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A team of Sixth Form scientists were among the front-runners in a prestigious national Chemistry competition run by Cambridge University and a university in the Czech Republic.

QE’s Chem Taj team were ranked fifth out of the 42 teams competing in the Cambridge Chemistry Race, many of them drawn from the country’s leading academic schools.

The five-strong team’s score of 113 points was actually identical to the scores recorded by the teams coming third and fourth, but, in line with the rules, they were given a lower ranking based on the nature of the questions they answered.

Congratulating the Year 13 team, Head of Chemistry Julia Lister said: “The boys adapted very well to the format of the competition, which had to be run entirely online because of the lockdown, keeping their heads under the pressure of competition as they raced to answer as many questions as they could within the two-hour time limit.”

The competition was originally scheduled to take place at the University of Cambridge’s Chemistry Department.

Instead, QE’s team members, Bhargab Ghoshal, Janujan Satchi, Arnav Sharma, James Tan and Khai Tran, worked from their own homes, communicating and completing the race through the Moodle online platform. The event’s opening and closing ceremonies were broadcast on YouTube, while the video-calling platform, Gather Town, was also used.

The boys are pictured, top, at work on a problem, and above right with Dr Lister during the competition.

James said: “Although I was disappointed the competition was not taking place in Cambridge as planned, I still enjoyed it and found it to be a welcome distraction during lockdown. In particular, I liked how the questions built upon our current A-level knowledge, but also required us to research into more advanced topics, such as hemiacetals and macrocycles.”

Khai agreed, saying “it was interesting to apply the Chemistry we’ve learnt to topics beyond our specification”, while Janujan said that by working as a team, they were able to “apply different thought processes to the problem”.

Chemistry Race originated in 2015 as a Czech competition, called Chemiklání, at the University of Pardubice in the city of Pardubice, 96km east of Prague. It proved to be extremely popular among Czech pupils, and the scale of the competition rapidly grew every year.

In 2020, Adam Přáda, one of the organisers of the Czech competition and a Cambridge student, initiated a Cambridge branch of the competition, the Cambridge Chemistry Race.

Once a team answers a question successfully, they are presented with a new one and a live leader-board is updated. Half-an-hour before the ‘race’ ends, the ranking is hidden; the final winners are announced at the closing ceremony.

The questions include easy riddles, tasks of A-level difficulty and more complex chemical problems. Competitors are allowed to use books or notes, since the questions mainly aim to test problem-solving skills and chemical understanding, rather than knowledge.

Questions asked in the competition included:

Q. Imagine that somebody loses 10 kg of fat over three months. 10 kg is quite a significant amount of matter; however, we don’t see pieces of meat falling off people who lose weight. How does the “fat” leave the body? Write down the formulae of the two main substances into which fat is broken down.

A. Carbon dioxide and water. One could figure this out using common sense, by realising that we exhale carbon dioxide all the time and that camels “store” water into fat.

Q. What is the highest possible mass percentage of hydrogen (H) for a neutral hydrocarbon? Give the answer as a percentage.

A. Maximizing the mass percentage of hydrogen can be done in two ways: by complete saturation (thus we consider alkanes) and by minimizing the number of carbon atoms. This is done, because for alkanes (empirical formula CnH2n+2) the addition of one carbon atom and two hydrogen atoms shifts the mass percentages in favour of carbon. We therefore seek the shortest alkane: methane. The mass percentage of hydrogen in methane is then 25.1 %.

And finally, this was identified as one of “this year’s more difficult problems” in the closing ceremony:

Q. How many atoms are there in 1.66×10-24 moles of argon.

A. Just one.

Old Elizabethan Max Hassell gave a virtual talk for senior pupils on his experiences with ADHD, anxiety and depression as the country marked Children’s Mental Health Week.

In the lunchtime address, Max (OE 2002–2009) reflected on his own journey and underlined to the boys the benefits of seeking help, should they need it. It was only when, quite recently, he received his medical diagnosis that he was finally able to make sense of some of his own reactions and behaviour in the past, he explained.

Max concluded with an appeal to the boys to look out for themselves and for their friends. “Especially because of Covid, a lot of people are struggling in these times and people’s mental health has gone down a bit…Don’t be afraid to show weakness with each other…check up on each other; talk about things…be kind to each other.”

At QE, Max was a keen sportsman, playing in the First XV and representing Hertfordshire at U16 and U18 levels. “I absolutely loved it [at QE],” he said. “I grew up just around the corner. I was a really confident kid, and it was only later that I started to get these feelings around possible depression and possible anxiety.”

After gaining straight As in his A-levels at QE, Max went to Bristol to read History and continued his rugby there, playing in the university Second XV.

In his talk, Max said it was beneficial for the boys to hear from an alumnus of the School – somebody who had been in their shoes. He explained that he sought to open a dialogue on important topics around which there can still be stigma and to challenge the stereotypes of what someone with ADHD is like: great progress had been made in society, he acknowledged, but there was still further to go.

Left to their own devices and with their own thoughts, people could find themselves in a “dark place”, he said, which was why he urged the boys to check up on each other.

Today Max is a football agent – “my dream job” – with Sync Global Sports, a London-based agency.

“You can be diagnosed with these kinds of medical conditions, but you can still have a very happy and fulfilled life and it does not have to hold you back in any way,” he said.

The Headmaster, Neil Enright, said it had been a privilege to be able to hear Max’s talk, which was timely in the context of the lockdown and ongoing pandemic. “Prioritising wellbeing and encouraging boys to talk about their feelings is at the core of the daily pastoral support and guidance sessions in eQE, our virtual school.

“Thank you, Max, for being a great role model, for raising awareness about some of the barriers to positive mental health young men may face and for prompting so much discussion across eQE.”

Assistant Head (Pupil Development) Michael Feven also conveyed his thanks to Max: “He spoke so openly to our current boys about his experiences of being diagnosed with ADHD and living with anxiety and depression. This is such an important message for young men to hear, and we are hugely grateful to Max for sharing his story in this way.”

The talk was recorded and remains available on the QE Connect network, where it can be accessed by alumni and senior pupils.

Year 10 boy Arjun Patel has won the plaudits of his teachers for an account of life in lockdown that ends with an unexpectedly positive twist.

Arjun was ‘highly commended’ for his short story on the theme of Silence, written as a remote-learning English class task.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “Arjun’s impressively mature writing vividly captures many of the images that have become the ‘new normal’ – the empty shops and cinemas, the rainbow symbols – but reassuringly he has structured his writing to reveal an optimistic view of tomorrow, rather than taking it in a dystopian direction, which would have been easy.”

Arjun said he drew his inspiration for the story from a walk that he took during the first lockdown last year, when he remembers having been “astounded at the lack of noise and activity.

“On coming back to my home and hearing all the noises of daily life, I thought about how even though the country is shut down, we don’t have to be alone. Even if you live by yourself, there is always a way to cut out the silence from your life – video calls are a great example.”

His class teacher, Yioda Menelaou, said: “Arjun’s writing captivated me as he displayed his ability to write so gracefully about the way the pandemic has changed people’s lives. His honest depiction of the silence which has engulfed society was elegantly explored, and his final understanding of the importance of family and staying home at such a critical time was both poignant and hopeful. A truly remarkable story, one that will, I am sure, resonate with all of us.”

The story was also technically proficient, she added, with Arjun showing plot progression within the constraints of the 400-word limit, as well as a wide range of vocabulary and a varied structure.

Arjun begins the composition by describing the “deafening stillness” of the empty streets.He observes the boarded-up “bright, pastel-coloured shops” and a deserted park, its swings covered with spiders’ webs. Arjun thinks sadly back to the fun he and his friends had had on these same streets only a few months before, when they heard “the cars rushing past, the low buzz of people walking by” – sounds that were so normal in those pre-pandemic days.

But just as the coronavirus gloom threatens to overwhelm, he comes back to his home “nestled in a cosy corner, of a cosy street, in a cosy town” and its “many sounds”. These, writes Arjun, were the “the sound of laughter. The sound of the crackling fire, and the steaming pots from the kitchen. The sound of the TV, a bad comedian doing his bit. The sound of my family chatting away.

“At that moment, I realised something – I didn’t have to put up with the silence. I had all the noise I could ever want, right here. At home.”

As QE focuses on continuing to deliver a first-class education in the midst of a second national lockdown, news that no fewer than 39 pupils have won offers from Oxford and Cambridge has brought welcome winter cheer to the School.

The figure is second only to last year’s all-time QE record of 40 Oxbridge offers and comes after final-year boys have had to wrestle with months of turmoil and uncertainty because of Covid-19.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Theirs is a truly stellar achievement, achieved in the face of considerable uncertainty and additional challenge. I congratulate these 39 pupils on their hard work and application and I salute my colleagues who have done so much to make possible their success.

“As QE teachers labour tirelessly to maintain a full timetable to our customary standards in a virtual classroom environment, and to ensure that the complex process of university applications proceeds smoothly, this wonderful news is confirmation of the success of those efforts at the very highest levels.”

The places awarded are at a wide range of colleges, from the biggest of all in terms of the number of undergraduates, Trinity at Cambridge, to the much smaller St Benet’s Hall at Oxford. The subjects being studied are varied, too: those chosen include Economics, Engineering, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Modern & Medieval Languages and Natural Sciences.

Mr Enright was joined by Assistant Head (Pupil Development) Michael Feven and Head of Year 13 Helen Davies for a special celebration with the Oxbridge boys in a video meeting using Microsoft Teams. The group, pictured top, was so big that they could not be fitted on to a single screenshot.

“I happily acknowledge the debt owed by these pupils to their parents and other family members who have supported them, and, in fact, I urged the boys in our video meeting to express their gratitude for this.

“Of course, it is important to recognise that not everyone who applied to Oxford and Cambridge was successful,” Mr Enright added. “A number of outstanding candidates have missed out on offers and will understandably be disappointed.”

“But offers from other sought-after universities are continuing to come in for these and for other boys. Year 13 as a whole are making great progress with their offers and support for them will continue throughout the UCAS process. We hope that everyone will receive an offer from a top-quality institution at which they will thrive and be happy.”

QE has a University admissions Support Programme – or USP – which is supported by many Old Elizabethans, especially through the online QE Connect alumni platform. Special arrangements were made this year with, for example, many old boys conducting online mock interviews for sixth-formers.

Mr Enright thanked the many alumni who have supported current pupils with advice and interviews through the pandemic.

“This year’s leavers will soon be the next entrants to our thriving alumni community, and I trust that they will similarly step up to help out future generations of Elizabethans, giving back to our community.”

Following the cancellation of GCSE, AS and A-level examinations this summer, the exams regulator Ofqual recently published its consultation on how grades should be awarded this year.

The consultation document proposes that pupils continue with their normal education during this academic year and that they are then assessed by their teachers in a period beginning in May and extending into early June.

Ofqual is proposing that exam boards should provide “guidance and training” to help teachers make “objective decisions”. It also suggests that exam boards make available sets of papers for teachers to use with students “as part of their assessment”, arguing that this “would support consistency within and between schools and colleges.” The consultation asks for views on: the proposal to use such papers; the form any such papers should take; whether the papers  could re-use material from past papers; when the papers should be made available, and whether their use should be compulsory.

The consultation document adds: “The teacher, through the marking of the papers, could consider the evidence of the student’s work and use that to inform their assessment of the grade deserved. The exam boards could also sample teachers’ marking as part of the external quality assurance arrangements and to seek to ensure this was comparable across different types of school and college, wherever students are studying. The use of exam board papers could also help with appeals.”

Ofqual is also proposing that teachers should draw on a “range of broader evidence of a student’s work in making their final assessment”.

Teachers would submit grades to the exam boards by mid-June, with external quality assurance by the examination boards taking place throughout the same month.

The results would be issued to pupils once the quality assurance process is complete. This is likely to be in early July.

Any pupils wishing to appeal against their results could do so immediately after receiving them. These appeals would be considered in the first instance by the schools and colleges attended by the pupils, with the appeal to be heard by a “competent person appointed by the school or college, who had not been involved with the original assessment – this could be another teacher in the school or college or a teacher from another school or college.”

A further appeal could then be made to the exam board, but such an appeal would only be allowed be on the grounds that the school involved had not acted in line with the  board’s procedural requirements.

The consultation closes at 11:45pm on 29 January 2021. The consultation document and a facility to respond online to it are available here.