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It is beginning to look and sound a lot like Christmas at QE…with the School community gathering for the annual Christmas Concert.

The event featured a broad range of festive performances, from the traditional Coventry Carol to the considerably more modern Harry Potter Symphonic Suite.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a very enjoyable evening, with strong performances showcasing the considerable strength and depth of musical interest and talent at the School.

“There were a number of highlights, from the Symphonic Winds stirring performance of Cantique de Noel and the stylish playing of the Saxophone Ensemble of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year to the Barbershop’s unusual and very comedic version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

The event was presented in association with the Barnet Rotary Club, a partnership which has endured for many years, and was well supported by QE families, staff, governors, and a number of Old Elizabethans, as well as guests associated with the Rotary Club. The School also welcomed The Deputy Mayor of the London Borough of Barnet, Councillor Caroline Stock, and her husband, Dr Richard Stock, who is himself an Old Elizabethan.

Mr Jim McCarthy, President of the Barnet Rotary Club, welcomed the guests and spoke of some of the local charitable causes the club supports, including the Noah’s Ark Hospice and a Christmas Day party for the elderly.

The concert then began with All I want for Christmas is you from the Year 12 Ensemble, followed by O Come, All Ye Faithful, for which the audience were invited to join in the singing. The Senior Indian Ensemble performed Sabhapathiku; their performance was followed by Mr Santa from the B Minors. Have yourself a merry little Christmas from the Chamber Choir led into the interval, during which mince pies were offered to the guests and the traditional Rotary Club raffle was drawn.

The concert ended with the traditional carol, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, in which the audience again participated.

This concert, along with the traditional Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at the parish church, is one of the two major musical events of the season.

Two QE sixth-formers scored maximum marks in this year’s UK Senior Maths Challenge.

Bashmy Basheer and Nico Puthu, of Year 13, both scored 125 out of 125, earning themselves jointly the Best in School title. They were amongst 39 QE boys to receive gold certificates – up from 33 last year.

A further 55 boys were awarded silver, and 29 bronze. The top 40% of participants in the competition are awarded gold, silver and bronze certificates in the ratio 1:2:3.

The Best in Year 12 title went to Suvir Rathore, who scored 102.

Nine boys, including Bashmy, Nico and Suvir, have qualified for the British Mathematical Olympiad and a further 30 go through to the competition’s other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo. To qualify for the Olympiad, candidates must score at least 102 points, while for the Kangaroo, they need at least 83 points.

Nico said: “There were lots of geometry questions, which I found really interesting to solve.”

Congratulating the successful competitors, Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Many of the boys who have qualified through to the follow-on rounds have been members of QE’s Élite Maths group for a number of years and are now passing on their experience and wisdom through mentoring students in Years 9 to 11.”

• Sample question:
  The positive integer 2018 is the product of two primes. What is the sum of these two primes?
  A 1001 B 1010 C 1011 D1100 E 1101
  Answer:
  2 + 1009 = 1011 so C

A QE old boy treated a group of Year 12 historians to an expert curator’s perspective when they visited the World War I centenary exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (IWM).

Ian Kikuchi (OE 1997-2004) is an historian at the museum who curated its exhibition commemorating the centenary of the Armistice. He took the boys on a tour of the exhibits and talked about his career and the IWM.

The exhibition itself addressed the main issues of the war, from why it started, to what life was really like in the trenches, and the role of women.

Head of History Helen MacGregor said: “It was a great exhibition and a doubly-rewarding visit. History is an abstract subject, so it was fascinating to hear from Ian both about the war and about the decisions made as to what to actually exhibit and the complexities of such a massive undertaking. The boys particularly enjoyed hearing how the tank and planes were moved into the museum – which involved removing ceilings.”

Mr Kikuchi, who took a BA in War Studies from King’s, answered questions after the tour. “The boys really enjoyed hearing how he progressed from working in the IWM’s HMS Belfast shop (while he was at university), to becoming the world expert on aspects of the war in Burma in World War II,” said Miss MacGregor.

A QE team has reached the national final of the prestigious Top of the Bench chemistry competition after winning their regional round.

Amogh Bhartia and Heemy Kalam, of Year 9, Bikiran Behera, from Year 10, and Year 11’s Hari Gajendran won first prize in the Chilterns and Middlesex Region to secure their place at the final in the spring, where they will compete against the UK’s best-performing schools.

Chemistry teacher Charani Dharmawardhane said: “The boys led consistently throughout the competition; they had trained for weeks and their efforts certainly paid off.”

Top of the Bench is an annual event organised by The Royal Society of Chemistry. As well as providing pupils in Key Stages 3 and 4 with an opportunity to compete against each other, it also presents them with scientific challenges which take them beyond the confines of the curriculum. Its stated aim is to “encourage and reward high achievement in chemistry”.

The hour-long regional competition at St Benedict’s School in Ealing comprised nine rounds. The boys had to work together and apply their knowledge as creatively as possible. The questions ranged from naming compounds to knowing which former British Prime Minister read Chemistry at university (Margaret Thatcher).

From Leonardo da Vinci to Stephen Hawking, this year’s entries to QE’s Science House competition covered a full gamut of top scientists across the ages.

Participants were required to research eminent and unusual scientists and produce a poster. First prize went to Year 7’s Hadi Al-Esia, from Stapylton House, who chose the brilliant, but slightly lesser-known, Nikola Tesla.

“This year we had 25 excellent entries,” said Biology teacher Melanie Haj Hussein. “The competition was open to boys in Years 7 and 8, and the standard was very high. We were very impressed with the effort they had put in. Not only had they chosen interesting scientists, but they had presented the information in creative and engaging ways.”

Hadi’s choice, the Austrian-American scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla, was born in what is modern-day Croatia in 1856, but emigrated to America in his early twenties to work at the Edison Machine Works in New York. He worked there for a brief period before striking out on his own and developing the Alternating Current (AC) induction motor and related AC patents.

Hadi’s fact-packed poster featured ‘electric’-style silver writing against a dark-blue background and also used visual effects related to the electricity theme, including a lightning flash and an image of the globe incorporated into a light bulb.

His poster and those of the runners-up, Omar Hashmi, Chanakya Seetharam, Theo Moses and Advik Balaji, all from Year 7, are being displayed in the Science Department.