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QE boys took the honours at a literature quiz, comfortably beating all the other schools in the competition.

QE entered two teams in the North London heat of the Kids’ Lit Quiz and, by half-way through the contest, they were competing closely for the lead, while standing some eight points ahead of the third-placed team.

English teacher Alex Ulyet said: “They held on to this right until the end and the only question was whether the Year 7 or Year 8 team would clinch the top spot, but Year 8 nudged in front by about two points.

“On the day both teams were fantastic. We were a little worried at first as it seemed every other table was celebrating every question they got right, whilst the two QE teams stayed relatively silent. This was, however, clearly just their calm, composed natures!”

The quiz heat at Queenswood School in Hatfield was part of the nationally run Kids’ Lit Quiz, which aims to test young people’s knowledge of literature. The two groups of four boys had prepared for the event in Monday lunchtime practice sessions overseen by Mr Ulyet and QE Librarian Ciara Murray. They were given questions based on known categories in the Kids’ Lit Quiz. These included, for example, sci-fi, mythology and fish.

Besides their performance in the main competition, the QE boys did extremely well in the bonus questions between rounds, several of them winning book tokens.

“Both teams seemed to really enjoy just being able to revel in their knowledge of children’s and young adult fiction. There was a sense that it left them with an even greater desire to go out and read some of the books which they heard questions about but had not yet read, which is of course the most important thing,” Mr Ulyet added.

The winning Year 8 team comprised: Yashaswar Kotakadi; Leo Dane-Liebesny; Ishaan Mehta and Conall Walker.

The Year 7 runners-up were: Parth Kapadia; Arjun Patel; Ewan Penhale and Siddharth Sridhar.

Fifty pupils from Year 8 tested their debating skills under pressure during a visit to a leading girls’ school.

The QE boys joined an equal number of girls from The Henrietta Barnett School in Hampstead for the competitive debating symposium. After the motions to be debated were announced, the mixed groups of boys and girls then had just half-an-hour to research their topics before the debates started.

The motions included: This House believes the media does not have a right to intrude in the lives of public figures and This House would impose quotas for women in workplaces where they are under-represented.

The symposium was one of a regular series of academic enrichment events for Years 8-10 held jointly with HBS.

Nisha Mayer, QE’s Head of Academic Enrichment, said: “Students were very engaged and enthused throughout the morning. We lay great emphasis on the importance of developing oracy – the ability to communicate well using the spoken word. At events such as this symposium, pupils gain early exposure to the need to articulate their arguments. They learn to think on their feet and begin to appreciate the importance of keeping abreast of current affairs and societal issues – an interest that we seek to cultivate both during lesson time and in extra-curricular activities.

“Because of our single-sex environment at QE, there are also benefits for the boys in interacting and sharing ideas with peers from a girls’ school: we are very fortunate to have such a mutually advantageous partnership.”

After the initial debates in ‘break-out’ rooms, all 100 boys and girls joined together for the final, where the best six debaters did battle, each receiving certificates.

A recent visit by a team of boys who have qualified for the final of a courts competition gave them valuable insights into the life of a lawyer.

The 15-strong team of Year 11 and 12 pupils, who have progressed through three qualifying rounds of the Bar Mock Trial Competition, visited the Supreme Court in Parliament Square, where they had a tour and discussed some key cases. They were asked how they would have decided them. The boys then sat at the back of Court 2 and listened to part of a case regarding a disagreement between a solicitors’ firm and an insurance company.

Head of Philosophy, Religion & Society, Jack Robertson said: “The boys were impressed by the formality and ceremony, especially the way the barristers had to address the judge; but they were also surprised at how straightforward the language of the barristers was; they were very clear and easy to understand.”

In addition, the group enjoyed a look around the Royal Courts of Justice in Fleet Street, before walking through Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court, and a potential future workplace for those considering a career as a barrister. The boys were able to watch part of a second case, where a man was accused of possession of cannabis with intent to supply.

“The boys found the experience inspiring and it undoubtedly gave them an excellent understanding of life as a barrister or solicitor,” said Mr Robertson. “They were able to watch skilled barristers and judges at work, and get a feel for the locations and buildings this work takes place in. There is no doubt it will help them when they participate in the final of the mock trial competition in Cardiff next month.”

A pre-eminent political journalist took boys at the Year 12 formal luncheon on a journey through pivotal moments of recent British history.

George Parker, Political Editor of the Financial Times, was the guest speaker at the annual meal, which is arranged to give sixth-formers experience of the sort of formal social occasions that will become more frequent at university and in their careers beyond.

Mr Parker, who has previously been named in the top five of the Press Gazette’s Top 50 Political Journalists, looked back at the end of the Thatcher era and touched on significant political events right through to Brexit.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “He spoke entertainingly and in engaging fashion, relating anecdotes which kept the boys enthralled, and then answering their questions.”

Mr Parker told one light-hearted story about how a front-page story he had run with the FT on a new haircut of Tony Blair’s had sparked a minor media frenzy and a rebuke from No 10! He discussed weightier matters too, in particular talking about the Brexit negotiations, from the project’s very feasibility through to the possible economic benefits of a trade deal with the US.

He gave thoughtful answers to all the boys’ questions, which included whether the referendum had led to increasing xenophobia; whether the country is headed for a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit, and whether he thought Brexit would happen at all. The FT is a very pro-Europe newspaper, the most widely read in Brussels, and Mr Parker predicted that the advantages of Brexit would be meagre. Other questions related to specific issues such as the desirability of the Government pursuing a balanced budget.

“It was a real pleasure to welcome him to the School,” said Mr Enright. “The boys clearly appreciated hearing his insights and had some very pertinent questions. This was another opportunity for them to benefit from a guest speaker’s expertise.”

The luncheon followed a format of a three-course meal, with Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s volunteers assisting the School’s catering team. This was followed by toasts and speeches. School Captain Aashish Khimasia presided over the occasion as master of ceremonies, leading the toasts to The Queen and the ‘loyal toast’ to Queen Elizabeth I; as is customary, this was taken in silence. One of the Senior Vice-Captains, Aditya Ravindrakumar, introduced Mr Parker, with Vice-Captain Parth Gosalia delivering the vote of thanks at the conclusion of the event.

“Mr Parker declared that he had enjoyed himself and said he was heading off to go and think about tomorrow’s front page!” said Mr Enright.

QE debaters have reached the European Youth Parliament national finals after putting in an excellent performance at the South East regional round.

Eight Year 12 boys headed to the European Commission’s London building in Smith Square for the EYP South East forum, where they and teams from two independent schools – St Paul’s and Guildford High – were chosen to go through to the national event later in the year.

Congratulating the team on its success, Academic Enrichment Tutor Helen Davies said the jury had given them very positive feedback: “The boys worked exceptionally well as a group, having done their research well; they made interesting points, often bringing new lines of argument into the debate.”

The QE sixth-formers defended a Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) resolution which proposed steps towards greater integration and co-operation between the armed forces of European Union countries.

The 40-minute debate began with an opening speech from Akshat Sharma in which he stressed that, in view of the aggression it faces from countries including Russia and North Korea, the EU needs both to increase its spending on defence and to improve the level of co-operation between EU countries, so that the increased funding is spent effectively.

His stance was duly opposed by a speaker from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Girls’ School, to which Mipham Samten then responded. After further debate, Mipham gave a summation of the QE team’s arguments: “Mipham put a great deal of work into the team’s preparation and gave a leading contribution,” Miss Davies said.

The subsequent vote on the resolution was 63 against, and 14 for; Miss Davies pointed out that, in fact, no resolutions were passed throughout the whole day.

After the debates, the jury provided general feedback to all the teams, praising them for their enthusiastic participation and their research.

As well as Akshat and Mipham, the team comprised: Ibrahim Al-Hariri; Parth Gosalia; Shivam Masrani; Laurie Mathias; Anake Singh and Mudit Tulsianey.

An international expert gave boys fascinating insights into the worlds of security, foreign policy and defence in the latest talk in QE’s lecture programme.

In his wide-ranging address to Senior School assembly, Shashank Joshi, who works for a leading security thinktank, looked at topics including the scope of security, the importance of research and the psychological impact of a country acquiring nuclear weapons.

A Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, Mr Joshi focuses primarily on international security in South Asia and the Middle East, with a particular interest in Indian foreign and defence policy. He holds a starred first in Politics and Economics from Cambridge and a Master’s degree from Harvard, where he has also taught, and in 2007–2008 he was a Kennedy Scholar in the US. He has given evidence to the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs and Defence committees several times. His most recent book, Indian Power Projection: Arms, Influence and Ambition, published last year, was praised by the Financial Times as “admirably lucid”.

After being introduced by Nikhil Shah, of Year 12, Mr Joshi told the boys that security covers a broad range of issues and regions. It concerns not just weapons, but is about everything from climate change (insofar as it affects security) to investigating how a large bet against the value of Borussia Dortmund’s shares helped the authorities track the perpetrator of the recent attack on the football team’s bus.

In its work, the institute seeks to be policy-relevant, not just for the UK, but also for other countries and for organisations such as NATO, the EU and the UN. “The aim is to influence policy in some way.”< /p>

“Communication is absolutely key to what we do,” he said – he and his colleagues need to be able to get politicians and other decision-makers to understand the institute’s work and see its relevance.

Research is also important, and it was essential to gather views from diverse perspectives: “You can’t do this from your desk; you have to travel and speak to people,” he said, although he conceded that ‘open source’ research could also be valuable. “A lot of what we do is about making educated guesses… having gathered information from a range of perspectives.”

He looked at the case of North Korea and its ‘nuclear weapons’, explaining to the boys about the deep analysis of photographs, which involves carefully examining images to uncover clues about the North Koreans’ programme. For example, the size of a bomb in a photo with the North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un would be carefully studied to determine what it means in terms of how the weapon could be launched and the scale of damage it could cause. Examination of signs in the background of images helped to work out where photographs had been taken, while researchers were also on the look-out for subtle signals that could be revealing: in one photo taken by satellite over North Korea’s nuclear-testing facility, workers could be seen playing volleyball – possibly saying: ‘We are not currently preparing a launch, so don’t attack us’.

Mr Joshi then posed some questions around the psychological impact of countries having nuclear weapons, and inter-continental ballistic missiles, in particular. The acquisition of such weapons is considered a ‘game-changer’: it changes thinking in the US and UK, for example, if suddenly we think we can be hit. But, he asked, would we act to protect a third-party nation if we could be hit in retribution?

Mr Joshi also answered several questions from the boys in a Q&A session following his talk:

Q. What happens if you get it wrong?

A. There are significant consequences if signals are misread and incorrect interpretations given to governments, Mr Joshi said. He used Iraq as an example, where there was an assumption that the Iraqis were simply continuing to hide their nuclear programme before the invasion in 2003. The consequences of that action are still being felt today in the region and in our foreign affairs.

Q. Are we at risk of another global conflict?

A. It was difficult to say, according to Mr Joshi. Some are drawing parallels to the period before World War I, but there is a different context. There is uncertainty: “Things in global politics are very fluid right now… things are up in the air.” He gave one example: will the USA under Trump take on China, or strike an agreement with it?

Q. What about India?

A. India has big decisions to make in its approach to China, particularly in the context of the USA, said Mr Joshi .

School Librarian Ciara Murray, who co-ordinates the lecture programme, said: “Mr Joshi was an engaging speaker who put across the complexities of security and international relations issues in a way that was easy to follow and understand. There would have been many more questions if there had been more time!”