Sixth-formers from QE and Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School lent their support to efforts to clean up the River Brent in their battle against the scourge of litter.
The litter pick in Dollis Valley Park was the latest activity for QE Together – a Sixth Form partnership between the two Barnet schools formed early in 2022 that has a focus on projects to support the local community. As well as litter picks, QE Together has undertaken a primary school assembly and a concert for nursing home residents.
For this activity, they first worked in small teams comprising pupils from both schools in various areas of the park, before converging on Dollis Brook, a tributary of the Brent, where they laboured with Ben Morris, founder of CURB (Clean Up the River Brent), to clean up the waterway.
Crispin Bonham-Carter, Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement), said: “I congratulate all the students for working hard and persevering to complete what was, at times, an unpleasant task.
“We were both exhilarated and a little depressed at how much rubbish the QE Together team pulled out of a tiny section of the Dollis Brook. Thanks also to Ben from CURB for the inspiration!”
The afternoon began with the groups of three or four students amassing litter such as plastic bags snagged in brambles and bottles buried in the earth. They used bags, gloves and litter-pickers provided by the venture’s sponsors, Signature Care Homes.
Omar Siddick, of Year 12, said: “We were struck by the sheer amount of commercial packaging we found littering the grass, hedges and riverbank. Cans of beer and drink were among the most frequent findings, but we uncovered even more obscure items, such as derelict tents and car batteries.”
With stage 1 of the day complete, and nine or ten bin bags duly tied up and piled together, the whole Sixth Form team came together to tackle the brook.
Seyi Esan, also of Year 12, said: “With the help of Mr Morris, we were able to recover a host of surprising items from the riverbed, such as: a heater; two big trolleys; one small trolley, a plastic tricycle and a bike.
“Retrieving these (and more) items seemed easy, but pulling them up the steep riverbank proved more difficult than anticipated,” Seyi said, adding that teamwork was the key to completing the job successfully.
At the end of the day, everything collected was placed next to the public bin in the park, ready for the municipal waste collectors.
It had been, Omar concluded, “a productive and enriching exercise”, both because of the public service performed in collecting the litter and because it provided the QE boys with a welcome opportunity to collaborate with the girls.
Their day at the national finals at Northampton School for Boys began with a solid 8-6 win over Newcastle-under-Lyme School.
The festival featured academic tutorials and a lecture from Old Elizabethans, board games, a quiz, a meeting of QE’s Gresham Society for Economics and a special edition of the department’s periodical, 
Head of Economics Shamendra Uduwawala said: “Our events had huge turnouts and the festival may be regarded as a great success. I am grateful to everyone who contributed. The boys enjoyed the board games, the quiz and our visiting speakers, while our senior students have once again raised the bar with the festival edition of The Econobethan, which includes some really spectacular work.”
Another highlight was a talk by economist and academic Sandeep Mazumder (OE 1993–2000), who is Dean of Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, Texas.
He wrote: “As my predecessor, Dr John Marincowitz (Headmaster 1999-2011), explained at this year’s Senior Awards Ceremony, when discussing his new published history of the School, the fortunes of the School have repeatedly been shaped by the political, economic and social context of the time. He emphasised that much of the interest in the development of Queen Elizabeth’s, and its multiple reinventions over the centuries, can be found in considering not just the ‘what’, but in the ‘how’ and the ‘why’.
“Whenever I mention how old my secondary school was and that it takes its name from Queen Elizabeth the First, not the Second, it gets a lot of gasps of surprise,” he says. Some have even made mention of Harry Potter and Hogwarts when they learn just how old the School is!
Peter said he was excited to be presented with the opportunity to film at QE: “To finally get a chance to show what a wonderful school QE is on screen was surreal. The filming itself went better than I could have imagined, too, in terms of the other cast and staff being impressed by the school – its teaching, facilities and, most of all, polite and incredibly intelligent pupils.
The service included religious and literary readings, with Year 11 pupil Rohan Kumar’s winning entry in the School’s 450th Anniversary Poetry Competition, and music from every century of the School’s existence, culminating in a premiere performance of an anthem commissioned from internationally renowned composer Howard Goodall.
Drawing an analogy with Jesus’s parable of the foolish man who built a house on the sand and the wise man who built his house on the rock, Mr Enright said: “There have been many times over the past 450 years when the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and the School’s foundations were tested.”
“Over the past 450 years, our remarkable school has often flourished, and always survived,” said Mr Enright.
Before the service, the congregation listened to the orchestra’s performance of William Walton’s Crown Imperial and the Indian Ensemble’s performance of Tani Avartaram.
The Headmaster said the traditional Founder’s Day prayer, while others leading in prayer included Mrs Emi Aghdiran, Governor and Director of FQE, and Matthew Rose (OE 2002–09), Head of External Relations.
That like an oak, it draws its strength