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Year 13 pupil Niam Vaishnav won one of the UK’s two silver medals at the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad in Beijing.

His performance during the fiercely fought competition put him in the top third of the competitors, placing Niam among the world’s foremost young astrophysicists.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I congratulate Niam on his achievement and on the honour he has brought both to the School and to the country. He combined deep understanding and extensive factual knowledge with profound academic curiosity, thus exemplifying the free-thinking scholarship that we seek to cultivate at QE.

“While he is undoubtedly a talented young man, his success is the result of a great deal of hard work and he should therefore be very proud of his medal.”

Royal Astronomical Society Vice President Charles Barclay also congratulated the UK competitors: “This year the competition was particularly tough…and we are delighted with the result from this young team of five 17-year-olds.”

Although he enjoyed the competition itself, Niam says the highlights of the visit for him were meeting people from around the world who shared a common interest in astronomy. “We had lots of fun learning about our different cultures and exchanging card games! We also had the chance to see landmarks in China, such as the Great Wall, which was an amazing experience.”

Niam won his place on the five-strong national team after excelling at the British Astronomy & Astrophysics Training Camp at Oxford at Easter. His subsequent training included a spell at Marlborough College’s observatory.

He travelled with British delegates to Beijing, where he teamed up with other competitors from countries spanning the globe, including Nepal, Greece, Poland, Canada, Bolivia and Singapore. Niam and his fellow competitors stayed in the mountains near to the Great Wall.

The competition involved four tests: a five-hour theory examination, a five-hour data-analysis examination, a one-hour daytime observation round and a ten-minute night-time observation round, during which competitors could use telescopes. There was also a separate team competition in which Niam joined six people from different countries.

“The problems were tough but very interesting, with topics ranging from cosmology and dark matter to binary stars and the energy output of the sun,” he said. “Our knowledge of the sky was also tested: we were asked to recognise constellations and Messier objects [a set of 110 astronomical objects, of which 103 were included in lists published by 18th-century French astronomer Charles Messier].”

The aspects of the competition itself that stood out most for him were the questions looking into the evolution of the universe and of large-scale structures within it, as well as those which sought to answer the “big questions”, exploring the nexus at which elements of physics and philosophy merge.

The UK won two silver medals and received two ‘honourable mentions’. For a gold medal, a score of 78% was needed, for silver it was 68%, for bronze 56% and for an ‘honourable mention’ 44%.

“Overall it was an amazing experience that I will never forget, and I have made some lifelong friends from many different countries.”

Niam has already started the process for the Physics Olympiad competition next year, with Round 1 already complete, and Round 2 taking place in January.

The inaugural Christmas Gift Fayre run by The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s successfully got QE’s 2018 festive season off to an early start.

With almost 30 stalls selling an immensely diverse range of gifts to suit all budgets, the fayre offered extensive opportunities to stock up early on presents for Christmas and other forthcoming occasions. It was very well supported by School parents past and present – including many parents of the new Year 7 boys – as well as staff, alumni and neighbouring residents.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a splendid event at which we were tremendously encouraged to see our Elizabethan community and local residents come together to support each other and the School. My thanks go to everyone in the FQE whose sterling work made the fayre such a success.”

As well as some well-known national brands, there were many local businesses among the stallholders. Their wares included:

• Various types of jewellery, such as costume, chainmail and beaded
• Magic toys
• Children’s books
• Work from London artists and a wildlife photographer
• Knitwear and girls’ dresses
• Woodturning items
• Crystals and fossils
• Italian food gifts
• Skin care, beauty and pamper products
• Handmade handbags and purses.

Mulled wine and other seasonal treats were offered at the refreshments stall. For children, there was face-painting and also the opportunity to pay a visit to the Elf Grotto, where they could enjoy arts & crafts activities and write a letter to Santa.

In addition, the current QE Year 10 Young Enterprise team had a stall to raise funds for their business, where guests were invited to take part in guessing games, such as estimating the weight of a cake or the number of sweets in a jar. The team are developing an educational app as their business product.

A long-established organisation, FQE’s aims include helping new parents ensure their sons are happy and that they rapidly integrate into the School. In addition, the Friends facilitate social relationships between families, while also raising funds for the School in order to enrich the educational experience it provides.

With questions ranging from “Which part of the body completely renews itself every four days?” * to “George Orwell wrote ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’; on which waterway is the pier located?” ** this year’s FQE quiz night proved to be a popular and successful evening.

The quiz followed its traditional format, with rounds on subjects including geography, history and music, as well as a marathon round based around the number four. There were also speciality rounds on the human body (entitled The doctor will see you now) and on awards and honours, as well as an observation round, a Heads and Tails game and a raffle.

In a current affairs round, guests were asked to which song the Prime Minister took to the stage at this year’s Conservative Party Conference. As stated above, the answer is Dancing Queen, by Abba.

For their supper, guests could choose either fish and chips or vegetable curry.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and I want to thank all those involved in both organising and running the occasion. The FQE undertake regular events such as this to raise money which goes towards adding to the resources on offer to our boys.”

The organising team included former QE parents Peter and Karen Forrester, who are on the FQE Executive Committee, their son William, FQE Secretary Diane Mason and her husband, George. William Forrester (OE 2009–2016) came to attend the quiz from Sheffield, where he is in his third year reading Aerospace Engineering.

The winning team was a table of Year 11 parents including the FQE Executive’s Lead Parent Ambassadors, Rekha Essex (mother of Zeke) and Anna Westcott (mother of Hugh).

Answers:
* The stomach lining
** The Leeds & Liverpool Canal

After graduating from Cambridge in 2013, Charlie Scutt has gone on to build a successful career with a company dedicated to meeting the needs of economic migrants worldwide.

Charlie (OE 2003–2010) works for London-based Lebara, where he relishes his “funky” role as a Scrum Master & Delivery Manager. The company is known principally as a telecommunications company, although Charlie’s work has mainly been in its money transfer business.

While at university, he was Girton College Cricket Club First XI captain. He has continued playing since, and three years ago made the move from his childhood club, Potters Bar CC, to the thriving Old Elizabethans CC, where he is a wicketkeeper. He is pictured here (back row, far right) with the current Old Elizabethans First XI. The vice captain (Front Row, Second from the right) is OE Paul Lissowski, who was in the year above Charlie.

“I left QE in 2010 to study Geography at Cambridge, and without the support and guidance from the School – in particular Mr Enright [now Headmaster Neil Enright] and Mrs Macdonald [now Assistant Head Anne Macdonald] – that certainly wouldn’t have been possible,” says Charlie. “The reason I chose to do Geography was quite simply it was the subject I enjoyed the most.

“I like the fact that Geography covers a very diverse range of areas and have always seen myself as somewhat of a ‘generalist’. Choosing it for my degree made perfect sense as it gave me the flexibility to continue learning about a breadth of topics. I certainly didn’t have my future career in mind at this point and by no means had my future planned out (or even do to this day if I’m totally honest!). My goal has always been to try to do what I enjoy, but make sure I do it to the best of my ability!

“My three years in Cambridge were brilliant and I particularly enjoyed the college system whereby your college acts almost as your family away from home. Whilst the academic side of Cambridge was undoubtedly tough it was hugely rewarding, and it wasn’t all work.

“There was more than enough time to have a great social life and play a lot of sport. I played football (badly!) for my college and also played cricket for the university in my second and third years, mainly for the university Second XI although I did manage one appearance for the Cambridge University Blues (First XI) in my final year.”

Charlie is pictured here, fourth from left, with a group of OEs who went to Cambridge with him. They arranged this reunion dinner in 2013, when he was in his third year.

“After leaving Cambridge I was none-the-wiser on where I wanted to go career-wise, so spent the summer trying to navigate the baffling world of graduate jobs!” After receiving offers from a number of companies, he eventually decided to join Lebara on a six-month internship, choosing the company because it offered a broad role which suited his generalist mindset. “It turned out to be quite a good decision as I’m still there five years later!”

Throughout that time he has fulfilled a number of roles for the telecoms company. “Alongside the ability to call home, one of the next most significant needs of, in particular, economic migrants is the ability to send money home. From this idea, Lebara Money was born. Working as part of the Lebara Money team was a great experience as, whilst Lebara is a large established company, the Money team always acted as a semi-autonomous business unit; a ‘start-up’ within a larger organisation and, in my opinion, the best of both worlds.

“The goal was to provide an easy and secure way to send money home online, via web or mobile app. I worked on this product for four-and-a-half years, starting off in Operations Management (helping to manage customer services, fraud prevention, minor maintenance updates to the website etc) before transitioning into Project Management.

“I have increasingly focused on the technology aspects of the business though Delivery Management and (the funkily named) Scrum Mastering. This latest role essentially involves managing the end-to-end delivery of all ‘technology’ elements of the business. Having not come from a typical ‘tech’ background, this was an interesting challenge, but one I thoroughly enjoyed.

“I particularly enjoy the ‘Scrum Master’ element, which essentially means managing your team in a manner whereby, rather than planning all the details of a project months or years in advance, you break everything down into small iterations and focus solely on what needs to be done over the next week or two. At the end of each iteration (referred to as a ‘sprint’) you then review what you have built and your original goals, then adapt your goals for the next ‘sprint’ based on what you have learned from the previous one. This ensures continuous learning, greater ability to adapt to change and ultimately a more agile team than you would have using traditional long-term project management methodologies where the end goal – perhaps a year or more down the line – is defined on day 1.

“Methodologies such as ‘scrum’, which focus on making a team more agile, have now become the go-to way of managing software development teams across most industries, with everyone from banks to video game developers looking to roll it out (with varying degrees of success!).

“I would never have expected my career to have evolved in the way it has and it certainly shows you don’t need to do Computer Science, Software Engineering or another ‘tech’-focused degree to end up working in the technology sector.”

Outside of work, his decision to switch to Old Elizabethans CC has, he says, proved to be a fruitful one, as “two promotions in three years see the First XI playing the highest level of cricket in the club’s history”. Charlie is pictured here, back row centre, in his Year 7 cricket photo at QE.

“The club also runs highly successful Second, Third and Sunday XIs, alongside a flourishing Colts setup for kids aged 11-17, which means there are opportunities regardless of your age or ability. I’d encourage any cricketers at QE to consider joining Old Elizabethans CC as it offers a perfect opportunity for students to supplement the coaching they receive at School. It also provides the chance to continue playing regular cricket after the School season finishes each year in early July and then even into their adult life once they have left QE.”

All pupils in Years 7–10, staff and some senior boys joined together in the Shearly Hall for a special remembrance assembly to mark the centenary of the Armistice in 1918.

The Headmaster, Neil Enright, read aloud the names of the 48 Old Elizabethans killed during World War I, whilst the names of the 65 who died in World War II were projected on to a screen.

The ceremony featured music, poetry and a procession by the School’s Combined Cadet Force (CCF). The silence at 11 o’clock was heralded by six of QE’s senior trumpeters sounding the Last Post; they played Reveille to signal the end of the silence.

The two-minute silence was also observed separately by Years 11–13, although many were in fact involved in the assembly, whether as readers, musicians or members of the CCF.

At the end of the assembly, the CCF contingent marched with the commemorative wreath to the War Memorial located in the Crush Hall, where it was placed.

The Headmaster said afterwards: “This remembrance assembly was a fitting commemoration. It is important for the boys to understand fully the significance of this centenary and to reflect upon the service and sacrifice rendered by their forebears.”

In an address to the assembly, Old Elizabethan and Governor Ken Cooper (1942-50), a former officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, charted the course of the war, making clear the scale of the conflict and its great cost. He explained how the emergence of trench warfare on the Western Front led to combat that lasted for months and years yet resulted in minimal or no territorial gains for either side.

Prior to the introduction of conscription in 1916, some 2.5m Britons had volunteered to fight. Participants from many nations sacrificed themselves in the service of the greater good of their communities and home countries. And although there were, of course, many instances of heroism, Mr Cooper said World War I was less about such individual acts than about the huge numbers of ordinary people making the ultimate personal sacrifice in service. He spoke about the importance of remembering, quoting Churchill’s maxim: “A nation that forgets its past has no future,”, which he related to the boys’ understanding of the School’s own history.

The assembly, which took place on Friday, was organised and compèred by English teacher, Micah King, an Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor. He began with these words: “Welcome to this assembly to commemorate Remembrance Day. In almost exactly 48 hours’ time, it will be the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month.

“At that time, 100 years ago, the First World War finally came to an end. It was an Armistice, a peace agreement, signed a few hours earlier in a railway carriage in France, that ended four long years of hostilities. Millions had died. Millions more were wounded. And even those who did not directly take part in the fighting, had to endure heartache and grief, as men and women from around the globe fought, and suffered, and died; and the world changed forever.

“Yet amidst the suffering, heroes on both sides of the battlefield risked their lives and safety for their countries. Incredible acts of courage, dedication and service were witnessed both on the battlefield and on the home front, and today, we will remember and honour those who sacrificed so much for so many.”

The assembly featured:

• A recording of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s reflective 1978 piece, Spiegel im Spiegel
• A poem written especially for the occasion by sixth-former Rivu Chowdhury
• School Captain Aashish Khimasia recounting the heroic actions on the battlefield in 1917 that led to Old Elizabethan Acting Captain Allastair McReady-Diarmid being posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross
• The Senior Wind Ensemble performing John William’s Hymn to the Fallen, conducted by Year 13 pupil Binu Perera
• Binu then reading perhaps the most famous single poem from the extensive World War I corpus, John McCrae’s In Flanders Field
• The Barbershop Group performing the hymn, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, during which a scene from the film, Atonement, was shown, which captured a moment on the Dunkirk beaches in 1940.

Before the retiring procession to the accompaniment of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Mr King said that if the boys would use their “gifts and talents as leaders to share the message of peace, then that would fill me with a deep sense of hope and optimism for the future”.

The assembly concluded with the School Prayer, which includes the following supplication: “Inspire us, O Lord, so to do our work today that, even as we are being helped by the remembrance of the loyal lives of those who came before us, so our faithfulness in thy service may aid those who shall take our places.”