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Sixth-former Niam Vaishnav is to represent his country at the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) in China this November.

Niam, of Year 12, won his place on the national team after excelling at the British Astronomy & Astrophysics Training Camp at Oxford at Easter.

His success follows that of a number of QE boys who have been chosen for national and international Science Olympiads in recent years. Niam was also in the team that achieved QE’s best-ever result in this year’s national Senior Team Maths Challenge.

Robin Hughes, Chairman of the British Physics Olympiad (which runs both the Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics teams), has now written to QE Headmaster Neil Enright to confirm Niam’s place. “He has done extremely well. It is a pleasure to have another student from QEB [Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet] on one of our teams again.

“The experience gained by a student at such an international event is one that remains with them for the rest of their lives,” added Mr Hughes, who is a Project Physicist for the Rutherford Physics Partnership.

Mr Enright said: “My congratulations go to Niam, and to his teachers, on what is a very considerable achievement. I am sure that he will find his trip both intellectually enriching and enjoyable.”

To prepare for the ten-day trip to Beijing, Niam is undergoing intensive training with his teammates. He has already taken part in a training camp at Churchill College, Cambridge, and there is a further five-day camp next month, taking place partly at Oxford University and partly at Marlborough College’s observatory.

Last year’s UK IOAA team, also made up of Year 12 AS pupils, have been very successful, reported Mr Hughes. They have secured Oxbridge places and two of them are on this year’s team for the International Physics Olympiad, which is drawn from Year 13 pupils.

Former School Captain Sam Sherman takes up a prestigious Kennedy Scholarship at Harvard next month and plans to use it to further his thinking on the complexities of contemporary humanitarianism.

Sam (OE 2004–2011) has worked for the Department for International Development (DFID) since March 2016 in roles that have included exploring the use of drones to deliver supplies in volatile regions and supporting UN agencies in a recent visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“I applied to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in order to examine the political economy of aid,” he says, adding that the time at Harvard given by the scholarship will help him “address some of the thorny, political questions regarding humanitarianism, and explore innovation with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative”.

The Kennedy Scholarship provides full funding for postgraduate study at either Harvard or MIT. It was created as a ‘living memorial’ to President John F. Kennedy following his assassination. The Kennedy Memorial Trustees are appointed by the Prime Minister. Previous scholars include politicians David Miliband, Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, former Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King and BBC journalist Stephanie Flanders.

When considering applicants, the trustees look for intellectual attainment, readiness and ability to express themselves, originality of mind, commitment to public service, and potential to make a mark in public life.

Sam, who was at QE with two older brothers, Joe and Jamie, was School Captain in 2010. In the following year, he won a place to read Politics, Psychology and Society (PPS) at Cambridge.

“After leaving QE, I took part in a humanitarian mission to Northern Kenya during the 2011 East Africa Crisis,” he says. “I was fortunate enough to pursue my interest in international development and humanitarian aid at university, studying Politics with a focus on conflicts and aid.”

After graduating with a first from Cambridge he joined the International division of the Civil Service Fast Stream, undertaking posts in DFID’s Middle East and North Africa Department and elsewhere in Government.

“More recently I’ve been working closely with the UN World Food Programme and other DFID partners to test how drones can be used to address humanitarian challenges, for instance by delivering critical medical aid following sudden-onset emergencies.”

In April 2018, in his capacity as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) Lead for DFID, Sam took part in a panel discussion at the UN on the use of innovative technology for humanitarian action. He told the delegates: “Drones are already being used relatively routinely – for example, for mapping and monitoring following natural disasters – and they are likely to become more routinely used as the technology develops and becomes more affordable.” The discussion can be viewed here. Sam’s speech begins at 55m 13s.

Since then, in response to the situation in war-torn D R Congo, he has undertaken a short-term assignment to Kinshasa and Goma. “I was primarily working on behalf of DFID with the UN agencies responding to the humanitarian crisis in the East. (During some of the evenings I also played in the Congolese Premier League in a British Embassy/Gurkha cricket team, despite my less-than-impressive cricket history at QE!)”

• The photos show Sam, right, with fellow members of the cricket team and also show a package of supplies delivered by drone.

GCSE geographers measured noise levels and annotated photos using ‘apps’ on their smartphones during a field trip to East London.

The Year 10 boys’ main objective was to investigate the question: How socially sustainable is East Village in the Olympic Park, Stratford? However, their day also included a tour of the London Stadium, currently rented by West Ham United FC, where technology was again to the fore, as the boys were each given a small device to watch videos about the facility.

The visit was split into two groups over two days, with each half of the large AQA Geography GCSE cohort spending a full day conducting fieldwork. The boys applied four fieldwork techniques in East Village, a new residential district which was the athletes’ village in the 2012 Olympic Games:

• Environmental Quality Surveys (EQS), which included the recording of decibel levels
• Questionnaires
• Land-use mapping
• Photographs, duly annotated using the Skitch app.

In the afternoon, they had a part-guided, part-multi-media tour of the 60,000-capacity London Stadium (the former Olympic Stadium). The tour looked both at the development of the stadium and at the history of the football club.

Highlights included the panoramic views across the stadium from the stands, exploring the home changing room, visiting the indoor running track and walking down the players’ tunnel.

A series of special events have been helping boys due to join Year 7 in September start to get to know each other and learn their way around the campus.

The half-day induction sessions for the boys and their parents offered opportunities for the soon-to-be Elizabethans to meet those who will be in their form groups, as well as their form tutors and their Head of Year.

Headmaster Neil Enright explained to them what ‘the QE experience’ entails, while current boys, including School Captain Aashish Khimasia, of Year 12, and three boys at the end of their first year, added their perspectives.

“These events are about welcoming the boys and their families and helping support the transition to secondary school, ensuring that there are some familiar faces come September,” explained Mr Enright afterwards. “The induction sessions also make clear that it is, in fact, the whole family that is joining the Elizabethan community and that parents (through our home-school partnership) will play a very significant role in the success of their sons.”

After hearing from the Headmaster and these current pupils, the boys headed off into their new form groups for activities designed both to enable them to become acquainted with each other and to learn more about the School itself.

The activities included a tour of the School, led by prefects, with an accompanying quiz for the boys to complete on their way round. “One of the big challenges of going to secondary school can be the sheer scale of the site, so anything to help new boys get their bearings is useful,” said Mr Enright.

Parents were given further briefings by QE’s leadership, including an introduction to the School’s support systems and the role of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s. They then had the opportunity to talk to the Headmaster over coffee.

Two Year 8 boys won awards for book reviews written in advance of a special Barnet event to promote reading.

Thirteen boys from Years 7 & 8 made the trip to Wren Academy for the 2018 Read4Barnet – a festival of reading that grew out of a collaboration partly spearheaded by QE librarian Ciara Murray.

Read4Barnet delegates from the eight schools taking part were either nominated by their English teachers or were part of their school’s team of librarians. In the build-up, they had firstly to read one book from a list of seven titles that have recently been published and nominated for children’s writing awards, and then to write a 500-word review of their chosen book.

QE’s Dylan Domb and Ardavan Hamisi won awards for the high quality of their reviews, earning themselves a £10 book voucher each. The book Dylan reviewed – a short novel called Rook about growing up and family – was written by Anthony McGowan, who was one of the four authors taking part in the day.

Head of English Robert Hyland, who accompanied the QE boys, said: “Our students attended the talks by Anthony McGowan and Ruth Eastham, where the writers talked through their creative processes and how they found inspiration; Ruth Eastham said hers came primarily from historical events, whereas Anthony McGowan took inspiration from classic literature and his own teenage years. Both encouraged the boys to keep on reading and writing, with Ruth Eastham advising them to: ‘Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.’”

Ruth Eastham’s reviewed book was The Warrior in the Mist. The other authors involved, with their books selected for review, were Non Pratt (Unboxed) and Nat Luurtsema (Lou out of Luck). All the writers attended an author panel where they answered questions from pupils. They also made themselves available for book signings at lunch. Nat Luurtsema won the popular vote to win the Read4Barnet best author award.

• Dylan’s review began: “Seeking a novel overflowing with an abundance of emotions, from exasperation to love, or hopelessness to hopefulness? The book you must be looking for is Rook.” Ardavan’s 500 words were on Will Hill’s book, After the Fire, which was inspired by the Waco siege in Texas 1993 when 82 members of the Branch Davidian sect and four US government agents died after a long siege. Ardavan particularly appreciated the way in which Hill gave “the perspective of an individual, where, at almost all points, the reader is smarter and is aware of more than Moonbeam [the main character] is”.