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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.

QE’s Young Enterprise group combined fun competitions and festive sales with some serious market research when they took part in Barnet Christmas Fayre.

The Year 10 boys participated in the popular seasonal event as part of the Barnet Teenage Market – a new attraction at the fair this year. Teenage Market is a national initiative that aims to give young people a free platform to showcase their creative talents.

Team member Shounak Pal said: “Throughout the day we were able to sell to visitors and gain invaluable experience.”

The Year 10 Reflex team sold Christmas essentials such as tinsel, wrapping paper and Christmas tree decorations. They also ran three competitions, showing visitors containers and challenging them to guess the number of candy canes and wine gums in their respective jars, as well as the weight of a tin of biscuits.

Academic Enrichment Tutor Lucy Riseborough said: “The competitions were very popular, generating a good profit for the team. They also managed to sell most of their Christmas stock on the day.”

During the event, Reflex also conducted market research into their current physical product, which is a vocabulary flashcard game complementing their educational app.

Among the other stallholders were a Young Enterprise team from The Henrietta Barnett School.
Shilacshan Lingakumar, of the QE team, said: “We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and found it a great opportunity to sell, and to check out the opposition!”

• The team can be followed on Twitter and Instagram: search for ye_reflex

Sixth-former Dylan Vekaria has been awarded a prestigious engineering scholarship with the RAF after successfully negotiating a rigorous selection progress.

Year 12’s Dylan received his Arkwright Engineering Scholarship, which is funded by the RAF Charitable Trust, from Group Captain Tony Keeling at a special ceremony at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, based in central London.

The Arkwright Scholarship Trust is a charity which aims to identify talented, potential top engineers, and to encourage them to pursue the subject at university. The scholarships themselves are awarded to high-ability students to support them through their Sixth Form studies. Every scholarship is sponsored by a commercial company, trade association, university, professional institution, armed service, government organisation or charitable trust.

Under the scheme, the pupil is awarded £600 while a further £400 goes to the School:  QE will spend it on resources and equipment. The scholarship runs over two years and is reviewed at the end of the first year.

Dylan, who is pictured with RAF Charitable Trust Director Justine Morton, can now benefit from hands-on work experience and support for curriculum projects, as well as the opportunity to be linked to a personal mentor.

Technology teacher Tony Green, who accompanied Dylan to the ceremony, said: “Dylan has done very well to secure this scholarship and the certificate rightly recognises his ‘outstanding potential as a future leader in Engineering’.”

Applicants are required to take a rigorous online aptitude test, lasting for two hours. After passing this Dylan had to attend a 20-minute interview before being matched with a sponsoring organisation – in his case the RAF.

The Arkwright Scholarships were established in 1991. The charity was named after the 18th Century engineer, Sir Richard Arkwright (1732–1792), who perfected the water frame and who is widely regarded as the father of the modern factory system.

For the first time ever, a QE team qualified for the prestigious Empire Mock Trial competition in New York, where they pitted their legal knowledge and courtroom acumen against some of the world’s finest young debaters.

The seven-strong Sixth Form team won their place after QE’s strong performance in the national finals in the UK Bar Mock Trial competition last academic year.

In New York XII (other Empire Mock Trial events are held in San Francisco and Atlanta), the QE boys achieved very close results against all the schools they faced and won one case, although the team was not among the overall winners. Most of the competing schools were from the USA. Empire Mock Trial also invites teams with a proven record of success from Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Korea and the UK to take part.

Congratulating the seven on their trail-blazing achievement, Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a very exciting opportunity for the boys involved and I know they seized the chance to interact with gifted young people from the US. Their success will no doubt inspire and motivate those in this year’s UK competition to give of their best and attempt to reach a similar stage again.”

Academic Enrichment Tutor Lucy Riseborough said the competition was a test of both ability and mental stamina. “Whilst similar to the UK version and drawing on similar skills (such as analysing and synthesising information, developing lines of questioning and argument, applying legal principles, learning procedures, effective communication and oracy) the Empire Mock Trial is based on the US courts system. The boys not only had to grapple with case files running to hundreds of pages (witness statements ran to 3,000 words each), but had to learn the different ‘objections’ to utilise (and defend themselves against) in the courtroom. With the ability of attorneys to choose which witnesses are called, the boys had to learn and prepare a lot of information that they would not, in fact, end up using; selecting the right information to deploy, and when, was therefore crucial.

“Each trial lasted about three hours and they were very ‘full-on’ – the boys had to be constantly thinking on their feet in challenging circumstances.

“More importantly, though, in many ways was the fact that the boys formed friendships and met lovely people from other countries – really benefiting from working with those from different educational and cultural backgrounds.”

The QE team were: Kieran Dhrona, Haider Jabir, Viraj Mehta and Saifullah Shah, all of Year 12, and Year 13’s Nathan Chu, Mipham Samtem, and Anake Singh.

Their preparations prior to flying to the US included a session alongside Chelmsford Girls’ Grammar School, during which lawyers advocated being bold with the use of objections.

Within the QE team there were four attorneys and three witnesses. The attorneys all both prosecuted and defended (depending on which side of the case QE had been allocated) and shared each case out between them.

“We faced four different schools across the competition, with incredibly close results in all of them – including against the American schools much more familiar with the particulars of the format,” said Miss Riseborough. “QE won the final case, with a very strong defence team – Mipham Samtem even managing to quote from The Great Gatsby when in full flow – although they were, in fact, praised by the judges throughout, with them commenting that they would never have known they were from a non-American school, such was their knowledge and grip on the procedures of the US court format.”

The case the trials dealt with was set in a fictional state called ‘Empirion’ and involved a hate crime against a member of the native people called ‘Empirions’. There was a protest by the Empirions who wanted a colonial statue taken down, with a counter-demonstration taking place by those arguing it should remain. Harry, an Empirion, approached Tommy Abel (member of the counter-demonstration), who was shouting offensive slogans through a loud-hailer. An incident occurred which led to Harry being hit with the loud-hailer and then supposedly kicked when on the ground. Tommy’s defence was that he had acted in self-defence initially, and he denied then kicking Harry when the latter was on the ground.

The case touched on the complexities around self-defence arguments, as well as on topical societal issues in relation to free speech and hate crimes. “There is, of course, a movement on both sides of the Atlantic arguing for the removal of supposedly colonialist symbols – such as the ‘Rhodes must fall’ campaign begun in Oxford – with the issues much-debated and hotly-contested,” said Miss Riseborough.

As well as arguing the substantive charges, there were side debates (a pre-trial oral debate with the judge) around First Amendment rights. The judges were typically experienced attorneys.

During their trip, the QE boys took the opportunity to do some sight-seeing, notwithstanding the freezing temperatures and the snow that heralded their arrival. After dinner on the first evening, they went to Times Square, whilst the following morning they walked around Central Park in the snow. On the last day they went up the Empire State building to take in the view and also visited Grand Central Station.

Reflecting on the experience afterwards, Mipham said: “The Empire competition is a truly international experience that all the members of our team greatly enjoyed and were honoured to be a part of. We felt we represented what Britain has to offer on the world stage: confident, capable individuals with open minds and buckets of enthusiasm.”

His teammate, Saifullah, added: “Empire afforded us both the chance to sharpen our legal acumen within the courtroom and to expand our horizons outside of it. It was a truly pleasant experience to compete on an international stage and share thoughts with fellow students from all around the world. We would like to give a special thanks to Wando High School from South Carolina, who were exceedingly kind to us throughout the competition.”

Communication and teamwork skills as well as mathematical ability were key requirements at the regional round of the Senior Team Maths Challenge.

The four-strong QE team scored 164 points out of a possible 172 in the closely fought event hosted by City of London School.

Representing QE in the competition run by the UK Mathematics Trust and the FMSP (Further Mathematics Support Programme) were Edward Hu, Bhavesh Patel, Suvir Rathore and Saruthan Seelan, all from Year 12.

The competition offers pupils an alternative way to express and develop their enjoyment of Mathematics, as well as developing teamwork and communication.

There were three rounds:

• In the Group round, ten questions had to be solved in 40 minutes
• In the Crossnumber, one pair of competitors was given the across clues and the other pair the down clues, although several clues were interlinked
• In the Shuttle, pairs answered questions alternately, with the answer to the previous question providing crucial information for the following one.

The QE team came sixth out of the 30 teams who had entered. First place went to Highgate School, second to Dame Alice Owen’s School and third to the hosting independent boys’ school.

Team captain Edward Hu said “We had a great day competing against and meeting other mathematicians. It was fun and we really enjoyed the Crossnumber, but were obviously disappointed not to progress further in the competition.”