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With dark winter journeys having often now become part of their daily routine, QE’s Year 7 learned some vital lessons about road safety through an innovative drama performance.

The specially tailored play and workshop by the visiting theatre company, The Riot Act, were arranged as part of the boys’ Personal Development Time programme.

Head of Year 7 David Ryan said: “For many of the boys, this year is the first time they have travelled to and from school independently. It is important that they are aware of the dangers of traffic and know how to keep themselves safe.”

The Riot Act was established six years ago by Dan Hobson, a professional scriptwriter and lecturer, and Ellen Casey, who is a teacher. The company deliver tailored dramas and workshops to fit in with curriculum requirements, whilst aiming to engage and entertain their audiences.

“The boys enjoyed the humorous play, which nevertheless contained serious messages,” said Mr Ryan.

After the drama they had an opportunity to reflect on what they had seen in the interactive workshop.

“These messages cannot be repeated often enough to boys of this age,” added Mr Ryan. “Particularly in the winter months when it is so much darker, they need to be vigilant to keep themselves safe on their journeys.”

With topics that included a second Brexit referendum, a joint Year 8 debating symposium with a leading girls’ school looked sure to be lively – and so it proved.

The joint event with The Henrietta Barnett School drew intelligent, engaging contributions from all sides, reported Nisha Mayer, Head of QE’s Academic Enrichment

Motions put forward at the symposium ranged from This House believes driverless cars will make driving safer to This House believes there should be a second referendum on Brexit.

Around 70 pupils from the two schools took part in the event, which followed the Extended Mace format. (Mace is the name of a famous schools debating competition run by the English-Speaking Union). This style involves three pairs of proposers and opposers; two from each side make their case and respond before a floor debate. The last pairing then draw the threads of the debate together to make a final case.

The participants were given 30 minutes to research their topics and prepare their arguments before the debates took place. The six best debaters were selected from across all the debates to participate in a final surprise debate at the end of the day. This was on the motion, This House believes that there should be a tax on meat. The finalists were given 20 minutes to get themselves ready.

Mrs Mayer said: “The event was a fantastic success. The finalists were debating at the level of Year 9 or even Year 10 debaters. The floor debate was particularly engaging, too. Events such as this are important because they aid the boys’ oracy and thinking skills, while enabling them to socialise with pupils of similar ability from a girls’ school.”

Boys were shocked to discover how much money is deducted at source when they learned how to decipher a payslip in a financial capability workshop, reported Head of Pupil Development Sarah Westcott.

The Year 8 boys also learned about the types of bank account they could access both now and in the future, as well as finding out about the importance of budgeting.

The exercise which saw them analysing a payslip to work out how much salary is deducted and for what purpose was particularly enjoyable, notwithstanding the shock it brought, Dr Westcott said. “Many of them expressed surprise at how much is taken before you even get paid!”

Further tasks then required the boys to think about different kinds of debt – what is a ’good’ debt, such as a mortgage, and what is a ‘bad’ debt, such as a store card or payday loan.

The event was organised with leading international and UK bank HSBC. It took place during one of the boys’ Personal Development Time (PDT) sessions. PDT lies at the heart of QE’s comprehensive pastoral support system and is focused on making pupils ‘confident and responsible’, in line with the School’s mission. All boys receive 90 minutes of PDT each week.

Besides learning about personal finance, there was another purpose in holding the workshop, Dr Westcott explained: “The event was part of a wider strategy at School to encourage more employers to come in to talk to students to provide a balanced careers perspective.”

A QE boy’s correct answer to an outlandish numerical and scientific challenge won him a prize during a show aimed at inspiring young mathematicians.

Aryan Shrivastava correctly calculated that 7.5 million tins of Alphabetti Spaghetti would be needed to list the entire human genome, netting him a signed copy of Helen Pilcher’s book, Bring Back the King, which looks at the science that makes the resurrection of extinct animals a real possibility.

Helen, a scientist, comedian and writer for the science magazine, Nature, was the host for The Maths Inspiration Show at London’s Piccadilly Theatre, which was attended by around 60 Year 11 boys from QE.

She explored the distribution of letters found in a tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti. Her hypothesis was that there should be a strong correlation between the letters found in a tin and the occurrence of letters in the English language. In fact, the scatter graph she produced showed no correlation, nor did others for different languages, reported Mathematics teacher Phillip Brady.

Mr Brady said that Hugh Hunt, who is a lecturer at Cambridge University “put us all in a spin discussing the motion of balls, wheels and tops. He demonstrated how the gyroscopic effect can be used to rotate spacecraft and described why boomerangs come back (as well as demonstrating his boomerang-throwing skills).”

And he added that added that another speaker, Ben Sparks, who visited QE last year to speak to Year 10, took inspiration from Sting’s song, Shape of my Heart (about a poker player) to discuss some probability “whilst warning us of the perils of gambling. He was safe in his bet that in a random selection of 60 of the audience of 15 to 17 year-olds: there was at least one pair who shared a birthday.”

Matt Parker, who describes himself as a “stand-up mathematician”, related some of the mathematical errors set out in his book, Humble Pi. Some, he said, were simply amusing or embarrassing, such as McDonalds miscounting the combinations of meal deals and Pepsi underestimating the value of a fighter plane. However, he pointed out that some other mistakes he had come across could have more serious consequences, such as an aeroplane running out of fuel because the wrong units had been used to fill the tanks.

Afterwards, the pupils reflected on their favourite speakers of the day. Priyan Solanki said: “Hugh Hunt’s demonstration of the gyroscopic precession was very interesting.” (Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body.) Harrishan Kangatheepan enjoyed Matt Parker’s explanation of how our minds can deceive us, especially with enormous numbers such as a trillion, while Ridwan Khan’s interest was piqued by Ben Sparks, from whom he learned aspects of probability that were new to him.

While the School’s actors impressed their local audience as they took on Henry V for a second consecutive year, at a national level the Shakespeare Schools Festival also turned the spotlight on QE as part of its 18th anniversary celebrations.

Year 13’s Rahil Shah, who took the title role, and QE’s now-retired former Drama Director Elaine White both featured as case studies in this year’s national Shakespeare Schools Festival programme booklet, with both praising the benefits of Shakespeare in shaping young people’s lives.

Following Mrs White’s retirement, for the first time the School’s production was delivered in partnership with the Rough Magicke drama school. Rough Magicke’s teacher, Gavin Molloy, prepared and directed the boys, from the initial day of auditions with 60 young hopefuls right through to the final performance at the ArtsDepot in Finchley with a cast of 30.

QE English teacher and Extra-Curricular Enrichment Tutor Micah King said: “Our Henry V was really moving – and particularly the battle scene between the English and French troops, performed in an emotional and visually stunning way with most of the cast on stage. I thought the students were a real credit to the School, and tribute should be paid to Gavin Molloy who worked exceptionally hard with the students to help them create a wonderful performance of Shakespeare.”

Supporting the cast was Year 12’s Arjun Patel, who was in charge of lighting and sound.

The other schools performing their abridged versions of plays on the same night at the ArtsDepot were Alexandra Park School, with Romeo and Juliet, Friern Barnet School, who took on Macbeth, and West Lea School, who performed The Tempest.

In the national programme, Rahil said: “The festival gives young people the opportunity to come together to be part of a cast and express themselves on stage, allowing them to build their confidence and be part of a team regardless of age, what they study and their other interests.

“Leading on from that, what is also important to stress is that SSF is not only for people that want to pursue the performing arts in the future as a career; it is for everyone.

“Personally, I hope to do computer science at university, but still appreciate the fact that SSF has allowed me to perform Shakespeare and take part in drama in my free time. It provides something different to my academic aspirations, and offers a balance that I think is both crucial and beneficial.”

For her part, Mrs White wrote: “I would have to say that my #BreakthroughShakespeare [an SSF hashtag for its 18th anniversary] moments are seeing young people overcome personal barriers to perform on stage. For instance, some students who initially lacked confidence in speaking were able to succeed in academic interviews. For others, the discipline of learning lines helped them with memorising, which in turn supported them with their studies. I’ve seen what a positive impact SSF has had on so many students that it would be difficult to single out just one!

“SSF to me means happy students…excitement and memories that will last a lifetime. Enjoyment which I know they take with them into student life.”

Boys have now begun rehearsals for next term’s School Play production of Lord of the Flies.