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Two of QE’s Sixth Form climate change champions have been invited to take part in next month’s crucial COP26 global summit in Glasgow.

Their invitation to join the London Schools Eco Network (LSEN) delegation follows successful campaigning by the three QE Year 12 eco-ambassadors at an inter-schools conference.

And that event so inspired the trio that they are also helping to organise their own mock summit at QE next month to give the School’s pupils an opportunity to make their voices heard just as world leaders are gathering in Scotland.

The Eco Ambassadors – Toma Gelsinov, Rahul Doshi and Amogh Bhartia – were each tasked with representing another country at the mock COP26 summit hosted by St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, which involved QE and 12 other schools.

Technology teacher and and Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor Stephanie Tomlinson, who leads QE’s Green Council alongside the three sixth-formers, said: “Our Eco Ambassadors were fantastic; they spoke in front of around 50 young people across the LSEN representing their various country delegations on the intricacies of climate change by proposing an ambitious global action plan.

“I was stunned by their powerful and clear performance.”

Teams comprising pupils from different schools acted as country representatives. Rahul and his team represented Saudi Arabia, whilst Toma and Amogh spoke for India. Schools taking part included South Hampstead High School, City of London School for Boys, Harrow School, North London Collegiate School and London Academy for Excellence.

The agenda included opening statements from the country delegations, a debate to encourage more global ambition and, finally, agreement of collaborations for more action.

The evening placed a heavy emphasis on cooperation, collaboration and, most of all, negotiation – all underpinned by an understanding of the urgency of the issues involved.

“Even after meeting the targets agreed to in the Paris Agreement, the average rise in temperature will still be above the target. COP26 in Glasgow is, therefore, a vital world conference,” said Miss Tomlinson.

The inter-schools conference concluded with votes on two questions, as follows:

1. Is sufficient progress being made on all country emission targets. Delegates voted no unanimously.
2. Is your country willing to do more even beyond your current targets? This elicited a more mixed response.

QE’s own sustainability ambitions received a fillip last year with the establishment of the QE Eco Network, from which two student ambassadors, Christan Emmanuel and Aadarsh Khimasia, joined the LSEN. Their three successors this year, Toma, Rahul and Amogh, were selected from Year 12 through an application process.

The Green Council, newly formed in 2021, involves representatives from forms in Years 7-10 whose ambition it is to raise awareness and create an action plan for QE to become more sustainable and eco-friendly. Members from Years 7 & 8 are known as Eco Warriors, while those from Years 9 & 10 are Eco Representatives.

“Pupils were selected through an application process by their form tutor – we were thrilled with the sheer quantity of responses. This highlighted how much our pupils care,” added Miss Tomlinson.

“I am thrilled with the response to the Eco Network and establishment of the Green Council. As we look towards the rest of the 2020s, it is ever more important to take action. Our pupils are the driving force for that change.”

While Toma takes up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the Glasgow summit (with Rahul participating within the home-based team), the Green Council is preparing for QE’s mock summit, which will involve Years 7-10.

Thirty-five years after leaving QE, a group of rugby-loving Elizabethans returned to the School on a specially arranged visit that included an opportunity to see the current First XV in action.

The group from the class of 1986 enjoyed a sometimes-emotional day hosted by Headmaster Neil Enright: some were meeting for the first time in more than three decades, while even those who had remained in closer contact had been kept apart for the past year-and-a-half because of Covid.

Several of the 16-strong group sported new alumni rugby shirts designed by current Head of Rugby James Clarke (OE 1999–2004), which they had purchased through the School Shop. As well as the 15 old boys, all of them 1986 leavers, the visitors included the sister of Graham Dunkley OE, Gail, who was at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School at a time when some lessons in the Sixth Form were mixed between the schools.

Mr Enright said: “I really enjoyed the occasion, which all sprang out of a request from one of the group, Simon Butnick, in a conversation I had with him on LinkedIn earlier this year. It was great to welcome Simon and his peers back and to see them rekindling old friendships – in some cases, for the first time since they left the School.

“With a group of this size, we were able to offer something quite bespoke – knowing they would enjoy the chance to see the First XV game and talk to the players afterwards. We look forward to having the group as active members of our alumni network and keen supporters of the School.”

Among current and former staff present were Mr Clarke, Deputy Head David Ryan, Headmaster’s PA Nicola Weston (who knew many of the visitors from her own schooldays) and Dave Maughan, who was Head of Games from 1974–2003.

The group then set off on a tour of the School, led by the Headmaster, who was assisted by QE’s new Development Officer, Sharla Worrall. There were many comments about how the campus had changed – the visitors left the School just two years after the arrival of reforming Headmaster Eamonn Harris (1984–1999) and well before the major building projects that began in the late 1990s.

Afterwards, several of the group reflected on the day on LinkedIn, with OE Jason Rush writing: “It was a great day. The First and Second XV played their hearts out and reminded us what it used to feel like to play rugby at this wonderful school. Thank you for accommodating us. We will all remain in contact.”

It was, in fact, a day of mixed fortunes for the School’s rugby teams: while the First XV lost their match, the Second XV won theirs. Other victories went to the U16A, U15A, U14B and U13B teams, while the U15B, U14A and U13A sides lost.

• The School is currently asking all alumni to spend ten minutes filling in a survey it has commissioned from independent education consultancy RSAcademics. The results will help shape the School’s offer to its former pupils in the coming years. The closing date for the survey to be completed is Monday 11^th October 2021.

QE’s Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, has won a special award for his work in co-ordinating the production of PPE for the NHS as coronavirus first swept the country.

Mr Noonan spearheaded a London-wide effort by schools’ Design & Technology departments to 3D-print face shields and stave off a looming crisis as hospitals’ supplies of PPE ran low when Covid-19 cases soared in spring 2020.

Among those participating were QE pupils who used their home 3D printers during the first lockdown, while Mr Noonan also kept the School’s own machines running around the clock.

Now his efforts have been recognised through a new award from the Design and Technology Association (DTA – a national organisation supporting the teaching of design, engineering and technology).  It was presented during the DTA’s 21^st Excellence Awards ceremony held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology at Savoy Place in central London.

“I’m honoured to have been chosen as one of the winners in the Onshape Special Award Recognising Design and Technology’s Social Impact. Thank you to all at The Design and Technology Association for this award and for a wonderful evening,” Mr Noonan said.

He was one of only ten winners to be picked from schools across the country.

Congratulating him, Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It is brilliant news that Mr Noonan has received well-deserved recognition for the truly inspiring work he did in response to the national shortage of PPE. We are all very proud of him.”

The DTA’s Chief Executive Officer, Tony Ryan, also congratulated him on his “positive impact at a time of crisis”, adding: “Through your efforts and those of other D&T departments across the country, we showed the real value of our subject.”

Mr Noonan, who has been at the School for eight years and became Head of Technology in 2017, recalled the role he played from March to June last year: “I had the privilege of coordinating the London area, overseeing a team of six fantastic sub area coordinators, while also managing all orders for PPE in NHS hospitals, doctors surgeries and care homes in North London.

“I oversaw the delivery of around 20,000 units of PPE to the frontline during my tenure, as well as supporting makers and managing logistics and contact with clients. I also established a logistics partnership with Bikeshed and Need2Talk, who took over deliveries from makers and eased pressure on our systems.”

A new analysis of the performance of top schools published by The Spectator magazine further highlights just how successful QE pupils are in securing Oxbridge places.

In the magazine’s table, based upon university destinations in 2020, Queen Elizabeth’s School won the second-highest number of places at Oxford and Cambridge universities of any 11-18 state school in England and Wales, beaten only by Brampton Manor Academy in East Ham.

Furthermore, Brampton Manor and the four specialist state sixth-form colleges ahead of QE in the magazine’s table all had significantly larger pupil numbers, with, for example, Peter Symonds College in Hampshire having around 4,000 students on its roll, compared with QE’s 340-strong Sixth Form.

And the figures collated by The Spectator also reveal that QE had an extremely high success rate in converting Oxbridge applications into places. Of QE’s 91 applicants, 40 boys, or 44 per cent, gained places – a figure beaten (narrowly) by only one of the handful of schools and colleges above QE in the table, the independent St Paul’s Girls’ School.

Headmaster Neil Enright said today: “I am very proud of the achievements of our boys and of our staff, and it is gratifying to read further objective confirmation of QE’s outstanding success in securing places at Oxford and Cambridge.

“It is also interesting to note how favourably our conversion rate compares to other providers: we seek always to be realistically ambitious in matching our students to the courses and universities that are right for them. Through our University admissions Support Programme (our ‘USP’), staff and alumni provide help and advice for all senior boys, and this includes dedicated support for Oxbridge candidates.

“I should add that the 2020 figures on which The Spectator based its article are by no means a one-off: we have had consistently high numbers of boys heading to Oxford and Cambridge in recent years, and in August 2021, 39 pupils confirmed their Oxbridge offers, almost matching the previous year’s record.”

More broadly, the achievements of QE leavers this summer included securing:

• 26 places to read Medicine (with 11 of these at UCL alone, where the medical school is ranked in the global top ten)
• 18 places on ‘pure’ Economics courses – a figure which does not include several other leavers who will be joining courses with an Economics element, such as Economics & Geography and Oxford’s famous Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) course.
• 31 places overall at UCL, 11 at Imperial College, 10 at Bristol and nine apiece at Kings College London and Nottingham, as well as dozens more at other Russell Group universities.

Bolstered by the success of their predecessors, the current Year 13 are now fully engaged in the UCAS university application process and working hard to finalise their applications, drawing on the support offered by staff and alumni.

Year 11 boys had the chance to see one of their GCSE English Literature texts brought to life when they went to The Globe Theatre to watch an “exceptional production” of Romeo and Juliet.

During the visit – QE’s first live theatre visit since before the pandemic – all of Year 11 experienced a radical take on Shakespeare’s tragic tale of two young Italian ‘star-crossed lovers’ that eschewed romance in favour of an unsparing focus on mental health.

English teacher Micah King said: “I’m so glad our students got to enjoy live theatre after two years of disruption. They were able to experience an exceptional production of one of their GCSE texts, in a reproduction of the theatre it was originally performed in.

“Magic happened there: the students were simultaneously transported to Elizabethan era Verona, while the exceptional cast brought a 400-year-old play to life and made its themes modern and relevant to our 21st Century students.”

The performance, directed by the critically acclaimed young British theatre director, Ola Ince, explored the impact of emotional abuse and family feuds on the wellbeing of the eponymous lovers.

One notable addition to the Elizabethan-style architecture of the Globe Theatre was an electronic billboard at the back of the stage, displaying messages such as ‘20% of teenagers experience depression before they reach adulthood’ when Romeo is introduced ‘with [his] tears augmenting the fresh morning dew’, and “The rational part of the young person’s brain is not really developed until age 25”, displayed as Friar Lawrence marries Romeo and Juliet in secret.

Throughout the play, the boys stood in the theatre yard, or pit – the area which in Elizabethan times was the cheapest part of the theatre, with no seats provided. “This meant that sometimes the actors were moving between groups of students as they performed,” said Mr King.

The production, which stars Alfred Enoch as Romeo (best known for playing Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter film series and Wes Gibbins on the ABC legal drama television series How to Get Away with Murder) and National Youth Theatre-trained Rebekah Murrell, features modern sets and costume.

The Guardian’s reviewer, Arifa Akbar, who gave it four stars out of five, wrote: “…the love story is radically undercut and Ola Ince’s production is recalibrated to focus on Verona’s pervading social sickness and gang violence (there are not only knives but drugs and guns) as well as youth disillusionment and trauma.” She also praised the band as “the runaway highlight of this production”.

For his part, TimeOut’s Andrzej Lukowski’s said: “…I thought the billboard was an interesting idea in a mercurial show that often manages to be frustratingly dysfunctional and giddily fun at the exact same time….Essentially Ince’s desire to offer up two hours of hard-hitting social realism and two hours of wild escapist fantasy at the same time is not entirely reconcilable. Kitchen sink regietheatre* isn’t really a thing. But just because it doesn’t always ‘work’ doesn’t mean it’s not good: I loved the wild, irreverent roar of the ball [the scene in which Romeo first sees Juliet]; equally, I think Ince is on to something in choosing to earnestly highlight the number of references to suicide in the play – it seems quite reasonable to interpret the star-cross’d lovers as being depressed.”

* Definitions: Kitchen sink realism, which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, featured a type of social realism showing the harsh domestic lives of working-class British people. Regietheatre is the modern practice of allowing a director to determine how a play is put on, so that he or she need not adhere to the playwright’s specific intentions or stage directions.