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David Ryan, Deputy Head (Pastoral), sets out how bespoke online tutorials are being used to maintain the School’s pastoral support for boys in these difficult times.

‘Keep in touch!’ It is a phrase we use frequently in our everyday lives, yet in the current situation when we have lost regular face-to-face contact with everyone except our immediate family, doing so is a considerable challenge. For our part, we are very keen to keep touch with all our students, firstly by using our established ways of working, and then by enhancing those with new lines of communication. This will allow us to discuss how your sons are and how their studies are progressing, to celebrate their achievements, and to consider any concerns they might have that we can help them with.

We are already doing this in a number of ways and will seek to expand our provision for the period of the School’s closure as we go through the next few weeks. Primarily, in their online bespoke tutorials, students have an opportunity to give answers to a number of questions. Their form tutors read these answers and respond to them when issues arise. We are now confident that online platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams pass the ‘fit for purpose’ test both in terms of how we provide pastoral support for your son, but also with regard to his online safety. Therefore, we will use those platforms more in meeting virtually with our students in the weeks to come.

Normally it will be your son’s form tutor who meets with him in this way, but he may also be contacted by his Head of Year or another member of the pastoral team. Our normal procedure will be to set a date and time for an online tutorial in advance. This allows for the staff member to be notified if your son is unable to attend the meeting. Please be assured that there will be procedures that School staff will keep to in order to ensure outstanding online safety at all times.

We understand that, for some families, access to IT devices may be very limited and/or shared between family members, and that it might prove difficult for a student to take part in an online meeting. If this is the case, we ask that you contact your son’s form tutor: we will always find alternative ways to stay in touch with your son.

For some of our students, the School closure seems to be providing an opportunity to learn in a different way, to learn new skills and to do so from home as summer starts. But for others, there may be challenges: their family’s well-being; their access to IT; or, just feeling anxious – either about the circumstances we are currently in, or about an issue they have been facing for some time. Whatever the situation, we hope to able to work closely with your sons to provide them with the outstanding pastoral support that helps them to thrive and continue to develop.

Four QE boys were part of a team of 50 set the daunting task of designing a settlement for 10,000 people in just a single day after reaching the national finals of the UK Space Design Competition.

After coming up with their detailed design, they then presented to a panel of judges, who included an Old Elizabethan, himself a former competitor in the same competition.

Prior to lockdown, the four Year 10 pupils were accompanied to the final at Imperial College by Head of Physics Jonathan Brooke. “The boys did very well to reach the finals, and although they were not on the winning team, it was, nevertheless, a great experience for them. The competition demands a high level of design and technical skill, imagination and teamwork, alongside the ability to present well. All the boys contributed and worked very well.”

Utkarsh Bhamidimarri, Amogh Bhartia, Siddarth Jana and Jashwanth Parimi, of Year 10, formed part of the Vulture Company, who came up with an ambitious plan for a settlement positioned in low Martian orbit.

Their contribution was evaluated by a panel of judges, who included experts in the field and representatives of the UK Space Agency. Also among the judges was Neelesh Ravichandran (OE 2010-17), who is reading Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Imperial College. He took part in the Space Design competition as a Year 13 pupil at QE. He said: “The UK Space Design Competition dares students to dream bigger than they’ve ever done before. Working together with schools from across the country, competitors are challenged with designing space settlements set in the far future. ”

Part of the aim of the Space Settlement Design Competition is to offer young people optimism for the future whilst increasing their technical competence, management skills, knowledge of space environments and resources, appreciation of relationships between technical products and human use, teamwork, and techniques for preparing effective documentation.

It requires them to integrate their knowledge of and utilise skills in space science, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, environmental science, Biology, computer science, writing, speaking and Art, and to combine all that with common sense.

The teams were presented with a Request for Proposal, which outlined the technical requirements of the venture, which was set in the year 2065. The challenge was to design facilities for a station serving as a gateway to Mars’s “flourishing surface settlements”. Its purpose would be to serve as a stepping-stone to Olympia – a planned future city on Mars.

To help them accomplish this task, each team was provided with managers from industry, past competitors, or STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) university students to serve as company CEOs. The participants then received technical and management training to prepare them for the competition. In addition to designing an overall structure, the teams had to define sources of construction materials, specify vehicles used for transportation, determine sources of electrical power and water, design computer and robotics systems, specify allocation of interior space, show attributes of pleasant community design, and provide estimated costs and schedules for completion of the project.

Old Elizabethan George the Poet played to an audience of many millions when he opened BBC One’s coverage of last night’s One World: Together at Home concert.

George Mpanga (OE 2002–2009) performed a two-minute poem, Our Key Workers, paying tribute to those working for the NHS “like my mum” and other key workers who are keeping the country going during the pandemic lockdown.

Global Citizen, co-organisers of the eight-hour globally streamed benefit concert with the World Health Organization, today announced that the show raised £$128m (£102m) for coronavirus relief efforts.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “As ever, George’s words were both thoughtful and inspiring, his striking turn of phrase perfectly capturing the sacrifices being made by front-line workers and expressing back to them the nation’s gratitude.”

The concert, curated by Lady Gaga, featured global music stars performing in intimate settings as they self-isolate at home. They included the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Billie Eilish.

Songs were interspersed with messages from actors such as Matthew McConaughey and Lupita Nyong’o, as well as world figures, including Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

George’s poem refers to a wide variety of people in key roles, including not only health workers but also bus drivers, teachers, cleaners, carers and those in waste management. Several of these jobs and those of other key-worker roles are depicted in George’s video, which also shows deserted city streets.

With the refrain “People are doing what needs to be done, But this fight won’t be easily won”, the poem appeals to the public to abide by the current restrictions: “We need to help the cause, By keeping ourselves indoors.”

He mentions his friend “Anoop” – believed to be Anoop Raghavan (OE 2002-2008). He is one of huge number of Old Elizabethans in key-worker roles playing a critical role in fighting the pandemic locally, nationally and internationally.

The poem concludes: “Every one of us was given a unique purpose, so let’s honour the service of our key workers.”

In only QE’s second year of entry, a School team has secured second place in a prestigious and demanding national Economics competition.

For the Budget Challenge, run by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the team had to put forward a budget with taxation and spending policies for the UK in the coming financial year.

And, since their progression to the final coincided with the explosion of the current pandemic in the UK, the four sixth-formers had to think on their feet to adapt their proposals to the fast-changing national conditions.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The boys should be very pleased with this outcome. They clearly demonstrated a mature understanding of the macroeconomic conditions and put together a coherent policy and strategy, at what has turned out to be a very challenging time in our country’s history. They are to be congratulated.”

Ayushman Mukherjee, Thapan Reddibathini, Tanishq Mehta and Hari Gajendran, all of Year 12, had been shortlisted as one of just ten teams to appear before a panel of judges for the final. Owing to the pandemic restrictions, they instead submitted their ten-minute presentation by video.

In it, they described their three-pronged proposals for investment in health, education and social protection. They proposed a tax system that promotes vertical equity, whilst “putting money in everyone’s pocket”. All four boys made contributions and talked through the details of their policies, which they presented in a series of slides.

They talked about the impact that the Covid-19 virus has had on the British and world economies, and reflected on how they had had to be responsive in their thinking: “We have had to significantly adapt our original budget,” said Thapan, while Tanishq spoke of the need to supply long-term, sustainable, investment for the NHS in addition to a short-term aid package.

They discussed the looming recession, recent stock market crashes, increasing unemployment, stagnant growth and a struggling economy, as well as the measures they proposed to help alleviate these pressures and challenges.

Head of Economics Shamendra Uduwawala said: “I am delighted for our team, who have certainly had to think on their feet. National competitions such as this help them to apply what they have learned about Economics in the classroom to real-world issues, and these are extraordinary times. It also helps them to develop their writing, research and analytical skills.”

The IEA’s Director of Education, Outreach and Programmes, Christiana Stewart-Lockhart, said: “This year we had a record number of entries and the overall standard was very high, so the teams that made it to the final have all done very well. Obviously, the final of the Budget Challenge could not be done in the usual way this time, so the teams all had to record their presentations remotely and there were several that were outstanding by any measure.”

Brighton College were placed first, with QE named runners-up alongside Withington Girls’ School, Manchester, and Fortismere School, Muswell Hill, London. Each of the second-placed teams receives £250.

Year 9 pupil Pratyush Dutta Gupta’s packed holiday programme of lockdown activities featured  sports, baking and making music, to name just three, while other Lower School boys getting creative include Aarav Agarwal, of Year 7, whose painting, above, is inspired by the work of modern impressionist Leonid Afremov.

Among the culinary creations mentioned in the  illustrated Quarantine Diary Pratyush has been keeping are seafood paella, brownies, quiches, quesadillas, gnocchi and cakes.

He burned off all the calories from those through a combination of running (5km), skipping (500 skips in one go) and cycling (two rides, 2km and 5km).

He also combined music and movement by dancing to a Bhangra video from QE History teacher and Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor Akhil Gohil.

And his own music-making featured strongly, too: Pratyush made several recordings for his YouTube channel, while he also started work on coding his first video game.

Kiaron Lad, of Year 8, was another example of a Lower School boy getting busy during the holidays. In fact, he demonstrated his creative side both in the home and in the great outdoors.

Not only did Kiaron expertly fashion a delicate rose out of white chocolate, but he turned his hand towards making a shoe sculpture from the off-cuts of a tree that he himself had helped to fell.

In Year 7, the boys’ holiday endeavours were just as diverse, with some turning to the opportunities for creativity offered by modern technology and others heading into the kitchen.

The first-year boys’ activities included:

• Soham Kale making mango ice cream
• Aadam Aslam learning to cook and doing magic
• Akhil Potteti and Samhith Agganna getting to grips with video-editing
• Sai Murarishetty and Harshith Sharavana learning the Python programming language
• Kayilai Dinesh creating pop-up art.