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Finalists in QE’s Mars Lander project not only impressed with their knowledge of space travel, but also showed they had got to grips with the more down-to-earth requirements of academic research. 

Assistant Head (Pupil Progress) Sarah Westcott paid tribute to the finalists in the Year 7 contest, praising them for eschewing all plagiarism and crediting references accurately. 

The boys had to put together a PowerPoint file with facts and figures about the requirements, challenges and risks of sending a manned spacecraft to Mars, with shortlisted entrants then submitting a video of themselves delivering the presentation.  

While their space knowledge was an important factor, the main purpose of the project included teaching the boys about what constitutes plagiarism and how to carry out basic referencing, and developing their fact-finding skills, both online and written. The project was part of the Summer Term’s Personal Development Time scheme of work. 

After shortlisting nine pupils to submit a recording of their work, Head of Year Tom Harrison had the difficult task of selecting just four for Dr Westcott to assess and judge. Placing Colin Copcea first, Dr Westcott said: “Colin really impressed with his presentation – not only his grasp of scientific facts and choice of images, but also his use of references and sources.” 

Daniel Macholl took second place, with Kayilai Dinesh and Akhilesh Karthikeyan sharing the third spot. 

“I was very impressed with the amount of effort the boys had put into their research and presentations,” said Mr Harrison. “It was really very difficult to select just four as the finalists, as the standard was very high. All the participants did very well.” 

Dr Westcott was also struck by how well the boys presented their findings and the way in which they had clearly grasped the essentials of referencing and the unacceptability of plagiarism. “They generally chose highly reputable sources for their research – NASA, the BBC – and looked carefully at the file extensions, for example .gov, which give a fairly good indication as to whether a particular website is likely to be reliable.” She told them that although Wikipedia could be a good starting point for research, it should never be quoted as a primary source, as its independence could not be guaranteed. 

In a recorded adjudication for Year 7, she praised the boys for their high level of scientific content and offered advice on how their work could be even further improved. 

Architecture student Nabil Haque has enjoyed stellar academic success in his final year at Jesus College, Cambridge, winning a string of prizes and accolades.

Nabil (OE 2010–2017) graduates with the highest-possible class of degree – Double First with Distinction – and an overall score of 80 out of 100, which is the top mark recorded by the university’s Architecture department in five years.

He thus won the award for the best Architecture student of his year, having also secured several other college prizes for academic performance, including the Sir Leslie Martin Prize for Architecture.

“The grade I received this year makes me eligible for the BASS Fellowship, a fully-funded, expenses-covered two-year scholarship to Yale University, where I wish to pursue my Part II Architecture Master’s. I am currently completing my year in industry at Caruso St John Architects, winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2016.”

He has been nominated by Cambridge for the: Architects’ Journal National Student Awards; Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) President’s Medal Bronze Award for Undergraduate Portfolio, and RIBA President’s Medal Dissertation Award. “The RIBA President’s Medals in particular are the most prestigious architectural awards in the world, and it has been an honour to be nominated by the university for them.”

Yet, says Nabil, his final year at Cambridge “has been by no means an easy one, with strikes for eight weeks during the first term and coronavirus relegating my final term to home-based learning”.

Nabil says QE has remained at the forefront of his mind throughout his time at Cambridge, where, he found, the School’s reputation preceded him: “It is no exaggeration to say that professors, tutors and even my peers always recognise a ‘QE boy’.”

He was involved in many areas of School life, for example, captaining the First XV and winning a place on the Royal Academy of Arts’ attRAct programme in the Sixth Form.

He pays particular tribute to Head of Art Stephen Buckeridge for the instrumental role he played in the formative stages of his education, pointing out that he was one of no fewer than three QE boys in his year on Cambridge’s extremely competitive Architecture degree course (together with Danny Martin and Tochi Onuora). It was, he said, the “freedom, confidence and individuality” that Mr Buckeridge fostered during their Sixth Form years which enabled them to navigate their design projects so successfully. “QE is the most represented school across all three years of Architecture undergraduates at Cambridge,” Nabil says.

He also maintains strong links with other QE alumni in his year at Cambridge, counting Christopher Deane, Viral Gudiwala and Tomas Viera-Short among his close friends.

“My time at Cambridge was by and large a direct extension of my time at QE. I represented the university for rugby (Second XV) and athletics, I held positions on the Jesus College Student Union (including Black and Minority Ethnic Officer), was a student representative for the Jesus College Legacies of Slavery Committee and was, in 2019, responsible for the first-ever art exhibition exclusively for BME exhibitors.

“The confidence to take up such positions, pursue my interests and further myself physically, mentally and academically all stem from the foundations I laid down at QE.”

Fitness trainer, author and podcaster Akash Vaghela has no regrets about his decision to switch his university application from Law to Sport Science.

A decade later, he is running an innovative, personalised coaching service that has helped more than 2,000 people around the world, disrupting an online industry where, he says, poor performance is rife.

Akash (OE 2003–2010), whose new book, Transform your body, transform your life, was published on 24th May, says: “I remember when I walked into my Head of Year’s office and said I’d like to switch my university application from Law to Sport Science. It certainly raised a few eyebrows, both in School and at home. I was one of the very few taking a non-traditional path, and to this day, it marks one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Across the world, 14 people now work for his business, RNT Fitness, which has as its mission ‘to use the physical to transform your life’.

While at Birmingham University, Akash was as a personal trainer (PT) and he continued working in the industry after he graduated with a first-class degree.

While he loved helping his clients, there were elements of the job he greatly disliked, he explains. “I had no control of my diary; it was dictated by the client, which due to work hours, often meant unsociable timings, meaning I’d leave my house at 5.45am and return at 10pm. There are only so many hours in the day, and I was limited by this. I saw fellow PTs around me start families and struggle. They’d never see their children due to the hours, nor have the flexibility to do so: if you don’t work you don’t get paid!

When he had almost five years’ experience under his belt, he realised the time had come to listen to his entrepreneurial spirit – “I was always dabbling in small ventures as a PT” – and start his own, 100% online, business.

There was certainly room for improvement over what others were doing: “The issues I saw in the online space were an abundance of cookie-cutter plans, lack of results, and poor customer service.”

He set up RNT Fitness along with a business partner in May 2017 to “create the go-to online platform for regular, busy people to transform their bodies and change their lives – we set out to create the best one-to-one online platform available worldwide”.

Since buying out his partner 16 months later, he has built a team to help ‘scale’ his efforts. His global group of coaches have now helped customers in more than 20 countries, working according to the company values of ‘impact, service, self-master, community and lifestyle’.

As well as assembling that team, the highlights have included:

• “Building a community tribe between coaches and clients, where we’ve regularly packed out London clubs with hundreds of fellow RNT’ers!”
• Writing his book
• Growing the podcast, RNT Fitness Radio, which has now been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in more than 90 countries.

There were also a few lows, especially “starting the company in the red after a web development deal went sour”.

While the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship inevitably brings “the doubts, worries and anxiety that come with the responsibility of building a business, I don’t know if this is a low; it’s the life I love to lead – there’s a certain buzz that comes with it that you can’t replicate!”

For fellow aspiring entrepreneurs his message is: “Be mission-driven and build a business that transcends your day-to-day and your industry”. RNT, for example, is not only about physical transformation, but instead uses the physical to help people transform their lives for the the greater good. “Be prepared to work harder than you ever imagined with ruthless consistency for the opportunity to live a life by your own design,” he adds.

Last academic year, Akash came to QE to deliver a talk. The advice he gave to the Year 11 boys on that occasion has not changed: “Follow your passion and don’t be afraid to take the road less travelled: it’s harder, more rocky, but far more rewarding. I’d encourage all students to go against the grain like I did, and not conform to the normality of being a lawyer, banker or doctor!”

Akash’s fond memories of his own time at the School are rooted in the friendships he enjoyed there and continues to enjoy now. “I’ve been lucky enough to have an amazing peer group around me, many of whom I’ve known since my time at QE (even earlier in some cases!). You are who you surround yourself, and I’m lucky to call the following fellow OEs some of my best friends: Shyam Kotecha, Jai Doshi, Amar Amlani, Sindujen Sriharan, Bilal Harry Khan and Minil Patel.

“They’re all doing fantastically in their own endeavours, and continuously pushing themselves to greater heights. I couldn’t be prouder, nor could I be where I am without their support, belief and guidance. I’ll always be grateful for QE for bringing this group together.”

While Covid-19 has raged around the world this term, members of QE’s Model United Nations Club have been examining the very different approaches to the pandemic taken around the globe. 

The 24 boys involved were each allocated a country, from Australia to Iceland and from the USA to North Korea. Each member, from Years 8 to 10, was given a brief to research his nation’s response to the crisis and look at the treatment for the virus and the global distribution of a vaccine in the future. 

They met regularly using Zoom to discuss the huge issues and challenges facing the global community. 

Academic Enrichment Tutor Gillian Deakin said: “It has been great to see the boys adopting their different countries and examining their responses to Covid–19. Every week they have contributed fascinating insights into how different countries have responded. 

“With countries as diverse as Japan, Iran, France, Kenya and the USA, the participants have had to get to grips with their often very different respective policies and perspectives.” 

The club is an academic simulation of the United Nations itself, where pupils take the roles of delegates from different countries and investigate possible solutions to global issues. 

The boys have also been learning how to write policy statements and resolutions in preparation for an MUN event at Magdalen College School, Oxford, in February next year.  

“They have gained real insight and understanding of the function of the different organisations within the UN in addition to an appreciation of the possibilities and challenges of the global development and distribution of a treatment or vaccination for Covid–19,” added Miss Deakin. 

“The boys are all looking forward to returning to the School and preparing for next year’s mini–MUN conference.” 

 The participants are listed below, each with his allocated country: 

Danny Adey (Year 10) – Japan; Eesa Ahmed (Year 9) – Saudi Arabia; Tejas Bansal (Year 8) – Germany; Dhruv Chadha (Year 9) – South Korea; Karan Chauhan (Year 8) China; Tharun Dhamodharan (Year 9) – India; Rahul Doshi (Year 10) – Russia; Kovid Gothi (Year 8) – France; Pranav Haller (Year 8) – USA; Seyed Jalili (Year 8) – Iran; Shaurya Madan (Year 8) – New Zealand; Dhruv Syam (Year 10) – Sweden; Rahul Kesavan (Year 10) – Sri Lanka; Saim Khan (Year 8) – Pakistan; Zaki Mustafa (Year 8) – UK; Jai Patel (Year 10) – South Africa; Vignesh Rajiv (Year 9) – Switzerland; Chanakya Seetharam (Year 8) Canada; Anban Senthilprabu (Year 9) – North Korea; Abhiraj Singh (Year 10) – Iceland; Sai Sivakumar (Year 9) – Australia; Mukund Soni (Year 10) – Italy, Anirudh Terdal (Year 8) – Kenya; Antony Yassa (Year 10) – Egypt. 

For the final week of term, in celebration of the energy and self-discipline QE’s boys have shown in persevering with virtual education, Years 7–9 are being invited to take a break and enjoy some strictly offline activities.

Dubbed Screen-off, Hands-on, the 2020 Junior School Enrichment Week offers boys an array of ‘real-world’ tasks to complete at home.

Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) Crispin Bonham-Carter says: “The boys have done really well to apply themselves to remote learning throughout a long term, so our staff have come up with any number of creative and challenging tasks to make their last week of the year memorable and fun.

“Each department has created exciting subject-related tasks, and boys will have total freedom to create their own Enrichment Week curriculum by choosing which four challenges they want to take on each day.

“They might spend the week making films, creating musical instruments, baking cakes, designing gardens, creating food-art, constructing bird boxes, exploring photography, learning origami, working with ‘tangrams’, writing songs, designing fashion shows, cooking German and French food, camping in their gardens, orienteering… the list goes on!

“The only stipulation is that they record images of their achievements and submit neatly labelled scrapbook-style records to their form blog. In years to come, these will serve as yet another record of the creativity, energy and sense of fun with which our boys met the challenges of the 2020 lockdown,” Mr Bonham-Carter added.

The programme has been designed to ensure all tastes are catered for and includes activities from subjects not taught in Years 7–9 – such as Economics and Sociology – as well as the usual Junior School curriculum subjects.

The challenges are accessed through a dedicated eQE page, with full guidance for the boys on how to complete them. The Art department, for example, is challenging boys to “get creative with the food you have at home and present it in an imaginative, unique and artistic way”. Copiously illustrated with photos and videos, the department’s page includes tips on photography and the preparation of the food. It suggests ways to complete the activity at different levels – easy, intermediate, challenging and ‘the ultimate challenge’ – although boys are also told “you have the option of directing yourself and experimenting in your own creative way”.