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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.

Four QE boys acquitted themselves very well at the finals of a national Mathematics team competition.

Having first reached the Team Maths Challenge national final by winning their regional heat in March, this year’s entrants built on recent successes by QE, improving on last year’s 17th place by coming 11th out of the 88 finalists. The team, which was drawn from Years 8 and 9, achieved a score of 182 points out of 232.

The UK Mathematics Trust event included a round devoted to Leonhard Euler. Born in Basel, Switzerland, Euler is considered one of the 18th century’s most pre-eminent mathematicians and is known as the ‘father of graph theory’. He notably used graphs when he presented and solved the famous Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem, demonstrating that it was impossible to devise a journey that would cross all seven bridges in the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia) only once. Euler also studied topics including number theory, combinatorics (an area of Mathematics concerned primarily with counting), geometry, mathematical analysis, as well as mechanics, fluid theory and music theory.

The team had won the regional heat in March, thus qualifying, for the national final of the competition at the Royal Horticultural Halls. The overall winner at the challenge was Westminster Under School.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “The boys did very well; to reach the National Final is an incredible achievement in itself, as 1,742 teams entered this year’s event.”

In addition to the poster round focusing on Euler, there were the following activity rounds:

• Group circus, which involved working on practical Mathematics problems
• Relay race – a combination of speed across the room and speed at solving problems
• Cross-number challenge, similar to a crossword, but with numbers
• Shuttle, which is a series of mini-relays against the clock.

Calculators were not permitted.

Team captain, Shimaq-Ahamed Sakeel Mohamed, of Year 9, took part alongside Bhunit Santhiramoulesan and Agrim Sharma, of Year 8, and Dan Suciu, of Year 9. Shimaq-Ahamed said: “We had a great day at the challenge and really enjoyed working as a team.”

A record total of 14 local schools took part in this year’s QE Primary Challenge Day.

Now in its fourth year, the event features a range of enjoyable and stimulating activities focused on English and Mathematics, with competition rounds adding a little friendly inter-school rivalry to the mix.

QE Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We enjoy maintaining close links with local primary schools and this was a great opportunity to host a large number of their pupils and staff for this day of enrichment activities designed to stretch and challenge the children participating.”

Assistant Head Michael Taylor started proceedings, welcoming the primary school children and encouraging them to enjoy their day.

The competition rounds included interactive games and tasks comprising a spelling competition, a limerick-writing challenge, number puzzles and logic problems. Teachers Greg Lee and Marco Saccardi, of the Mathematics Department, and Robbie Hyland and Alex Ulyet, from English, each ran one of the rounds and enjoyed chatting to the participants.

The winning primary schools in the various rounds were as follows:
• Limerick-writing: Livingstone
• Logic: Christ Church
• Spelling bee: Underhill
• Crossnumber puzzles: Monken Hadley.

The overall winners were the children of Christ Church, with St John’s N20 coming second and Northside in third place. Elena Print, Headteacher of Christ Church, said later: “They had a fabulous time and came back full of excitement, and enthusiastic to tell us all about it!”

Mr Enright presented the winners with their certificates at the end of the event, congratulating all participants.

Each primary school team was accompanied by a QE Year 7 pupil who spent the whole morning looking after that team. Organiser Wendy Fung, who is QE’s Assistant Head of Mathematics, said: “I was very grateful for their help in ensuring that the Year 5s felt at home and for supporting their teams so enthusiastically.”

QE under long-serving Headmaster Ernest Jenkins (1930-1961) was so strict that a prefect punished a boy for buying an ice-cream without wearing his School cap…on a Sunday afternoon.

This was just one of the anecdotes which three alumni from the 1940s–60s shared with current Year 7 pupils to help them with a project looking at the history of the School. In a special assembly, they recalled a School that, like today’s QE, enjoyed both academic and sporting success, yet one which was in many ways very different.

Ken Cooper (OE 1942–1950), David Farrer (1954–1961) and John Todd (1958–1964) were introduced by Head of History Helen MacGregor. There was an opportunity for the Year 7 boys to ask them questions, which typically focused largely on the disciplinary regime of the time!

The hapless young ice-cream buyer was ordered to write lines when he was caught bare-headed one hot weekend making his purchase from a shop near his home in Southgate. Although the older pupil was within his rights – prefects of the time were authorised to dole out such punishments and boys were supposed to wear their caps even when not at school – the visiting alumni recalled that he was considered by his classmates to have gone too far, even by the strict standards of the day.

The three visitors reminded the boys that the School was much smaller in the 1940s and 1950s, with a roll of only about 400-450 boys, split into four Houses, not the current six. The School was very much less diverse and boys typically lived very locally.

All indoor activities took place in QE’s Main Building, with the hall even being used for lunch for a time after the refectory was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1941. The lunches themselves were reported to have been dreadful. “The potatoes were black; the meat looked like it had come off the bottom of someone’s shoe,” said Mr Cooper.

At first, all that lay behind the Main Building was the ‘Gun Field’. Later, an unheated, open-air swimming pool was built; boys were expected to swim in it in all weathers.

The whole School met each morning for assembly, addressed by the Headmaster in his gown: all masters (teachers) wore gowns daily, while prefects wore half-length undergraduate-type gowns.

School ran six days a week, with games on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Sport was a huge part of School life and was very popular: the best memories of many Old Elizabethans from that era are from sports on Stapylton Field, the visitors stated. The rugby and cricket were both good, and QE established a very strong reputation in athletics. Fixtures against the top public schools had been established by Mr Jenkins (pictured below), who modelled the School on such institutions during his long headmastership, which extended from 1930–1961.

During his tenure, the strictness of the regime was seen in the use of corporal punishment. The cane was still very much in use and boys could, in the schoolboy slang of the time, be ‘whacked’ for a variety of misdemeanours. The three alumni reported, though, that they accepted this as being a normal part of school education and thought that there was usually good reason for the punishment! Mr Todd recalled going to be caned and being asked to select which of three different canes should be used. He remembered being concerned that it would be very obvious that he had hidden a workbook down the back of his trousers to cushion the blows, although this was, in fact, not commented upon by the master.

While much has obviously changed, the visitors reflected that in 2018, just as in their day, expectations at the School are high, both in terms of behaviour and of academic attainment. A grammar school then and now, QE through to the early 1960s had a good reputation for sending boys to Oxbridge and other top universities, albeit in a context in which only about 3% of sixth-formers nationally went on to university, with most school-leavers going straight into employment.

Although they had very positive memories of their time at QE, the three visiting old boys were in little doubt that the fabric of the School, the opportunities available to boys and the outcomes achieved are all very much better now.

Year 7 will be continuing their work on the History project through the rest of this term.