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Three sixth-formers have qualified for the next stage of the élite British Mathematical Olympiad after strong performances in the first round.

Bashmy Basheer, Nico Puthu and Niam Vaishnav, all of Year 13, were among nine boys to reach Round 1 of the Olympiad, which is itself one of the follow-on rounds of the UK Mathematics Trust’s Senior Maths Challenge. They won a certificate of distinction and a bronze medal, with Nico scoring 40 out of 60 and both Bashmy and Niam scoring 37.

They now progress to Round 2, where success results in an invitation to participate in training to represent the country in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung congratulated the three on their achievement in the first round and wished them success in Round 2.

Their fellow Year 13 pupils, Kiran Aberdeen, Kishan Patel and Robert Sarkar, also achieved a certificate of distinction. The remaining three sixth-formers all achieved a certificate of qualification in Round 1, which consisted of six long, extended questions to be completed in three-and-a-half hours.

A further 29 sixth-formers took part in the Senior Maths Challenge’s other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo, which represents an increase on the 2017 total of 25 and the 2016 figure of ten.

Thirteen boys were each awarded a merit certificate for scores of 35 and above. Saruthan Seelan (pictured above right) in fact achieved double this total, with his score of 70 out of 100 making him the best in Year 12.

Sehj Khanna (left) was the highest scorer in Year 13 with 50/100.

The Senior Kangaroo is a one-hour paper, with all the questions requiring three-digit. Certificates of merit are awarded to the top 25%.

Best-selling author Tim Marshall told A-level Politics and Geography students about the worldwide renewed rise of nationalism and identity politics in a talk on his latest book.

The former diplomatic editor and foreign affairs editor for Sky News was visiting South Hampstead High School, which invited QE to send along boys with an interest in the subject.

In an early-evening event, he spoke for 45 minutes on Divided: Why we’re living in an age of walls to an audience that included 11 QE boys, as well as QE’s Head of Geography, Emily Parry, Head of Politics, Liam Hargadon and Geography teachers Helen Davies and Nilisha Shah.

Miss Parry said: “In his talk, Tim discussed how we feel more divided than ever and how nationalism and identity politics are on the rise once more. Thousands of miles of fences and barriers have been erected in the past ten years, and they are redefining our political landscape.

“He highlighted how the proposed wall between Mexico and the USA isn’t the only wall which should have our attention, but how many walls and other physical divisions exist throughout the world, such as the wall between Israel and the West Bank and the fence separating India from Bangladesh.

“He argues that understanding what has divided us, past and present, is essential to understanding much of what’s going on in the world today.”

Miss Parry added that he also told a few Geography-themed jokes, including: ‘Where do all pens come from? Answer: Pennsylvania!”

In the Q&A session following the talk, there was a discussion about topics such as whether the rise of nationalism means we are seeing an end to some forms of globalisation. Mr Marshall was also asked whether, in the context of the mass migration movements seen around the world, open borders should exist: he felt that they should not.

At the end of the event, he signed copies of his books, including his 2015 best-seller, Prisoners of Geography.

A team of five Year 12 QE economists was the only one to turn a profit in an auction at a prestigious conference attended by over 200 delegates from a number of leading schools.

More than 30 QE boys attended the Economics Conference at Woodhouse College in North Finchley, which aimed to offer pupils a unique opportunity to hear directly from academics, researchers and policymakers.

The event was jointly organised by the college and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR); it was supported by supported by blue-chip organisations including The Bank of England, The Royal Economics Society, The Government Economics Service and several top universities.

QE’s Head of Economics Shamendra Uduwawala said: “This type of event not only allows our boys to hear directly from both leading academics and those who shape policy, but it also enables them to mix with their peers from other schools. There is no doubt that a conference such as this exposes boys to high-level thinking while reinforcing what they have been learning in the classroom.”

Professor Jagjit Chadha, the Director of NIESR and a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, delivered a truncated version of his recent Brexit talk to the Commons Select Committee on Brexit.

QE pupil Rishi Shah, one of the joint Presidents of the School’s Economics Society said: “For me, this talk was the highlight of the day; it was about forecasting and the role it plays in predicting the outcomes of Brexit. Professor Chadha used the metaphor of rolling a dice to show how forecasts can be rational, accurate yet wrong. He gave an insight into the work that NIESR conducts in forecasting and mapping out the likely outcomes of Brexit and the rationale behind the effects of business uncertainty.”

In her lecture, Financial Stability: a fine balancing act, Dr Rhiannon Sowerbutts described her role at the Bank of England as a Senior Economist and advisor to the Financial Policy Committee. She spoke about the importance of identifying potential risks to financial stability, such as household debt rising faster than incomes.

Dr Babak Somekh, from the University of Bristol. led an auction activity in the afternoon, involving food items. The delegates were split into teams of five. Year 12 pupil Hanif Gofur, who is the other joint President of QE’s Economics Society said: “We didn’t know in advance which food item would be auctioned next, so all the teams were kept on their toes. The atmosphere became electrified and chaotic as bids between schools intensified – often beyond the bounds of rationality.” Hanif and his QE teammates held their nerve and turned a healthy £250 profit on their £2,500 budget – the only team to make a profit.

Sarah Billingham, an Assistant Economist at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, promoted a new Degree Apprenticeship offered by the Government Economics Service in her lecture, How can economists influence policy? She suggested to delegates that this programme could be a good option for aspiring economists aiming for a higher education qualification who wished to avoid student debt and the loss of three to four years of potential earnings.

The day was concluded by Dr Lea Samek, of Kings College London, and Dr Michela Vecchi, of the University of Middlesex, who respectively looked at the UK’s productivity performance since the financial crash of 2008 and the impact of automation on the UK labour market.
Rishi said: “Overall, it was a phenomenal experience to hear from many different renowned speakers and it most definitely piqued my interest in Economics.”

In addition to delegates from QE and the hosts, Woodhouse College, there were pupils from Dame Alice Owen’s School, Highgate Wood School, The Camden School for Girls and Fortismere.

Two senior QE teams have qualified for the national finals of the VEX EDR robotics competition after convincing performances in the regional rounds.

The teams are aiming to build on the School’s success last year, when QE junior boys competing in the parallel VEX IQ competition not only reached the World Championships in the USA but were crowned the UK’s first-ever world champions. A VEX EDR team from QE also qualified for the World Championships, where they achieved the best-ever result for a UK team.

In this year’s competition, Team Hybrid (pictured top), comprising boys from Year 10 and 11, stormed through to the national finals after being crowned Teamwork Champions and losing only one of their nine matches when they competed at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire.

Cobra, a new team comprising Year 12 boys competing in their first-ever VEX EDR event, have also qualified for the nationals, which take place in Telford in March. They performed strongly throughout the round held at St Olave’s Grammar School in Orpington, where they finished third in the Skills Challenge. And in the next round, at The Henrietta Barnett School, they successfully reached both the knockout stage and the final, where they lost by a mere three points.

A third QE team, Apex, all from Year 10, still holds hope of qualifying for the national finals in the coming weeks. In the tournament at St Olave’s, Apex won the Judges’ Award for the design and construction of their robot and reached the semi-finals, where they lost out to the team which went on to win the round. Apex also performed strongly at HBS: like Cobra, they reached the knockout stages, where once again they were eliminated by the eventual overall winners.

The boys were accompanied at the tournaments by Technology teachers Alexander Vaughan and Charlie-Maud Munro. Mr Vaughan said: “My congratulations go to all the boys for their accomplishment. Hybrid and Cobra and are now looking forward to the national finals, with the latter team’s feat in reaching them particularly impressive, given their inexperience in VEX.”

The VEX EDR system has elements designed to fit each other easily, thus enabling seamless integration. The competitions typically feature a series of games in which teams’ robots are given points for accomplishing tasks such as stacking items, scoring goals and parking successfully. Teams are required to collaborate, as well as compete against others.

Several regional events are held, with the qualifying teams then going through to national finals and, ultimately, the World Championship, where the very best from almost 8,500 teams worldwide battle it out. There is a variety of prizes at each level, including awards for design, teamwork and all-round excellence.

This year’s QE VEX EDR teams are:
Team Apex: Swattik Das, Nirmay Jadhav, Ansh Jaiswal, Lucas Lu, Siddh Patel and George Sewell, all of Year 10
Team Cobra: Akram Ahmad, Mahdi Dhirani, Jimmy Ou and Leo Yang, all of Year 12
Team Hybrid: Dillan Shah and Alex Woodcock both of Year 10; Deshraam Ganeshamoorthy, Devin Karia, Daniel Radzik-Rahman and James Tan all of Year 11.

A QE boy’s correct answer to an outlandish numerical and scientific challenge won him a prize during a show aimed at inspiring young mathematicians.

Aryan Shrivastava correctly calculated that 7.5 million tins of Alphabetti Spaghetti would be needed to list the entire human genome, netting him a signed copy of Helen Pilcher’s book, Bring Back the King, which looks at the science that makes the resurrection of extinct animals a real possibility.

Helen, a scientist, comedian and writer for the science magazine, Nature, was the host for The Maths Inspiration Show at London’s Piccadilly Theatre, which was attended by around 60 Year 11 boys from QE.

She explored the distribution of letters found in a tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti. Her hypothesis was that there should be a strong correlation between the letters found in a tin and the occurrence of letters in the English language. In fact, the scatter graph she produced showed no correlation, nor did others for different languages, reported Mathematics teacher Phillip Brady.

Mr Brady said that Hugh Hunt, who is a lecturer at Cambridge University “put us all in a spin discussing the motion of balls, wheels and tops. He demonstrated how the gyroscopic effect can be used to rotate spacecraft and described why boomerangs come back (as well as demonstrating his boomerang-throwing skills).”

And he added that added that another speaker, Ben Sparks, who visited QE last year to speak to Year 10, took inspiration from Sting’s song, Shape of my Heart (about a poker player) to discuss some probability “whilst warning us of the perils of gambling. He was safe in his bet that in a random selection of 60 of the audience of 15 to 17 year-olds: there was at least one pair who shared a birthday.”

Matt Parker, who describes himself as a “stand-up mathematician”, related some of the mathematical errors set out in his book, Humble Pi. Some, he said, were simply amusing or embarrassing, such as McDonalds miscounting the combinations of meal deals and Pepsi underestimating the value of a fighter plane. However, he pointed out that some other mistakes he had come across could have more serious consequences, such as an aeroplane running out of fuel because the wrong units had been used to fill the tanks.

Afterwards, the pupils reflected on their favourite speakers of the day. Priyan Solanki said: “Hugh Hunt’s demonstration of the gyroscopic precession was very interesting.” (Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body.) Harrishan Kangatheepan enjoyed Matt Parker’s explanation of how our minds can deceive us, especially with enormous numbers such as a trillion, while Ridwan Khan’s interest was piqued by Ben Sparks, from whom he learned aspects of probability that were new to him.

QE’s Young Enterprise group combined fun competitions and festive sales with some serious market research when they took part in Barnet Christmas Fayre.

The Year 10 boys participated in the popular seasonal event as part of the Barnet Teenage Market – a new attraction at the fair this year. Teenage Market is a national initiative that aims to give young people a free platform to showcase their creative talents.

Team member Shounak Pal said: “Throughout the day we were able to sell to visitors and gain invaluable experience.”

The Year 10 Reflex team sold Christmas essentials such as tinsel, wrapping paper and Christmas tree decorations. They also ran three competitions, showing visitors containers and challenging them to guess the number of candy canes and wine gums in their respective jars, as well as the weight of a tin of biscuits.

Academic Enrichment Tutor Lucy Riseborough said: “The competitions were very popular, generating a good profit for the team. They also managed to sell most of their Christmas stock on the day.”

During the event, Reflex also conducted market research into their current physical product, which is a vocabulary flashcard game complementing their educational app.

Among the other stallholders were a Young Enterprise team from The Henrietta Barnett School.
Shilacshan Lingakumar, of the QE team, said: “We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and found it a great opportunity to sell, and to check out the opposition!”

• The team can be followed on Twitter and Instagram: search for ye_reflex