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A group of Year 8 boys are on a mission to get national backing for a campaign to regulate the use of trans fats in takeaway food.

They were inspired to launch their campaign following a presentation by Yinka Thomas, a nutritionist from Barnet Public Health, about the dangers of sugar and trans fats in the modern diet. The boys were so shocked by what they learned that they decided to take action to raise awareness.

And their campaign is fast gaining attention in high places: six of the 12 campaigning boys were invited to Whitehall to put their case to the Head of the Government’s Obesity Policy Unit, Richard Sangster.

After seeing their presentation, Mr Sangster told them: “That was the best presentation I’ve heard in a long time and was better than many I’ve heard here at the Department of Health. You showed the dangers of trans fats better than in any public health presentation I’ve seen.” He also commented on the boys’ nuanced arguments, confidence and ability to work together as a team.

The 12 boys began their campaign by writing letters to a number of public bodies, including the British Heart Foundation, the NCD Alliance, the World Heart Federation and the Faculty of Public Health. They then pulled their research together and approached the Department of Health asking for an opportunity to present their findings, and were duly invited in.

They put together a presentation stating the existing health risks of trans fats, which are usually found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, and the benefits already seen in countries such as Denmark, which have banned or restricted their use. The Food Without Trans Fat! (Food WTF) team are calling for a mandatory use of healthier alternatives, such as rapeseed oil, for cooking in fast food and takeaway restaurants.

One of the group, Avy Batra, said: “We had not realised that one portion of chips fried in AVR60 – the best-selling partially hydrogenated oil – contains 10g of trans fat. Hundreds of thousands of young people, especially secondary students, are consuming these on a regular basis, either on the way back from school or when they go out with friends, putting themselves at risk of developing heart disease and other serious illnesses in the future.”

Head of Year 8, Rosie Hall, who accompanied the group to the Department of Health, along with Ms Thomas, said: “The boys delivered an engaging and convincing argument about the dangers of trans fats, particularly AVR60 in fast foods. They took props to show how much fat was going into a person’s body if they ate two bags of chips every week, something which many school pupils and young people do.”

Mr Sangster, who was the lead author of the Government Childhood Obesity Policy published last year, discussed with the boys the paucity of data on the consumption of trans fats. While he was unable to offer any funding for their campaign, he was happy to back the campaign’s message.

Mr Sangster also mentioned the National Food Strategy (NFS) being put together by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The boys’ next step will be to try to arrange a meeting with Henry Dimbleby, who is leading the NFS as the lead non-executive board member of DEFRA.

Ms Thomas, who met with the team several times to give them additional information and advice, said: “I was so impressed with the boys’ presentation. They should be so proud of their achievement – and hopefully energised going forward.”

The six boys who presented their findings to Mr Sangster were Avy Batra, Giuseppe Cipponeri ,Tharun Dhamodharan, Ugan Pretheshan, Krishna Shrivastava and Khapilash Sritharan. The remaining team members are Theo Abraham, Rayan Choudhury, Omar Siddick, Siddharth Sridhar, Kevin Sureshkumar and Dharun Thambiayah.

From how to support people who are coming out to understanding transgender transitioning, the School’s new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Ambassadors covered key themes during activities marking Pride month.

The trio of ambassadors, all drawn from Year 12, used a spectrum of material to communicate with fellow pupils in an age-appropriate and accessible way.

Josh Osman, Vithusan Kuganathan and Leo Kucera promoted better understanding of LGBTQ during Personal Development Time sessions, using PowerPoint presentations and encouraging questions in Q&As. As well as updating the dedicated equality, diversity & inclusion noticeboard, they put up posters around the School, while a rainbow flag was hung in Café 1573. They also sold Pride ribbons at the Founder’s Day fête.

For Year 7 & 8 boys, in addition to a discussion session exploring how young LGBT people might feel, the ambassadors ran a poster competition. The entrants could choose as their theme any of the Equality Act-protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation). Josh said: “We were very pleased with both the level of participation and the quality of the submissions. There were many excellent entries.” The best entries are being displayed on the noticeboard.

For the older boys, there were lessons on challenging stereotypes and understanding the different ways gender is thought about around the world (Year 9), on promoting a better understanding of the transgender aspect of LGBTQ and, particularly, of transitioning (Year 10), and on the ‘dos and don’ts’ of what to say if someone were to come out to you (Year 12).

Since being appointed earlier this year, the three ambassadors have celebrated International Women’s Day at the School and launched the noticeboard. Their next big event is planned for Black History Month in October.

Speaking about their roles, and their work overall to date, Vithusan said: “We are looking to make these issues clearer to younger years – to teach these values.” Leo added: “This is part of the School’s ‘confident, able and responsible’ mission. It is about changes in society and reflecting that. Others in Year 12 have helped, which is great, as these things shouldn’t just be left to the School’s hierarchy. As students we are more relatable to the younger students – we’ve been in their shoes not long ago.”

All three boys stressed the importance and value of student leadership. Josh said: “It is such an important role. We are a very traditional School in many ways, but we’re here to prove the School is progressive. We are setting a foundation for the future of diversity at QE. We are still finding what we can do; our job is to create the mould for ambassadors to build upon in future years.”

Budding Sherlocks from seven local primary schools enjoyed the opportunity to use QE’s cutting-edge scientific equipment to unravel a murder mystery set up at the School.

More than 30 Year 5 & 6 pupils were invited to try their hand at forensic techniques to help them solve the ‘crime’.

In the scenario, QE Headmaster Neil Enright was the unfortunate victim, with clues pointing to a number of suspects, all members of the Science department.

At the start of the day the visitors were introduced to the crime scene. They were from: Martin Primary School, Livingstone Primary & Nursery School, Foulds, Trent CE Primary School, Church Hill Primary School, Woodridge Primary School and Northside Primary School

To unravel the whodunnit mystery, the children had to conduct a series of experiments, including hair-sample analysis using a microscope, blood-splatter analysis, fingerprint analysis and chromatography, which was employed to identify the pen used to write a threatening note to Mr Enright.

Most of the groups correctly solved the crime and, at the end of the day, were invited to give a presentation of their findings.

Physics teacher Gillian Deakin said: “Our visitors obviously enjoyed using the scientific equipment here, much of which is not readily available in primary schools. We chose Livingstone as overall winners as they gave an excellent presentation which evaluated very well the evidence they had.”

“We organised the day to engage pupils from local schools in different aspects of Science, as well as to encourage the visiting boys to apply to QE, having had a taste of what we offer. The visiting teachers said that they and their charges had all enjoyed the day and that they hoped to attend again next year,” added Miss Deakin.

From spelling and writing poetry to solving number and logic puzzles, more than 50 visiting Year 5 pupils faced a busy schedule when they took part in QE’s Primary Challenge Day.

Now in its fifth year, the event attracted entrants from a record-equalling 14 local schools, who each sent a team of four competitors.

The challenge is organised to offer local pupils the opportunity to compete in an enjoyable and stimulating setting; it involves activities focusing on English and Mathematics. Each round of the competition brought a fresh, often interactive, challenge.

Teachers Philip Brady and Marco Saccardi, of the Mathematics Department, and Sarah Snowdon and Panayiota Menelaou, of the English department, helped throughout the morning by running one of the rounds each and chatting to the participants. In addition, all the teams were allocated a Year 7 QE pupil to help them feel at home and support them.

The overall winners were Woodridge Primary School. Trent CE Primary School won the Limerick round, while the Shuttle round went to Underhill School. Foulds triumphed in the Spelling Bee and the Crossnumber round was won by Colindale Primary School.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “The visiting teams clearly thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I have to thank all the staff and QE boys who worked tirelessly to make the event such a success and make our visitors feel welcome. A number of our Year 7 boys also acted as runners on the day. It’s a less glamorous job but was vital, nonetheless, in ensuring the day ran smoothly and that our guests were well looked after.”

The event was started by Assistant Head Michael Feven, who stressed to the Year 5 pupils that the main aim of the challenge was for them to have fun and enjoy themselves. At the end, Headmaster Neil Enright congratulated all the participants and presented the winners with their certificates.

A QE team came 15th out of 88 national finalists in this year’s Team Maths Challenge, placing them in the top 1% of the many hundreds of schools who originally entered the competition.

The team, drawn from Years 8 and 9, reached the national final at the Royal Horticultural Halls by winning their regional heat in March.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Over 1,700 teams enter the challenge, so to reach the national final is an incredible achievement in itself. As our boys scored a total of 187 points out of 214, it was very clearly a closely fought competition.

“The team were building on an impressive record of achievement in recent years: last year, QE placed 11th and in 2017 we took 17th place.”

Captain Ansh Jassra, of Year 9, and his team of Maxwell Johnson (Year 8), Arnie Sahi (Year 9) and Nishant Sahoo (Year 8) competed against some of the country’s most famous schools, such as Eton College, who came second behind the winners, Bancroft’s School, from Essex.

Ansh said: “It was a really fun day out with lots of challenge. We loved working as a team and it was a memorable experience.”

The event, which was run by the UK Mathematics Trust, consisted of five rounds.

The poster round had a theme of Straight Edge and Compass Constructions, which allowed the pupils to investigate high-level geometry such as Euclid’s postulates, constructing regular polygons (and determining which ones can be constructed).

The activity rounds were:

• Group circus, which involved working on practical Mathematics problems
• Relay race, demanding a combination of physical speed across the room and mental speed in solving mathematical problems
• Crossnumber, the mathematical equivalent of a crossword
• Shuttle, which was a series of mini relays against the clock.