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Five QE boys got to grips with cutting-edge aerospace technologies at a summer residential after triumphing in a spring competition.

The group headed to Shropshire for the Summer Time Advanced Aerospace Residency (STAAR), at RAF Cosford, near Shifnal, and the nearby RAF Museum, learning from industry experts in a packed five-day programme.

Head of Digital Teaching and Learning Michael Noonan said: “It was fantastic to see students take the initiative and independently apply for the STAAR programme. The five were amongst a wide cohort who applied for a place on this highly prestigious residential, and from speaking with them on their return from the holidays, I know it has only further ignited a passion in them for careers and study in STEM-related subjects.”

The organisers of the event included education technology consultancy Tablet Academy (TA) Education. After the camp, its Head of Training, Samantha O’Leary, wrote to Mr Noonan full of praise for the QE boys: “They are a funny, confident, thoughtful, and intelligent bunch who integrated incredibly well with the students from the other schools. So much so, you wouldn’t have known they were from different schools at all. They were fantastic representatives for the school, and it was a pleasure to work with them.”

The QE five were among only 40 winners of the competition, which was open to those in Year 9 in 2022–2023. They were Keeyan Shah, Kyle Goldband, Neil Kulkarni, Keshav Aggarwal and Ishaan Mishra.

Keeyan said: “The STAAR residential was greatly enjoyable. We had an action-packed week filled with fun activities from coding a drone to flying a plane simulator. It was an amazing experience.”

Neil said: “We did quite a few activities at the residential, most of which included extremely high-tech tools. These included some things such as flight ‘sims’ and wind tunnels. We also had a chance to see roughly what living in an RAF base was like, with the mess hall and gym and things like that. Overall, it was an extremely fun, informative and unique opportunity and a highlight of our holidays.”

Keshav described the camp as a “a hands-on experience showing aerospace engineering and aeronautical design”. It was, he said, an “an eye-opening experience which will stay with me forever”.

Neil added that it was not just the academic aspects of the trip that he enjoyed: “Meeting people from other schools who had won the competition was very cool, talking about their school and just meeting new people in general. And then the residency itself – living with our friends – was very fun and the responsibilities of living without parents to help was a big realisation.”

The competition to secure their places involved completing four STEM tasks relating to: decryption/encryption; reconnaissance; creating a CAD model, and creating a team presentation.

Organised in partnership with TA Education, the camp was sponsored by Northrop Grumman – a huge American defence and aerospace company formed by Northrop Aircraft’s 1994 acquisition of Grumman Aerospace, which built the Apollo programme’s lunar module.

The boys stayed with chaperones and followed a course delivered at both the RAF Museum and RAF Cosford by: the museum’s STEM Ambassadors; industry experts from Northrop Grumman; TA professionals and RAF STEM personnel.

QE pupil Hisham Khan has been named the UK winner of an international space competition and reached the top 5% of competitors from around 100 nations across the world.

In addition to taking first place in the UK, Hisham, who goes into Year 11 this week, won a Gold Honour in the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition for his performance internationally.

Other awards in the competition went to Shreyas Mone, who is entering Year 12, and to Queen Elizabeth’s School itself.

Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) Crispin Bonham-Carter said: “Competitions are an excellent way of challenging pupils to give of their best and learn more about a field in which they are interested. My congratulations go to Hisham on his success – a reward for all the hard work he put in.”

The International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition (IAAC) is a science competition that attracts thousands of competitors annually.

To achieve his success, Hisham had to negotiate the qualification round (five astronomy problems) and pre-final round (six problems, two of which involve engaging with recent scientific research). These, he says, mostly involved Physics calculations relating to space.

The final round, a multiple-choice online examination with 20 questions, was more about astrophysics knowledge. To prepare, he looked at previous years’ questions and also read around the subject. The round was sat online at home, but recorded to prove there had been no cheating.

Hisham, who hopes to take Mathematics and Physics at A-level after his GCSEs next year, plans to maintain his interest in astrophysics.

In announcing the results, a representative of the IAAC team said Hisham had “achieved outstanding results throughout the tournament despite very fierce competition”.

Hisham himself was modest in victory: “This was a new topic, but one I find interesting. I was surprised to be the top performer in the UK, which went beyond what I was hoping for.”

The IAAC organisers also reward those who support the competition. Shreyas Mone, who is an IAAC ambassador, was the sole winner internationally of the Award for Most Finalists, while QE similarly took the sole School Award for Most Finalists.

QE musicians of all ages gave performances at iconic venues in the French capital during a summer Music department tour.

Fifty-two boys from Years 8­­–13 combined concerts with seeing the sights of Paris during their five-day tour.

Their performances included one at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, one at Disneyland Paris and a bandstand concert in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Director of Music Ruth Partington said: “This was overwhelmingly a very successful and most enjoyable trip, and a great way for our musicians to celebrate QE’s 450^th anniversary year.

“The boys performed well, savouring this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

This trip was open to all pupils in Year 8 and above participating in two or more regularly rehearsing ensembles and to all boys taking GCSE or A-level Music, provided they were in at least one such ensemble.

Travelling by coach and ferry, the boys’ first visit was to the Chocolaterie Beussent in Normandy, where they were told on a guided tour how chocolate is made from cocoa beans and learned the history of the small company.

After arriving in Paris and a rehearsal on their first evening, day two saw the boys deliver a 20-minute concert at Disneyland Paris’s Videopolis Theatre, after which they had the chance to let their hair down. Their one-day tickets gave access to both Disneyland and the Walt Disney Studios.

On day three, the party walked up the steep hill to visit Sacré Coeur and enjoy the panoramic views across Paris.

Near the cathedral, they had the opportunity to stroll the narrow streets of Montmartre and see artists at work and selling their paintings.

On the same busy day, they went on a walking tour, seeing the restoration work going on at Notre Dame following the disastrous fire and visiting the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Tuileries and the Champs-Élysées.

They then gave their bandstand performance in the Jardin du Luxembourg – an historic attraction the origins of which can be dated back to 1612, when Marie de’ Medici, the widow of King Henry IV, constructed the Luxembourg Palace as her new residence.

The day’s activities concluded with ascending the Tour Montparnasse skyscraper.

Day four brought a cruise on the Seine, a visit to Versailles Palace and Gardens and a one-hour concert at the American Church of Paris on the Quai d’Orsay.

On the final day, they climbed the Arc de Triomphe before setting off home, where they experienced a four-hour delay – the only hitch in the packed programme.

Among the participants was Nikhil Mark, a pupil from Year 11, who said: “The experience was surreal: I absolutely loved it.”

Teams from QE and The Henrietta Barnett School aimed to turn science fiction into future reality when they planned for a settlement of the red planet in a space design competition.

Four teams – two from each school ­– battled it out in the Galactic Challenge, which was hosted by QE. Helping out on the Saturday of the competition were a trio of Old Elizabethans who are themselves veterans of space competitions.

Their one-day mission: to boldly produce proposals for an Earth–Mars cycler settlement – a future orbiting hotel which would ferry 1,000 people to and from Mars in six to 14 months following a ‘cycler’ trajectory that regularly intersects the orbits of the two planets.

QE Head of Physics Jonathan Brooke said: “The boys presented with great skill and confidence. The proposal from both QE teams were thorough, dealing carefully with key challenges from the RFP [Request for Proposal – which reflected a typical design brief in the space engineering industry].”

Galactic Challenge, which is for students aged 10-14, is the sister competition of the UK Space Design Competition (UKSDC), which is for those aged 15–18.

The 12-strong teams each formed fictional aerospace companies: Astrodyne Delta; Columbus Aviation; Infinity Airspace, and Solaris Flight Systems. They elected company officers within the team, such as the company president, and vice-presidents. The CEO roles in each company were undertaken by Year 12 volunteers, who were there to guide and mentor the Key Stage 3 teams, rather than to lead. The QE CEOs were Soumil Sahjpall and Haradhat Ramanathan.

Teams were transported 60 years into the future, to the year 2083, where space travel might be commonplace.

The RFP asked companies to deal with various challenges. These included:

• Critical systems – for example: how the settlement would be powered; how liveable conditions would be maintained; how passengers would be fed
• Emergency response, including an evacuation procedure for the settlement
• Workforce issues, including use of automation
• Marketing and ensuring that the venture could be an economic success.

Now in Year 13, Soumil said: “Volunteering as a CEO was both fun and rewarding. The students were very keen, creative and enthusiastic.” His group, had researched well and learnt quickly “to compile a great proposal and presentation for the judges, including a CAD (computer aided design) and a promotional film”.

The judges’ panel featured staff from the Space Science & Engineering Foundation, QE Head of Physics Jonathan Brooke, Dr Flore Faille, Head of Physics at HBS, and Aadil Kara (OE 2010–2017).

Aadil’s QE contemporaries, Sam Bayney and Harikesan Baskaran, were among those helping out on the day.

Aadil, Sam and Harikesan were all part of a QE Sixth Form team that won the regional heat of the UK’s Space Design Competition and went on to the 2017 national finals, where Aadil was selected to take part in the International Space Settlement Design Competition in Florida.

Aadil has for several years supported both Galactic Challenge and the UKSDC, and is a member of the UKSDC board. A Senior Analyst with the Cabinet Office, he graduated with a first in Physics from Imperial College London.

After the event, Mr Brooke reflected on the successful partnership event between QE and HBS and on the performance of QE’s teams: “I was particularly impressed by the meticulous attention to detail that Solaris applied to the financial side of their proposal.”

Once all the competition was done, however, final victory went to Columbus Aviation, one of the HBS teams.

QE boys were the first-ever under-18s to watch producer Ilana Metzger’s film about her father, a Holocaust survivor who once attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

And she was so impressed by the their mature response that she is now donating 30 copies of his autobiography – gifted to her by an anonymous viewer of the film – to the School.

The visit had been suggested to the Headmaster, Neil Enright, by Old Elizabethan Alan Solomon (OE 1951–1957), pictured here.

He had been impressed by the way the documentary told the story of Ilana’s father, Henry Wermuth, and also looked more widely at the Holocaust and its origins.

Following the screening of the film, Breathe Deeply My Son, to last year’s Year 9 during the Summer Term, the boys took part in a question-and-answer session.

In a message sent to the Headmaster subsequently, Ilana praised the QE pupils for their “interesting and insightful questions” and high level of maturity.

In the film, Mr Wermuth, pictured here with Ilana, explains how in 1942 he broke out of Klaj ammunition camp in Poland when he learned that Hitler was scheduled to pass through the village.

He piled sticks and rocks on the railway track, but the attempted derailment was unsuccessful.

He told The Jewish Chronicle in 2013: “A train passed with three wagons, and in the window was a man who I recognised by the moustache as Hitler. I stood there mesmerised, waiting for the crash, but it never came. Either a local farmer or someone patrolling must have removed the logs.”

Mr Wermuth survived the war weighing just 5st 3lb (33kg). His father, mother and sister all died in concentration camps.

He was awarded a medal for his attempt by the German city of Frankfurt in 1995.

After liberation, he settled in the UK and built a property business in London. He died in 2020, aged 97.

Senior pupils from Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School joined A-level Art students at Queen’s Road for special life-drawing sessions during QE’s Arts Week.

Together with the girls’ participation in filming a promotional video and in a Sketch-off event held as part of QE’s Design Festival earlier in the Summer Term, the life-drawing sessions mark an expansion of the work of the QE Together partnership, which had previously focused on community activities.

Head of Art Craig Wheatley explained the sessions’ importance: “Life-drawing is rooted in a traditional and historical practice; students can develop their observational drawing skills and gain a better understanding of anatomy and human form.

“Our Arts Week seemed like a perfect opportunity to re-introduce this extra-curricular activity; inviting the girls was another chance for pupils from both schools to share a creative experience.”

Mr Wheatley paid tribute to the specialist teaching experience of his QE Art department colleagues, Jeanne Nicodemus and Alison Lefteri, who led the sessions. He added that feedback from the participating students was very positive.

Led by pupils from the two schools, QE Together continued its community activities, with musicians coming together for another concert for care home residents.

Pupils from QE and QEGS also teamed up to appear in the  promotional video for School Diversity Week for LGBT+ charity, Just Like Us.

Filmed by Deloitte and shown at a launch hosted by JP Morgan Chase, the film included the senior boys and girls holding up coloured card, with letters superimposed in post-production to spell out key messages for the week.

Not all the pupils who participated are part of the LGBTQ+ community; they are instead allies, supporting the promotion of inclusion in all schools across the country.

QE Together is one of the newest of QE’s partnerships. The School also has firmly established academic partnerships with North London Collegiate School and The Henrietta Barnett School.

During the Summer Term, Year 10 headed to NLCS for an inter-disciplinary symposium on Change and Renewal.

With HBS, in addition to Year 10 and 12 events, 144 selected Year 8 pupils from both schools vigorously debated contentious topics, including This House believes it was right to arrest the protesters at the King’s coronation.