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Broughton have been crowned this year’s top House at Queen Elizabeth’s School, following intense competition in fields as diverse as architecture and dodgeball.

A strong performance at Sports Day helped Broughton overtake Pearce to claim overall victory as the leader of QE’s six houses – a victory announced to great excitement at the end-of-year House Assembly.

Broughton’s House Captain, Saifullah Shah, and Deputy House Captain, Jamie Watkin-Rees, both of Year 12, were duly presented with the coveted House Cup by Headmaster Neil Enright.

Mr Enright said afterwards: “It has been another year of outstanding endeavour among the Houses, which play such an important role in fostering teamwork and friendship. My sincere congratulations go to all Broughton boys on their hard-won victory.”

During the assembly, Year 12’s Kieran Dhrona and Rishi Shah gave a presentation on the extensive fund-raising that takes place during the year in support of various charities as well as QE’s long-running Sai School Appeal, which aims to help the Sri Sathya Sai English Medium School in Kerala, India.

QE’s overall charity this year was the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, while there were also Christmas collections of food for the Chipping Barnet Foodbank and of clothing for a charity helping some of the 168,000 people homeless people in London.

Among the charity events staged were an inter-House dodgeball tournament run by Broughton and Harrisons’ for Years 7–9, which raised £280. Leicester and Pearce ran an interactive quiz for Years 7–10, raising £168. And Stapylton and Underne organised a guess-the-teacher baby photo competition, raising £87.70.

For the Sai School Appeal, a FIFA Tournament saw staff and pupils battle it out, games controllers in hand, in what was perhaps the most popular charity event of the year. One notable match included that between the Headmaster and the 2019 School Captain, Bhiramah Rammanohar.

The tournament raised £120.60, while a swimathon raised £609.65 and a guess-the-number-of-sweets-in-the-jar challenge at the Founder’s Day Fete brought in £62.

The House competitions reported on during the assembly included the:

• Year 7 House afternoon won by Stapylton
• In the Scoop news contest for Year 8 won by Pearce
• Languages competition, in which boys were challenged to design a poster about an influential linguist or speaker of German. French or Latin
• Architectural Enrichment Competition, won by Harrisons’
• QIQE quiz, won by Broughton in a tough final against Stapylton.

The assembly also reviewed other activities of the year.

For drama, as well as looking back at the performances at the Shakespeare Schools Festival and at the School Play, Lord of the Flies, the presentation revealed the names of boys who have successfully auditioned for roles in next term’s Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.

Hundreds of boys have taken part in musical extra-curricular activities during the year. There are currently more than 20 ensembles, many of them pupil-led, involving 150 singers and nearly 200 instrumentalists. The 35 winners of Music colours from across the year groups were announced.

The assembly celebrated the winners of the separate QE chess championships for Year 7 and for Years 8-11, as well as those who performed strongly in the UK Chess Challenge. Junior, intermediate and senior chess colours were presented.

A report on the Duke of Edinburgh Award revealed that 87 Year 11 boys completed their bronze awards. Twenty-six Year 12s finished their silver awards, while 11 Year 13s completed D of E at gold level.

In sport, the assembly covered the following highlights:

• Cricket: The Year 8 team reached the quarter-finals of the National Cup, where they lost on the last ball
• Rugby: The U16s won the Hertfordshire plate; several boys gained county honours and a successful tour to Holland took place
• Eton fives: Record levels of participation at QE brought encouraging successes at the sport’s national finals
• Athletics: Combined Year 7 & 8 and 9 & 10 teams reached regional finals, and stand-out individual performances were listed
• Water polo: Both the seniors and Year 10 reached their respective national cup plate finals.

‘Teams of the year’, comprising selections from across the year groups, were announced for cricket and rugby.

Sports Day 2019 saw boys competing and having fun together, while producing impressive performances in disciplines ranging from hurdles and javelin to rowing and Eton fives.

More than 730 boys from Years 7–10 took part during the day and, with athletics alone accounting for 53 separate events, some 70 staff were drafted in from all departments to help meet one of the most complex organisational challenges of the School year.

At the conclusion of a day of intense but friendly inter-House competition in good weather, Headmaster Neil Enright presented the much-coveted Sports Day cup to Broughton, narrow winners on 600 points ahead of Underne on 590.

QE’s Head of Rugby James Clarke (OE 1999–2004), who organised the day, said: “It was great to have so many pupils competing and I am grateful to my colleagues for making it all possible. My congratulations go both to Broughton House on their overall victory and to the very many boys from all Houses who performed strongly and, in many cases, achieved personal bests.”

The day’s events began at 10.30am sharp, with: Year 7 & 8 triathlon; Year 7 tug of war; Year 9 table tennis; Year 7 tennis, and with discus, long jump, shot put and high jump for the first three years.

Competitions continued through the morning, with the action varying from the short intensity of 80m hurdles and 100m sprints to the endurance required for the rowing, in which the Houses were allocated two-hour sessions comprising 10-minute stints for each boy.

The afternoon brought the Eton fives and volleyball competitions, as well as the conclusion of the rowing, while the track events continued, culminating in the four 4 x 100m relays for Years 7–10, the all-years 4 x 400m relay and, last of all, the traditional QE Mile.
This event, a 16 x 100m relay pitting boys against staff, was won this year by the staff: “A great win!” added Mr Clarke.

Throughout the day, staff fulfilled roles including timekeeping, race-starting, judging, commentary and photography, as well as general supervision.

The final presentations revealed the six Houses’ overall points tally for the day, as follows:

• Broughton: 600
• Underne: 590
• Harrisons’: 576
• Pearce: 552
• Leicester: 549
• Stapylton: 514.

QE’s younger musicians turned out en masse for the School’s summer concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

In a very varied programme that ranged across the genres from traditional Indian classical and western classical to jazz and pop, the boys explored mankind’s enduring fascination with the moon, featuring a number of space-related pieces.

These included the Beethoven composition widely known as the Moonlight Sonata, performed by Year 8 pianist John Zhen, and the popular early 20th-century song, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, played by the Sinfonietta, as well as the Summer Strings’ performance of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which was played at President Kennedy’s funeral in 1963, six years before his moon-landing vision was fulfilled.

The Brass Ensemble played an arrangement of Debussy’s beautiful Clair de Lune, while the School Choir sang Moondance, the jazz-infused title track on Van Morrison’s third album, released in 1970.

In a speech, Headmaster Neil Enright alluded to astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous comment on setting foot on the lunar surface that it was “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”.

“This ‘one small step for a man’,” he told the audience of parents and other guests, “was, in fact, the last of a very long series of small steps, taken over a period of time, to make that last one possible. And the small steps forwards you take with something now can all add up to a giant leap in the future, or at least lay the foundations for future progress and achievement.”

Acting Director of Music Jennifer Brown said: “We had more than 200 boys taking part – an impressive number considering that it was exam season, so all of Years 11 and 13, and almost all of Year 12, were unavailable.

“Our singers were on excellent form, performing all their pieces by heart, including the 95-strong School Choir – very ably accompanied on the piano by Shivas Patel, from Year 10. Among the high points were the B Minors’ barbershop group’s singing of Don McLean’s Vincent and Smash Mouth’s All Star.“

Mrs Brown also highlighted other aspects of the concert in the Shearly Hall including the collaboration between two different ensembles, the Sinfonietta and Flute Ensemble to perform Moon River, “very professionally directed” by Music teacher Hannah Morgan.

“The Concert Band includes some of our least experienced musicians, and they did really well to perform some challenging repertoire from Star Wars,” Mrs Brown added.

Year 10’s Raphael Herberg was “an absolute star! He directed the Celli beautifully and arranged the music, Dvorak’s New World Symphony, too.”

“String Quartet is another example of an ensemble brilliantly led by pupils themselves. Whilst the Shostakovich [String Quartet No. 8] did not link to our space theme, it was great for the boys to have the opportunity to perform it to a large audience in preparation for the prestigious South East Schools’ Chamber Music Competition they will be entering in the Autumn Term.

Other “super in-house arrangements to best suit our performers” included that by visiting saxophone teacher Maria Payne. She arranged Black Hole Sun – the 1994 hit by American rock band Soundgarden written by frontman Chris Cornell – for the Saxophone Quartet.

The Telugu lyrics of the piece performed by the Junior Indian Ensemble implore Lord Krishna, “Please come my lord Venugopala”. The popular composition, using the carnatic raga Bilahari, is one of the early compositions that children learn when they start carnatic music lessons.

There was even a surprise performance by one ensemble, Friday Jazz, who were not listed in the printed programme. “We didn’t think that they would manage to get here as so many of their group had been away on trips, but they made it and performed Fly Me to the Moon.”

A QE team impressed the judges with their presentation skills as they explained how their glider drone design could help save black rhinoceroses from extinction.

Judges at the live finals of the International STEM Youth Innovation Competition at the Royal Air Force Museum in Colindale, London, unanimously agreed that QE’s Year 12 Rhinodrive team should win the Oral Presentation Award.

The competition involved several elements, from the judging of presentations conducted by industry and conservation experts, to the actual flying of a drone, where the challenge facing the teams was to survey 15 species in their simulated natural habitat.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “It had been a long journey requiring great dedication for our boys to even reach the international finals, so they were exhilarated to be there, even though the standard of competition was very tough indeed.”

“The boys performed admirably, using the drone technology to spot all but one animal on their survey – a pesky snake camouflaged into a tree branch!”

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) competition, run by the British International Education Association (BIEA), drew entries from schools in countries including China, the United States, Macau, Poland and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Its theme was Fighting Extinction Using Drone Technology.

The team comprised Deeps Gandhi, Aryan Jain, Simon Sherriff, Ben Domb and Tarun Bhaskaran. They secured their place in the international finals partly because they opted to design and build their own drone using parts which they 3D-printed themselves, rather than buying an off-the-shelf, proprietary machine, as many other teams did. “This set them in an élite group, along with a gifted and talented academy team from Palo Alto, California,” said Mr Noonan.

Even more impressively, they designed and built the drone while adhering very strictly to their £100 allocated budget, again, unlike many of the other teams.

However, what had been an advantage earlier in the competition would prove to be a challenge in the finals, as the demonstration flight at the start of the day’s competition used the very same drone that many of the teams were using, thus giving QE’s competitors the opportunity to pick up tips by observing the trial flight. The QE team nevertheless performed well, Mr Noonan stated.

“After the judges visited, the boys were in a confident mood that the presentation of their ideas and professional layout of their resources had set them in good stead.” That confidence proved justified when the team’s name was one of the first to be read out as the presentations began.

And although naturally disappointed to miss out on the top prize of £5,000, there were no real hard feelings, as Mr Noonan explained: “A Bosnian team won this accolade for an incredible performance, despite challenges of funding and lack of facilities. The boys felt this was well deserved, and simply revelled in what had been a great experience.”

Team member Deeps said: “Participating in this competition has not only allowed us to think about our ability to impact global issues such as conservation through STEM, but has also taught us key skills such as time management, teamwork and communication.”

After the awards ceremony, the boys headed to Waterloo Pier to board the London Belle barge and then spent an enjoyable evening on the Thames in the company of the judges and other participants.

After a session spent getting to grips with the intricacies of the legislative process, Year 9 boys worked together to devise campaigns aimed at amending fictional Parliamentary bills.

As part of their Humanities Enrichment Day, the pupils learned about how legislation is formed and then used campaigning tools old and new to lobby for change, from writing letters to an MP to creating an internet meme and composing tweets.

Head of Geography Emily Parry said: “The aim of the session was to provide students with an understanding of how laws are made and how they and the wider public can influence this process.”

After initial talks, the boys took the opportunity to ask questions and then split into groups to design their lobbying activities, with social media campaigning to the fore.

Head of Academic Enrichment Nisha Mayer said: “The boys got into the competitive spirit of the day and made some very creative campaigns.”

The fictional bills about which they campaigned were:

• Abortion Bill, with abortions to be made illegal in all circumstances
• International Aid Bill, increasing the UK’s international aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 2%
• Nuclear Power Bill, under which the UK’s energy supply will be 100% nuclear by 2040
• School Uniform Bill, prohibiting gender-specific school uniforms
• Voting Age Bill, lowering the age of voting in UK parliamentary elections to 14
• Wage Cap Bill, enforcing limits so that the highest earner within a company can only earn a maximum of ten times the lowest earner.