”

Tanush and Darren’s translations are set out below, with Tanush’s first.

---

what should the last words be

farewell,

see you again

sometime, somewhere?

what should the last deed be

one last letter

a phone call

a quiet song?

what should the last wish be

forgive me

don’t forget me

I love you?

what should the last thought be

thank you?

thank you.

---

In the embroidered strings of gold,

In the war’s unbridled hold,

Engraved into king’s crown of old,

I shall write your name

In horizon’s tranquil plain,

And in the bird’s forbearing claim,

And in the mill’s dusky remains,

I shall write your name

And on the land’s beaten trails,

A network of sprawling scale,

And in the square of many tales,

I shall write your name

Etched into my untainted skin,

Written on my companions’ grin,

On every reaching hand with,

I shall write your name

While waves of health come rolling back,

While burning risk just fades to black,

His hopeful grin begins to crack,

I will write your name.

One of the UK’s leading mathematicians explained to QE’s Year 11 how Mathematics is at the forefront of the battle against the coronavirus.

In a special lecture delivered via Zoom, Chris Budd, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Bath, first explained to the whole year group what mathematical modelling is, with contributions also coming from a number of his PhD students.  In a highly illustrated presentation, he then set out modelling’s crucial role in determining the best strategy for fighting the pandemic, even drilling down into issues such as how shopping can be made safer in a pandemic.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “This was a detailed look at how Mathematics has been, and continues to be, at the heart of tackling the biggest national and international issue of our day. I know that the boys found the presentation engaging and enjoyed the opportunity to considerably deepen their understanding.”

The focus on mathematical modelling struck a chord with many of the Year 11 audience, including Theo Mama-Kahn, who enjoyed discovering “an area I haven’t learnt about before. I liked how he showed us the real applications of the theory he was talking about.”

In addition to his position at the University of Bath, Chris Budd is Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain and Director of Knowledge Exchange for The Bath Institute for Mathematical Innovation – a role which involves him in finding innovative ways of applying Mathematics to real-world problems.

He was one of the authors of the Vorderman 2011 report on the current state and future of Mathematics education in the UK.

And, said Miss Fung, “Professor Budd was also the chair of the UK Mathematics Trust from 2016–2019 and, as such, has signed all of the many, many Maths Challenge certificates received by QE pupils every year.”

Professor Budd was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2015 for “services to science and maths education”. In lieu of charging a fee to deliver the talk for the QE boys, he requested that a donation be made to Maths World UK – a charity aiming to establish the UK’s first national Mathematics discovery centre.

The professor started his talk by revealing that, although not an Elizabethan, he had been born in Friern Barnet and had moved to Harrow Weald at primary school age, before going up to Cambridge to read Mathematics.

He moved to the University of Bath in 1995 and has remained there ever since.

In introducing the idea of modelling, he explained how a mathematical model should balance being simple enough to analyse with being complex enough to be realistic: he quoted Einstein, who said: “A model should be as simple as possible, and no simpler”.

Next, Professor Budd showed how a model could be used to determine whether it is possible to save a dog from a speeding car.

For this, he took boys through the modelling cycle, asking:

1. What are the variables?
2. Which formulae can you make/use?
3. Can you make a prediction using this information
4. How can you make the model more realistic?

One of the boys watching, Aran Ismail, said later: “I enjoyed the relation of the lecture to motor vehicles and the ability of maths to be used to help calculate braking distances.”

Professor Budd went on to explain how modelling has been used in the case of the Covid pandemic. There are three basic questions, he said. Firstly, how will the epidemic grow if the authorities do nothing (which was the case for the 1918 Spanish ‘flu epidemic)? Secondly, how can we stop the number of cases growing? And third, how should we change our behaviour to keep safe?

He explained that the ‘r number’ often mentioned in the media is found by considering the rate of transmission and the size of the population who are susceptible.

In order to reduce the r number, there are three strategies – achieving herd immunity, instigating lockdown and using a vaccine.

Herd immunity relies on the r number eventually decreasing; lockdowns spread out the rate at which people get infected, which helps the NHS to cope with cases, and a vaccine will reduce the number of people who are susceptible, but will need 60% of the population to be vaccinated in order to be effective.

Modifying behaviour patterns is simply the most effective way to prevent the spread of Covid, which is why wearing masks, staying in closed bubbles and keeping 2m away from other people are the strategies the Government has been promoting most, he said.

The lecture also demonstrated mathematically why it is usually safer in terms of virus transmission risk for supermarkets to allow ‘random’ shopping, rather than implementing guided movement, such as a one-way system – a conclusion which certainly caught the attention of pupil Abir Mohammed. “It was very insightful to learn about the various ways mathematical models can help simplify difficult situations and come up with solutions – I would have definitely thought having a one-way system is best,” he said.

The PhD students taking part related a little of their own experiences as young mathematicians and explained how they use modelling in everything from climate modelling to investigating the solar system to modelling traffic flow.

Pupil Sid Dutta said: “I was very interested in finding out about the lives of the students who were studying Mathematics PhDs and their daily routine.”

• More information about Professor Budd’s work, publications and interests may be found on his web page.

Some 76 boys of all ages turned out for QE’s first whole-school chess tournament.

The online weekend event brought not only a high turnout, but also some exciting chess played to a good standard, reports teacher in charge of chess, Geoff Roberts.

The inaugural tournament champion was Year 7’s Aahan Shah, who won all five of his games to secure the title, beating Year 8’s Aryan Kheterpal in the final.

Mr Roberts said: “I was very pleased with the event’s success and to see the number of highly able and enthusiastic chess players participating from all year groups. I’m particularly delighted with the performance of the younger students, which shows a bright future for chess here.”

The tournament consisted of five 30-minute rounds played on the Lichess online chess platform – the main image above shows some examples of games played on the platform. In addition to the 76 boys taking part, two members of staff also competed – Economics teacher Sheerwan O’Shea-Nejad and Mathematics teacher Marco Saccardi.

“We held a single tournament for all year groups and for the teachers, so in that context a Year 7 winning really was a great achievement,” said Mr Roberts.

After the initial rounds, Aahan and Aryan were left as the only boys to have won all of their first four games, and so they met in the final. Aahan’s victory there made him the only player to win 5 points (1 point for every win.)

Senthuran Jeevan, of Year 13, took second place with 4.5 points.

The Sonneborn–Berger scoring system, which is based on the finishing positions of players’ defeated opponents, was used to decide the places of the next four players, who all scored 4 points. Third place went accordingly to Nishchal Thatte, of Year 7; fourth to Yash Mahajan, of Year 11, and fifth to Joshua John, of Year 9, while the defeated finalist, Aryan, was sixth.

“The Lichess platform worked really well, with its ability to add small time increments after each player’s move and with its built-in features that one would expect in face-to-face chess, such as a facility for players to offer a draw,” said Mr Roberts.

“Particular thanks go to Mr O’Shea-Nejad and Mr Saccardi for playing – the boys really enjoyed the opportunity to compete against their teachers.”