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QE’s team heads for June’s national chess finals after seeing off local rivals in a keenly fought regional final.

Their hard-won North London zonal final victory over Latymer School followed a more comfortable 5½ – ½ semi-final defeat of Mill Hill School.

The six-strong team drawn from Years 9–13 now take on 15 other regional winners in the national final of the English Chess Federation-run National Schools’ Chess Championship. QE has enjoyed some success in the national finals in the past, but not in very recent years.

Teacher in charge of chess, Geoff Roberts, said: “Qualifying for the national final of this tournament is a real achievement and one that confirms our place amongst the élite chess-playing schools in the country. This competition is the one which every school has aspirations to win, so for Queen Elizabeth’s to have made it through to the national final is especially pleasing.”

QE’s 2022–2023 team comprises: Yash Mahajan, of Year 13; Joshua John, Year 11; Jason Tao, Year 11; Andreas Angelopoulos, Year 11; Daiwik Solanki, Year 10, and Nishchal Thatte, Year 9.

“My congratulations to all the boys who have represented the School in this competition and a particular mention to the captain, Yash, in his last year at Queen Elizabeth’s, for his role in creating the strong team environment which has underpinned our success.”

Their place in the national final depended on the boys beating Latymer School in their zonal final. It was, said Mr Roberts, “an exciting match of high-standard chess with the result in the balance throughout – and in a dramatic finish with both players short on time, Jason Tao secured the winning point for a 4-2 victory”.

The competition has been running since the 1957–1958 academic year, with QE marking its first success there the following year, when it came third. It was another 41 years before QE next appeared on the leaders’ board, with a fourth place in 1999–2000. It last won a top place – joint-third – in 2016–2017. QE’s record also includes successes in the Plate competition, in which the trophy goes to the School with the best result from among the first-round losers. QE was a Plate runner-up in 2012–2013 and in 2013–2014, with a third place in 2006–2007.

The national final of the competition takes place at the University of Nottingham on 29th–30th June.

As the School as a whole marks QE’s 450^th anniversary, the Languages department has its own landmark to celebrate – ten years of its French exchange.

Twenty-one boys headed to Bourg-en-Bresse this month, a town which lies northeast of Lyon at the foot of the Jura Mountains. Their exchange partners came to Barnet last term.

The QE boys enjoyed a week of activities that ranged from trips to local attractions to attending classes in the partner school, Collège St Pierre. This tenth exchange follows a three-year gap because of the pandemic.

Head of Languages Nora Schlatte said: “We were particularly excited for the 2023 French exchange, having not had an exchange run since 2019, and the trip was a great success.

“The QE boys and their French partners got on really well and it was great to see them sharing experiences and speaking more and more French as the week went on. Families on both sides said how happy they were to have been able to take part in this experience and we are thrilled to be maintaining our strong link with Collège St Pierre.”

The first exchange with Bourg-en-Bresse was in the 2010 Summer Term, when 13 pupils from Years 8 and 9 visited Collège St-Pierre, the alma mater of a QE French teacher of the time, Océane Jullien, who now teaches in Thailand.

On this year’s trip the QE boys flew in to Geneva and then took a coach over the border to Bourg-en-Bresse, where they were met by the host families. They were accompanied by Ms Schlatte, Languages teacher Katrin Hood (who is also Head of Year 8) and Cover Supervisor Joan Anderson.

Their busy week included a:

• Visit to the local ‘parc des oiseaux’ (bird park) with their partners
• Day trip to Lyon, taking in a museum visit (Musée du Cinéma et de la Miniature), picnic lunch, shopping and a funicular railway ride to the cathedral, where they could enjoy the views from the hill
• Weekend spent with the families – activities reported include bowling, trips to the cinema, cave visits, and visits to the Chamonix mountain region
• Scavenger hunt through the town and a woodland adventure activity
• Day in school, taking part in a quiz, and, with their exchange partners, in an Art lesson, Mathematics lesson, PE activity and going to a basketball match in the evening
• Trip to the market.

Among the QE party was Dhruva Arjun, who said: “My highlight was watching the basketball match on the last night. The atmosphere was really fun and it was great to be there with our exchange partners.”

Fellow member of Harrisons’ House, Aaryav Sharma, said some of his most memorable moments took place above ground level: “We had a great afternoon doing accrobranche, which is a treetop adventure activity,” adding that he and two friends all “managed the really difficult black run, which was great!”

Tanish Nori, a member of Underne House, relished spending time with his partner and the family. “At the weekend, they took me to the Alps and we went to the Aiguille du Midi, which was amazing.”

Last term, Headmaster Neil Enright joined key staff involved in the exchange in celebrating a decade of successful trips with a special afternoon tea.

In only their second-ever choral evensong, the boys of QE’s Chamber Choir shone amid the splendour of Southwark Cathedral.

They sang music by composers including Mozart and Stanford, while three QE organists took their places at the console of the cathedral’s mighty 1897 instrument.

The boys sang to a congregation that included staff, governors, parents and friends of the School, as well as members of the public.

The cathedral service followed their first-ever choral evensong at Barnet parish church in the autumn and their appearance in the service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey on 24^th March, the 450^th anniversary of the founding of the School.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The boys were very impressive and the whole service was remarkable, given that this was only their second-ever evensong.

“The experience of singing at Westminster Abbey had stood them in good stead, so they were unfazed by the more intimate (but still large) scale of Southwark Cathedral.”

The service followed the centuries-old pattern of Anglican choral evensong and took place in a building that has been a place of Christian worship for more than 1,000 years.

The organ music played before the service by Year 7’s Zach Fernandes, Year 9’s Noah Morley and Year 11’s Joel Swedensky was written by Bach, Pachelbel, Böhm, Green and Stanley.

During the service, the choir sang the introit – the famous hymn, Abide with Me, with lyrics by Henry Francis Lyte and music by William Henry Monk – as well as pieces by Philip Radcliffe, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (B flat, Millington responses) and Mozart (Ave Meum Corpus).

The service included QE’s School prayer, reproduced below.

QE Director of Music Ruth Partington said: “Evensong presents an opportunity for the Chamber Choir to really challenge themselves and experience a unique musical tradition. There was a great deal of complexity in many of the responses and anthems sung, and our singers acquitted themselves very well.

“The three budding organists who played before the service are already highly accomplished on an instrument that all of them only took up this year: you would not have known that there was a Year 7 boy playing!” QE is now offering organ lessons in partnership with Barnet’s parish church, St John the Baptist.

“It was super to see some visitors who had just wandered in stay for the duration of the service. There was lovely feedback from the Cathedral’s volunteers. I am grateful to the Cathedral clergy and staff for their welcome,” Miss Partington added.

“The Music department hope to continue this programme in future years, singing a couple of such services each academic year. It forms part of the huge variety of musical opportunities on offer to the boys at QE.”

The School prayer

O Lord God, the Maker and Builder of every house not made with hands, we give thee thanks for this School in which we have our share.

Give thy blessing, we beseech thee, to all this our body, to the Head Master, to the teachers, to the boys, and to those who minister our needs.

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.

Remember, O Lord, for good, all who have gone forth from this School, to labour elsewhere in thy kingdom. Grant that both they, and we, may fulfil thy purpose for us in this life, and finally may attain thine everlasting kingdom. Amen.

QE boys teamed up with pupils from a local leading girls’ school for a morning of enthusiastic debates on some of the hottest topics of the day.

After the initial quickfire rounds, the morning with the guests from The Henrietta Barnett School (HBS) culminated in a final impassioned debate on the motion This House believes it was right to arrest the protesters at the King’s coronation.

Hosted by QE, the debating challenge was attended by 144 selected Year 8 pupils from the two schools.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Our academic partnership with HBS provides a valuable opportunity for large numbers of our boys to work alongside young women, whether in subject-related symposia or, as on this occasion, in engaging with them in topical and political discussions.

“When it comes to developing your skills in debating, there is nothing like having to stand in front of a large audience – including many people that you don’t know – after a very limited preparation time and talking about something of which you may not have deep knowledge, setting out an argument concisely and then defending it adroitly when challenged!

“Such experiences constitute an important preparation for working alongside both women and men in pupils’ later lives, whether in higher education or in their careers.”

After the HBS pupils arrived at the start of the morning, they and the boys were split into six mixed groups in different rooms and given 20 minutes to work together using previously prepared material.

The event was run according to the ‘extended Mace format’, based on the long-running universities debating competition known originally as the Observer Mace. In this format, the debate is opened to audience participation after the first round of opening statements and rebuttals.

There were eight teams, comprising three debaters each, who took part in four debates. Other roles were a chair, who was responsible for keeping order and running the debate, a timekeeper and two reporters in each group, who took notes and helped teachers picked the best debater from their room.

Four debates took place over a period of 90 minutes. The motions debated were:

• This House would use animals for experimentation
• This House believes 16-year-olds should have the right to vote
• This House believes that all owners of large dogs should have to pass a test to prove they are able to control them
• This House would abolish homework.

After a break, the final debate took place in the Main Hall, featuring the best debaters from each of the six groups.

They were again given just 20 minutes to prepare. An initial vote indicated a roughly even split in the audience between those for and against the motion.

After the side arguing for the motion – the ‘Proposition’ – argued that the protest could have turned violent, the Opposition swiftly countered, pointing out that far from being violent, the protesters were not even disrupting the coronation, and adding that the police were, in fact, violating the protesters’ rights. The Proposition’s second speaker bolstered the arguments in favour of the motion by adducing the example of the Capitol riots in the USA.

When opened to the floor, there was a succession of attacks on the Proposition’s arguments, while the vagueness of the motion was itself criticised. After the audience debate, both sides summarised their arguments. A vote was again taken, and the result was now a landslide for the Opposition.

The recent rise of Eton Fives at Queen Elizabeth’s School has now been recognised with a nomination for the Team of the Year award from the sport’s governing body.

Having last year won the Eton Fives Association’s U14 Beginners’ competition, the Year 10 QE pair of Yash Kedia and Zayn Phoplankar went one better this season, becoming fully fledged U15 champions after beating Berkhamsted School’s best in the National Schools’ Championship. It is thought to be the first-ever national championship title for a QE Fives pairing.

In a further sign of the sport’s growing strength at the School, Year 9 novices Veer Gali Sanjeev and Ishaan Mishra reached the final of this year’s U14 Beginners’ Competition.

Headmaster Neil Enright: “I am super-proud that we have been nominated for such a prestigious award. My congratulations go to our Director of Sport, Jonathan Hart, his colleagues and, of course, our brilliant student players.”

The EFA citation for the award begins: “With just one court, the success story in recent years of Fives at [QE] is quite remarkable.” It goes on to praise the “large numbers of players produced” and the “strength in depth” evident at QE.

The Team of the Year award will be decided by a vote of EFA members.

Other Team of the Year nominations include independent Ipswich School and St Olave’s Grammar School in Orpington, as well as clubs associated with: Berkhamsted; Magdalene College, Cambridge, and the Old Salopians (alumni of Shrewsbury School).

Eton Fives is a hand-ball game developed in the late 19th century at Eton College. It is played only as ‘doubles’ (i.e. by two pairs of players); there is no official ‘singles’ version of the game.

QE’s association with the sport goes back more than 140 years. Its first Fives courts at QE were opened at the School’s previous Wood Street premises in 1880, following a £10 grant from the Governors and a special fund-raising concert.

After QE’s move to an entirely new site in Queen’s Road in 1932, the sport languished for some years and it was not until the post-World War II rebuilding programme in 1951–52 that plans for a single new court were considered. By 1954, the court was complete, and the School was affiliated to the Eton Fives Association and entered the Public Schools Championships in 1955.

Like all Eton Fives courts, QE’s has only three sides, and is open at the back. It includes architectural features of the Eton College chapel, including a protruding buttress.

Old Elizabethan Sunil Tailor (1999–2006) is now an EFA trustee.