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With well over 100 musicians performing, this summer’s major concert amply demonstrated the strength of Music at QE.

Entitled Into the Future, the event in the Shearly Hall featured 11 different ensembles, many of which played pieces with a futuristic theme.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was an enjoyable evening which showcased the ability of our musicians across a wide range of genres, from the Sinfonietta’s rendition of the famous Dr Who theme tune and the Junior Indian Ensemble’s performance of work by the 19th-century composer Ghanam Krishna Aiyyar to Friday Jazz’s playing of I wish I knew how it feels to be free, a song made famous by Nina Simone.”

“The theme of the evening was apt: with ever-increasing participation here and plans now in place for a new Music School, the future of Music at QE is bright.”

The Summer Orchestra began the concert with two pieces by the American composer, Leroy Anderson.

The biggest ensemble of the evening was the School Choir, involving some 70 boys, many of whom also performed as instrumentalists during the concert. They sang OneRepublic’s 2013 hit, Counting Stars, composed by Ryan Tedder. Also turning out in force were the Concert Band, who brought the evening to a close with the theme from The Incredibles, the 2004 animated film blockbuster.

The classical western repertoire was also in evidence, with the Celli playing Borodin’s Notturno from his String Quartet no. 2 in D and the String Quartet performing the Adagio from Mozart’s String Quartet no. 1 in G.

Queen Elizabeth’s School has been named the best boys’ school in the country in a guide which aims to give a more complete picture than league tables based only on examinations.

The Real Schools Guide seeks to give parents a good idea of which schools will help their child prosper, regardless of their background. It uses a wide range of measures including GCSE results, but also: pupil-teacher ratios; the proportion of leavers going into further or higher education and jobs, and the Government’s Progress 8 measure, which quantifies the progress children make between the end of primary school and their GCSE results.

Overall, QE came third in the guide’s 2018 list of top schools, which is headed by Wembley High Technology College, Brent, with Tauheedul Islam Girls’ High School in Blackburn, Lancashire, in second place. The rest of the top ten is dominated by grammar schools in the South East, including Wilson’s School in Sutton and The Tiffin Girls’ School, Kingston upon Thames.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “While our School always appears at or near the top of national league tables based purely on examination results, I am very pleased to see QE faring equally well in this guide based on a more holistic look at what schools do. As a selective school, we naturally have a very bright intake of pupils, but, as the Real Schools Guide shows, we then effectively challenge and stretch those boys so that they make the most of their potential.”

“It is interesting to note the prevalence of our fellow grammar schools in the top ten,” Mr Enright added.

Compiled by researchers from the data unit of Reach plc (the newspaper group formerly known as Trinity Mirror), the guide is based on a rating system using some 50 different measures, put together from the latest publicly available data and broken into four categories; attainment, progress, attendance, and outcomes.

Now in its sixth year, the Real Schools Guide has been praised by ministers and education experts alike. Former Schools Minister David Laws called it “public-service journalism in the best tradition”.

Having completed his English degree at Oxford, Surya Bowyer has spent the last year taking a Master’s at University College London and has now been nominated by UCL for a post at the Sorbonne.

Surya (OE 2007–2014) is in close contact with fellow QE alumni – “There’s a group of eight OEs that I have very regular contact with, and we have a tradition of going away together each summer,” – and he retains very fond memories of his School days. “I think one of the most important things QE taught me was to treat people with respect and never forget my manners. It’s a very useful life skill.”

In addition to the OEs he holidays with, Surya meets up with others from his year group “both by chance at university, and on purpose for intermittent catch-ups at the pub. As a year, we have a pretty large group of people who seem to be fond of each other, which I’m thankful for. Even when at a new university or stage of life, when you find yourself having to make new friends, it’s always nice to be able to also catch up with well-known faces every once in a while.”

After completing his BA at Keble College, Oxford, Surya wanted to branch out beyond English into more interdisciplinary work, so he chose UCL’s European Culture and Thought MA. “UCL has been great. There was a shift in teaching style and the shape of the workload, in that Oxford had us writing one of two shorter essays a week, whereas at UCL I had to complete two 6,000-word pieces of coursework each term. I found myself particularly enjoying the freedom to pursue more of my own interests in the MA,” Surya adds, though acknowledging that the critical reading skills he had developed at Oxford also proved indispensable.

He will work at the Sorbonne as a lecteur: UCL sends one person to Paris each year for this role which involves teaching undergraduate English majors at the Faculté des Lettres (also known as UFR). “I’m told they usually send doctoral research students, but somehow I got the nod,” says Surya.

He hopes to take advantage of the opportunity both to improve his French and to gain experience of lecturing at a university. “I’m seriously contemplating applying to do a PhD and trying to go into academia, and I think having the experience of teaching for a year will help me determine whether this is the career path I indeed want to pursue.”

Surya returned to QE last year to talk to Year 11 about the virtues of studying English at university and to conduct mock university interviews. Looking back to his own School days, he recalls with affection certain characteristic sights and sounds: “The noise of the atrium at lunchtime, with people constantly banging on lockers as they play cards or scramble to finish off some work, sticks in my mind.

“I particularly enjoyed my time in the Sixth Form, with the added responsibility and depth of work. The inter-house rugby and tug of war competitions also have a warm place in my memory, probably because Pearce often won.”

In his spare time today, Surya enjoys visiting museums and galleries, as well as going to the cinema and watching football.

“I think that if I do end up going into academia, it would be important to me that the work I do extends a little beyond the walls of the university. So, over the last few years I’ve also been attempting to improve my ability to write critically in a less academic context and tone.” Surya’s own website holds a collection of his published reviews and non-academic essays.

Economics Society guest speaker Lal Chadeesingh gave pupils an insider’s view of how behavioural economics is being applied to UK public policy – and explained that it all stemmed from the personal interest of David Cameron.

Lal works at the Behavioural Insights Team – a group that was the brainchild of former Prime Minister Cameron, who set it up under the Cabinet after reading the seminal book, Nudge. The team was later spun out into a company part-owned by the Government which now works to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Government measures.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a good opportunity for the boys to hear about a different side of Economics beyond finance, and to understand how economic theory can be used in the public interest.”

Year 12 pupil, Ibrahim Al-Hariri, added: ‘The talk introduced a part of Economics that is often overlooked; changing people’s behaviour for their benefit is a fascinating idea that I would love to explore.”

Lal, who read Economics at Durham before completing a Master’s degree in Economics and Public Policy at Bristol, introduced boys to the principles behind behavioural economics as described in Thinking Fast and Slow – another key work about this emerging discipline and one of the first books to introduce it to a wider public. The book contrasts two modes of thought: fast, which is automatic, intuitive and requires little to no effort, and slow, which is conscious, more deliberative and logical. While traditional assumptions among economists and policy-makers about the existence of homo-economicus (a purely rational decision-maker) take no account of this dichotomy, exponents of behavioural economics have used it to develop a theory of predictable irrationality.

The Behavioural Insights Team uses this understanding to tailor policies and their implementation so that they are more effective in generating the desired results, explained Lal, who began his career working in the Civil Service under the then-Business Secretary Vince Cable. It has condensed its guidance into a simple mnemonic, EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely), for policy-makers to keep in mind.

One assignment taken on by the team was reducing the number of people missing NHS appointments by looking at the wording of text messages sent out to patients. After testing various other forms of wording, they found that stating the material cost to the NHS of missing an appointment was the most effective, with a typical message reading:

• We are expecting you at Mile End Hospital on Sep 16 at 10:00am. Not attending costs NHS £160 approx. Call 02077673200 if you need to cancel or rearrange.

This change reduced missed appointments by 2.6% which, although a diminutive percentage, equates to 400,000 appointments nationwide.

Year 12 economist Mipham Samten said that, to some amusement from the boys, Lal also explained the theory behind painting a small fly on the back of lavatories – a small, subtle image getting men to focus on the task at hand and reducing the chances of spillages by a significant rate.

“Students were rather less amused by another novel application of the EAST framework on behaviour,” added Mipham. “The team had discovered that the effect of sending text messages to parents informing them their child will have an exam soon and asking them to encourage revision was to increase maths score grades by the equivalent of one month’s teaching.”

“Overall,” said Mipham, “Lal’s talk opened the students’ eyes to the numerous material benefits of Economics to the public and many expressed an interest in pursuing professional economics as a career.”

Year 12 boys got to grips with ethnography – the systematic study of people and cultures – and used modern mobile technology to help their research during a Geography field trip to East London.

The two days were arranged to help the sixth-formers prepare for their A-level independent investigation, which must be based on an issue related to Regenerating Places or Globalisation. The investigation makes up 20% of the A-level qualification.

Head of Geography Emily Parry said: “These two guided fieldwork days are carefully structured to assist the boys in selecting their chosen topic for investigation.”

The first day was spent in Stratford in Newham, where they explored how the area has changed since the 2012 Olympic Games. Day two was led by Kate Amis, Widening Participation Officer at Queen Mary University of London’s School of Geography. It began with a lecture about changes in East London, before the boys went out to conduct fieldwork around Brick Lane and Spitalfields, basing their research on investigating the question, Is life in Tower Hamlets getting better?

It was a lively day, with the boys engaging in discussions about some of Brick Lane’s most famous locations, said Miss Parry. These included “the Cereal Killer Café, a well-known site for anti-gentrification protests, the Old Truman Brewery, the Jamme Masjid Mosque and the two famous beigel shops”. As well as trialling techniques new to them, such as ethnographies, they used apps such as Skitch to help them annotate field sketches.

The previous day in Stratford was led by Carlo Roberts from Urban Geography East London, an organisation offering Geography fieldwork programmes. Comparisons were made between the postcodes of E15 and E20 (the new postcode for East Village, which was the Athletes’ Village during the Olympics). Qualitative fieldwork techniques including environmental quality surveys, questionnaires and land-use mapping were conducted.

“The boys had the opportunity to explore how this area has rapidly changed and consider who has lost out, and who has benefitted, from these changes,” said Miss Parry.

For the independent investigation, A-level students are required to collect fieldwork data and write an independent report which features independent analysis and evaluation of data, the presentation of the data findings and extended writing. The written report must be 3000–4000 words long.