Queen Elizabeth’s School offers boys opportunities to excel in a wide variety of sports and to achieve School, county, divisional and national honours.

Our high-quality teaching and coaching and excellent facilities enable our young sportsmen to make the most of their talent. We expect boys to strive for such honours through determination and commitment, which includes involvement in mid-week and Saturday practices and fixtures.

Boys participate in national, regional and county sporting competitions in sports including: athletics; basketball; cricket; cross-country; Eton Fives; rugby; swimming; tennis and water-polo.

The benefits of sport and exercise are well attested by modern medical science, and, in an increasingly sedentary society, the ancient maxim of mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) continues to ring true. At QE, we also firmly believe in the importance of competition in motivating our pupils to give of their best.

Consequently, our very extensive fixture programme provides competitive opportunities not only at the élite level, but also for boys of lesser ability who nevertheless enjoy their sport. Representative teams are fielded in: rugby (A, B, C and D XVs); cricket (A, B and C XIs); athletics (A, B and C teams), cross-country (A, B and C strings); basketball; swimming and water-polo. Inter-school fixtures take place mid-week and on most Saturdays in the autumn, spring and summer terms.

A full programme of inter-House matches underpins the School teams, giving more boys the opportunity to gain representative honours. All boys up to Year 11 represent their House in two or more House sports activities.

There are regular rugby and cricket tours, such as the Year 9 Holland rugby tour and the biennial  rugby and cricket tour to Sri Lanka. An annual Year 7 trip to Twickenham to watch the Varsity Match. Every February half-term, we also run a skiing trip. One highlight of our sporting calendar is the QE Sevens Tournament – a seven-a-side rugby U14 and U16 competition that has been hosted by the School every March since 1976 and which attracts leading rugby schools from across the country.

QE sports clubs include a weekly Fitness and Weights Club as well as clubs for beginners’ swimming, water polo, volleyball, athletics, table tennis, fencing and tennis. In addition, we have links to local athletics, rugby, cricket, water-polo and tennis clubs.