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Two sixth-formers have been named as Arkwright Scholars after successfully demonstrating their prowess as engineers.

Darren Lee and Yash Patel laboured for months through a gruelling selection process for the scholarships, which will now provide them with financial and mentoring support during their A-level studies.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “My congratulations go to both Yash and Darren: these scholarships are not lightly awarded, and the pair’s success is a reflection of their assiduous approach to the process, of their presentation skills, and, of course, of the excellent standard of their engineering.”

The long-running Arkwright programme is run by the national Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) education charity, The Smallpeice Trust, and aims to inspire future leaders in engineering. This year, only 300 candidates were successful out of 1,423 applicants.

The benefits of the scholarships include a £600 personal financial award, £400 for the scholar’s school, mentoring, industry-based ‘Connect Days’ and invitations to university-based VIP receptions.

Darren and Yash, both of Year 12, were presented with certificates at an awards ceremony held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London.

As part of his application, Darren gave a presentation which covered the design and manufacture of  ‘Overlap’ – a rugby lineout machine that he devised (pictured top). He also featured in his presentation his involvement with VEX Robotics at the School.

The process included an engineering aptitude test and an online interview, during which candidates had both to make a presentation and to respond to technical engineering questions.

He said: “It’s an absolute honour to receive this scholarship, recognising my engineering skills and hours of hard work I’ve put into my technology projects. I’m incredibly proud to call myself an Arkwright Scholar.

“I believe that the networking aspect of this scholarship will prove to be very beneficial. As an Arkwright Scholar, I have access to the MentorNet platform, where I can communicate, discuss and receive feedback from some of the brightest young engineering minds in the country.”

For his part, Yash says that being an Arkwright Scholar will assist him in pursuing interests such as model-making, CAD design and 3D printing out of School and will help him fund a wishlist of projects, including making movie props and designing his own model train set and an electric guitar.

“It means I will be provided with opportunities, such as work experience, Connect Days and bursary offers or further scholarships, which may not be provided to others, as I will stand out to engineering-related organisations,” said Yash. “I have become a more competitive university applicant and can build up a larger network of prominent engineers and leaders in the industry.”

Sixth-formers made a trip to watch one of the most famous works by the influential 20^th-century Marxist German playwright and poet, Bertolt Brecht.

The group of Year 12 and Year 13 German students took the train to Kingston to watch The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) in the town’s Rose Theatre.

Languages teacher Rebecca Grundy said: “Although not an official member of the Communist party, Brecht was committed to highlighting social injustices and the imbalance of power distribution through his work.

“He was a proponent of ‘epic theatre’ (episches Theater); it was his belief that theatre is a way of showing audiences the world as it is, and of encouraging them to respond.

“Brecht made use of the ‘alienation effect’ (Verfremdungseffekt) to achieve this; theatrical devices aimed to keep the audience critically, rather than emotionally, engaged. The students enjoyed spotting these in the play.”

Set in the Soviet Union around the end of World War II, The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a re-writing of a 14th-century Chinese play, The Chalk Circle, by Li Xingdao.

It relates the story of a land dispute between two agricultural communes and of a visit by a singer and his band of musicians. The singer tells a parable as a way of settling the dispute, concluding that the land should go to those who will use it most productively – the fruit growers – and not the goat farmers who owned it previously.

It thus features a play within a play, which is itself an example of an alienation device. Other examples include the:

• Use of song to narrate the action and characters’ thoughts;
• Jarring use of props, including a teddy bear as a baby!
• Sparse set.

The visit reinforced the boys’ Sixth Form German studies. The Sixth Form course covers Berlin and its cultural scene. Brecht lived and worked in East Berlin for a large part of his career, although The Caucasian Chalk Circle was written in the United States, where Brecht was living in exile during the war.

He returned to East Berlin after the war and died there in 1956 at the age of 58. At first supportive of the government’s repressive measures following the East German uprising of 1953, Brecht eventually expressed his disillusionment over the events

The trip was organised by Ms Grundy, who accompanied the group, together with her fellow Languages teacher, Katrin Hood.

Year 12’s Hanan Moyeed said: “This trip was absolutely unforgettable. Seeing the play was a brilliant experience. It also links well to what we have been looking at in lessons.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School has been recognised for its commitment to pupil-led research after three sixth-formers impressed experts at a London conference with their presentation about robot navigation.

Headmaster Neil Enright has now received a certificate from the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) following the trio’s triumph earlier this year. They were one of only eight groups selected to present their research at the IRIS conference and were then singled out by one of the leading scientists there as her “highlight of the conference”.

In a letter accompanying the certificate, IRIS deputy director Marcus Bernard wrote: “I wanted to personally write to you and highlight the fantastic work of your colleague, Jonathan Brooke [Head of Physics], who went above and beyond to enable students at your school to carry out student-led research…

“It was a real pleasure to meet your students…They spoke eloquently and confidently about their research and were extremely well behaved, I was very impressed. They are an absolute credit to you and your team.”

Mr Enright today congratulated the three Year 13 pupils, Bhunit Santhiramoulesan, Heemy Kalam and Jashwanth Parimi on their success. “They chose the most challenging of the four options available to them – the ‘original research’ option – and then worked hard over a seven-month period, before delivering a confident, well-executed talk at short notice at the conference.”

IRIS develops opportunities for secondary-age pupils to participate in authentic research in schools and organises conferences at which pupils can share their research with their peers from other schools and the wider academic community. Around 50 other projects were displayed at the conference in which the QE boys took part. Representatives of just eight of those projects were invited to make presentations.

The QE presentation summarised the trio’s research project on automating the navigation of robots with limited sensing capabilities. They were given just two days’ notice that they would have to give their presentation.

The project had involved designing and creating a framework that generated minimal-error paths for a robot to take, given some set of points for it to pass through. They used deep reinforcement learning (a sub-field of machine learning) to achieve this, training the robot on generated paths and using a formula they had derived to quantify how good this path was.

Mr Brooke, who accompanied them to the conference, said: “Every step of the process was driven by the initiative of the boys, and it was fitting that one of the guests on the Scientist Panel that concluded the event, Dr Harshnira Patani, Senior Scientist Pharmacology at MSD (one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies), singled out the boys’ presentation as her highlight of the conference, making particular note of their use of machine learning.”

Through working on the project, Jashwanth said, the three had developed their “research and self-study skills, pushing ourselves to comprehend mathematics beyond the traditional syllabus, ranging from understanding neural networks to multivariable calculus”. He added that hearing from people with PhDs at the conference had made him consider research “as a possible future pathway”.

Heemy said: “Taking on a project with a lot of complex research independent of teacher assistance was the main challenge we faced, alongside coordinating the time spent reading literature with other schoolwork and activities.”

Bhunit added: “One of the highlights was being given the opportunity to present in front of hundreds of students and teachers , as well as being mentioned by Dr Patani as one of the projects that she found impressive.”

Fifty sixth-formers learned just what it takes to build socially responsible businesses in QE’s Entrepreneurship Festival, which was led by experts from the LSE.

The School hosted the university’s LSE Generate organisation for the all-day event.

The sixth-formers brainstormed the skills and qualities needed to set up and run their own businesses. They were also introduced to a range of scenarios and took part in practical exercises where they had to deal with unexpected events.

Crispin Bonham-Carter, Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement), said: “Our new partnership with LSE Generate is tremendously exciting: they have immense expertise and very strong connections, both nationally and internationally. I know our students enjoyed the day and learned a great deal, too.”

LSE Generate supports the LSE’s own students and alumni, helping them to build, develop and scale ideas, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It operates a year-round programme of competitions to win business funding, networking opportunities and other events.

LSE Generate’s other partners include the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Makyth Ventures, the Winchester College-based entrepreneurship group which itself ran a workshop for QE in the 2022 Spring Term.

Matthew McGrath, founder and managing director of of Emissary Partners, a global advisory firm working with investors, gave the keynote address at the LSE Generate QE festival and answered the boys’ questions.

At the end of the day, the sixth-formers even had the chance to get a taste of an entrepreneurial venture – quite literally, since they were all given ice-cream from a new start-up, Persian Kitchen.

Zaki Mustafa was the “clear winner” in his age group in a prestigious financial journalism competition.

In his winning essay on the impact of technology on money, the Year 11 pupil ranged widely, starting with the first known currency in ancient Mesopotamia and ending with consideration of how modern financial companies could both use and abuse consumer data.

He won the 14–15 age group in the Young Financial Journalist competition run by the London Institute of Banking & Finance (LIBF) and the Financial Times (FT).

After reading his article, competition judge Claer Barrett, who is the FT’s Consumer Editor, said: “Zaki was the clear winner in this category. I loved his point about gambling with plastic chips and how this involves a similar sense of detachment to using contactless payments.”

Her fellow judge, mathematician, teacher, broadcaster and writer Bobby Seagull, praised the “very mature and clear writing for someone so young!”

Zaki was congratulated by QE’s Head of Economics Shamendra Uduwawala: “This was a well-argued piece of writing which gave an impressive overview of the opportunities and risks that come with the application of technology, including AI, to the world of finance.”

Reflecting on his success, Zaki explained why he had entered the competition. After starting his Economics GCSE last year, he said, “I wanted to educate myself a little bit about how technology is changing the way we view money.”

In his essay, he covered topics including:

• Today’s near-cashless society
• The rise in fraud and cybercrime, including the issue of scams that “impacts the elderly disproportionately”
• The rise of “entirely intangible” cryptocurrencies.

The 730-word composition concluded: “In summary, technology has provided huge benefits to the financial world, namely making payments far more efficient and traceable than hard cash. In spite of this, one must always remember to be vigilant, in light of the increasing risks that are associated with such a luxury.”

Zaki wins a cash prize of £150 and a certificate bearing the judges’ comments. His prize also included ten free places for QE pupils to complete the LIBF’s Lessons in Financial Education (LiFE) programme.

Old Elizabethan Priyan Shah and his family are so passionate about education that they have set up their own awards scheme to encourage the pupils of today.

Together with his parents, Dhiru and Rami, Priyan (OE 1991–1998) visited the School to present DVS Foundation Awards to ten sixth-formers.

The awards seek to promote a virtuous circle of motivation and success, together with kindness. And they are only one facet of the family’s philanthropic work: the foundation’s focus is on education, food insecurity and healthcare, in both the UK and East Africa.

Headmaster Neil Enright thanked Priyan and his parents for their visit, during which they addressed the whole of the current Year 13: “We are really grateful to the family for their generosity in awarding each of our ten prize winners a £100 Amazon voucher, and I know that the whole year group are, in turn, grateful for the great advice Priyan passed on to them.”

Priyan read Accounting & Finance at the University of Kent at Canterbury and then completed a postgraduate degree at the LSE. His father established the family’s commercial property investment business, DVS Property, in 1985. The company specialises in UK institutional real estate investment across sectors including logistics, automotive, out-of-town retail and supermarkets, as well as holding occupational assets that include student accommodation and hotels.

Having been part of the business throughout his career, Priyan today runs the company with his brothers, Julan and Prag. He is also actively involved in the running of the foundation, which was set up in 2012 to formalise the family’s giving.

Introducing its work in a special assembly, he explained that the foundation supports other organisations as well as operating its own programmes. These  include not only the awards programme, which was launched in 2021, but also its WhyOhYou personal development programme. QE plans to get involved in WhyOhYou during the autumn.

“Focusing on the individual (the name is a play on words for ‘YOU’), the programme is a five-week personal development journey that provides youth aged 15–18 with the space and tools to explore who they are, what they want and how to achieve it,” said Priyan, who is a member of the School’s philanthropic 450 Club. WhyOhYou is run by Rupal Shah (no relation), who was recruited by the foundation approximately four years ago, and by Priyan’s wife, Asmi, who has worked at EY for over ten years as an actuary and supports the global firm’s mentoring programme.

The Headmaster added: “I look forward to working with the foundation through WhyOhYou in the coming months: my thanks go to Rupal Shah for her work coordinating the scheme.”

The awards, set out below, cover a number of academic subjects, as well as extra-curricular activities.

Priyan and Asmi have a daughter and baby son. Priyan enjoys travelling and hiking. A long-time racquet sports enthusiast, he continues to play tennis and badminton.