A QE team triumphed in their heat of the Magistrates’ Court Mock Trial Competition, beating both fellow Elizabethans acting as prosecutors and a team from another school.
After successfully grappling with a case involving harassment across the two rounds, the defence team amassed enough points to beat all other competing schools and take the top spot. Now both QE teams will take part in a national celebration event in June.
Biology teacher Nadia Kaan, who oversaw the boys’ involvement, said: “This competition is a fun and engaging way to introduce pupils to the law, while also developing skills such as teamwork and oracy.
“Our boys had worked hard since October to prepare, and they duly performed very well on the day. My congratulations go to our defence team on their victory.”
The competition, which is run by the Young Citizens education charity, has been running for over 25 years and is open to 12–14 year-olds from UK state schools. Participants take on the main roles found in a criminal trial – such as prosecutor and defendant – with the cases specially written by legal experts.
Run with the active support of practising magistrates and legal advisors, the competition is usually held within real courthouses, although this year’s event was held online because of the pandemic.
The two QE teams, all drawn from Year 9, found themselves facing each other in their heat after one of the other schools expected to take part pulled out. Defence team ‘lawyer’ Colin Copcea explained that it was only after much deliberation that a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict was returned by the supporting professionals in this round. He paid tribute to the efforts of all QE entrants, whether defenders and prosecutors: “Both teams fought hard to influence the magistrates.”
In the second round, the QE defence team went up against another school, and again secured their desired ‘Not Guilty’ verdict.
Afterwards, QE participants reflect on how much they enjoyed taking part and on the competition’s benefits:
- Vase Pardeepan: “This experience was absolutely incredible, and to be able to compete against other schools and communicate with professional lawyers really helped me understand my personal passion for the career of law.”
- Simi Bloom: “It was interesting to learn more about how legal proceedings work and the justice system. ‘Mock trial’ was a great way to learn to how respond when things don’t go your way, boosting public speaking skills and overall confidence. I think the experience largely encouraged teamwork, too, as well as establishing trust between one another.”
- Adam Liang: “Of the many other clubs and competitions that I have attended, this one was by far the best. Thank you for this amazing experience!”
- Adithya Raghuraman: “Despite perhaps not playing a very important role on my team, I still greatly enjoyed being a part of the whole experience, from attending on Wednesdays when the club began and auditioning for different parts, all the way to helping out with different things on the day of the competition itself. It has made me realise that I have a passion for law, and perhaps may pursue it in the future.”
- Vidyuth Shankar: “Personally, I found the mock trial competition quite refreshing. It encouraged us to work as a team and creatively and intuitively work out the best angles to a problem. I found performing my speech exciting and enjoyed working in a team.”
The other QE competitors were: Samhith Aggana; Devansh Jha; Muhamad Mohamed; Soham Kale; Daniel Moon; Sai Murarishetty; Daksh Vinnakota; Ash Iyer and Adokshaj Magge.
Zhuoer Chen, of Year 9, and Sarang Nair, of Year 7, were among just ten finalists nationwide.
The competition, which is part of Christ Church’s outreach work, was open to all UK state school pupils in Years 7–10. Entrants had to submit a video 2–5 minutes long on a geographical issue or phenomenon that was local to them.
The video compared average yearly temperatures at Greenwich weather station with those at Calgary and found they were 11.35C higher.
After being selected to represent the School in the event, the four emerged with a perfect score of 121 out of 121.
Hadi Al-Esia, Kovid Gothi, Saim Khan and Shreyaas Sandeep travelled to St Dominic’s Sixth Form College in Harrow on the Hill for the competition run by Advanced Mathematics Support Programme – a Government-funded national initiative.
Card Sort: Competitors had to reimagine every 3D shape (such as cubes) to try to unravel the shortest way to pass through or over them. “This was by far the most challenging round for the team to tackle as it involved a new dimension of geometry for them – a combination of Pythagoras and 3D visualisation,” Mr Shah added. “They finished the round with less than 20 seconds to spare.” The team’s favourite problem came from this round (see picture right): competitors were asked to calculate the distance from A to B if the net [what a 3D shape looks like if opened out flat] were open for the cone.Saim said: I particularly enjoyed the card sort round – trying to reimagine and visualise the shapes in a new way was challenging but immensely rewarding too!”
The six junior teams also won a slew of the top awards, following in the footsteps of the senior VRC teams who had similarly taken awards in their competition over the previous two days.
Four teams – two from Year 10, one from Year 12 and one with a mix of boys from the two year groups – competed in the senior VRC bracket at Telford International Center. HYBRID, Vortex Invicta, HEX Green and Hyperion pitted their wits against the very finest robotic talent in the UK. The VRC championships drew 58 teams from all over the UK to battle it out in the competition’s Brunel and Lovelace divisions.
“Hyperion reached the Brunel divisional finals, while an all-QE alliance of HEX Green and HYBRID made it to the Lovelace division semi-final, only to be cruelly denied a finals place by a loose battery connection. The day was not over for QE teams, however: when the medal winners were announced, Hyperion won the coveted Design Award (considered the second-most prestigious in the whole competition), HEX Green achieved double success, winning both the Skills and Think awards, and Vortex Invicta received a Judges Award. “Vortex Invicta’s first award of the season thus arrived at the highest level of competition they had so far faced!” Mr Noonan said.
The achievements began with Gearsquad posting an early National Record Skills score. After strong QE performances in the Qualification and Skills elements of the competition, all eyes turned to the finals. The alliances (15 pairs from the 30 teams taken part) faced off in reverse order, from lowest to highest ranked, and the ‘Chair of Champions’ was unveiled – a seat reserved for the (current) highest-ranked teams.
They also gained the following awards:
Shankar was among 45 Year 12 mathematicians from QE to attend the annual series of lectures at The Royal Institution in London.
Puzzle expert and author Rob Eastaway looked at ‘fairness’ and ‘guilt’, telling the audience that chimpanzees have been seen to grasp the concept of fairness, refusing a treat if they felt they were receiving preferential treatment over their fellow chimps.
During breaks, the boys visited the event’s Maths Village, where they could enjoy mini-mathematical activities and meet people who use Mathematics every day at university and in commerce.
Congratulating them, Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Our robotics teams march on to ever-greater success, thanks to their technical skills, teamwork and great commitment.
While examination commitments prevent Year 12 from travelling, IQ teams from Years 8 and 9 VRC competitors from Year 10 will all be heading for the States.