Viewing archives for Charity

Broughton have been crowned this year’s top House at Queen Elizabeth’s School, following intense competition in fields as diverse as architecture and dodgeball.

A strong performance at Sports Day helped Broughton overtake Pearce to claim overall victory as the leader of QE’s six houses – a victory announced to great excitement at the end-of-year House Assembly.

Broughton’s House Captain, Saifullah Shah, and Deputy House Captain, Jamie Watkin-Rees, both of Year 12, were duly presented with the coveted House Cup by Headmaster Neil Enright.

Mr Enright said afterwards: “It has been another year of outstanding endeavour among the Houses, which play such an important role in fostering teamwork and friendship. My sincere congratulations go to all Broughton boys on their hard-won victory.”

During the assembly, Year 12’s Kieran Dhrona and Rishi Shah gave a presentation on the extensive fund-raising that takes place during the year in support of various charities as well as QE’s long-running Sai School Appeal, which aims to help the Sri Sathya Sai English Medium School in Kerala, India.

QE’s overall charity this year was the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, while there were also Christmas collections of food for the Chipping Barnet Foodbank and of clothing for a charity helping some of the 168,000 people homeless people in London.

Among the charity events staged were an inter-House dodgeball tournament run by Broughton and Harrisons’ for Years 7–9, which raised £280. Leicester and Pearce ran an interactive quiz for Years 7–10, raising £168. And Stapylton and Underne organised a guess-the-teacher baby photo competition, raising £87.70.

For the Sai School Appeal, a FIFA Tournament saw staff and pupils battle it out, games controllers in hand, in what was perhaps the most popular charity event of the year. One notable match included that between the Headmaster and the 2019 School Captain, Bhiramah Rammanohar.

The tournament raised £120.60, while a swimathon raised £609.65 and a guess-the-number-of-sweets-in-the-jar challenge at the Founder’s Day Fete brought in £62.

The House competitions reported on during the assembly included the:

• Year 7 House afternoon won by Stapylton
• In the Scoop news contest for Year 8 won by Pearce
• Languages competition, in which boys were challenged to design a poster about an influential linguist or speaker of German. French or Latin
• Architectural Enrichment Competition, won by Harrisons’
• QIQE quiz, won by Broughton in a tough final against Stapylton.

The assembly also reviewed other activities of the year.

For drama, as well as looking back at the performances at the Shakespeare Schools Festival and at the School Play, Lord of the Flies, the presentation revealed the names of boys who have successfully auditioned for roles in next term’s Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.

Hundreds of boys have taken part in musical extra-curricular activities during the year. There are currently more than 20 ensembles, many of them pupil-led, involving 150 singers and nearly 200 instrumentalists. The 35 winners of Music colours from across the year groups were announced.

The assembly celebrated the winners of the separate QE chess championships for Year 7 and for Years 8-11, as well as those who performed strongly in the UK Chess Challenge. Junior, intermediate and senior chess colours were presented.

A report on the Duke of Edinburgh Award revealed that 87 Year 11 boys completed their bronze awards. Twenty-six Year 12s finished their silver awards, while 11 Year 13s completed D of E at gold level.

In sport, the assembly covered the following highlights:

• Cricket: The Year 8 team reached the quarter-finals of the National Cup, where they lost on the last ball
• Rugby: The U16s won the Hertfordshire plate; several boys gained county honours and a successful tour to Holland took place
• Eton fives: Record levels of participation at QE brought encouraging successes at the sport’s national finals
• Athletics: Combined Year 7 & 8 and 9 & 10 teams reached regional finals, and stand-out individual performances were listed
• Water polo: Both the seniors and Year 10 reached their respective national cup plate finals.

‘Teams of the year’, comprising selections from across the year groups, were announced for cricket and rugby.

Two Sixth Form pupils secured well over £11,000 when they organised their first-ever major charity event – easily beating their £5,000 target.

Year 13’s Parth Gosalia and Year 12 boy Rishi Shah put together a grand dinner, including entertainment, because both have roles as Youth Teachers at the Shri Chandana Vidyapeeth Jain School in Edgware and they were keen to demonstrate young people making a positive difference in society.

The dinner, which took place at the Shishukunj Community Centre in Edgware, was held in aid of two charities: Debra, which supports people suffering from a skin condition called Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), and Veerayathan Nepal, which is raising money for children orphaned by the large Nepal earthquake of 2015.

Some 120 people attended the event, including committee members from the Jain School, charity representatives and local business people. Parth and Rishi worked with a third Youth Teacher, Shyam Shah, who is not a QE pupil.

The final total – not including Gift Aid – came to £11,434, which was amassed through sales, a raffle and pledges. The entertainment at the dinner included a guitarist and a magician.

Parth, who has an offer to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Christ Church, Oxford, and was a QE Vice-Captain last year, compered the event. “It was daunting at first and I was nervous to begin with, but in the end I really enjoyed the night,” he said.

“Organising the evening was a good experience for us as youth leaders: we got ‘tighter’ and learned much more about each other through the process. It was eye-opening and very rewarding.”

Rishi, who is a current Vice-Captain, delivered a 25-minute presentation on the charities’ work.

Two years ago, he visited a school run by Veerayathan, which is an Indian NGO operating internationally. The dinner was, however, raising money specifically towards its work in Nepal, where the organisation is building a centre close to Kathmandu to house and educate children orphaned in the earthquake. It will also offer adult education courses.

Jenny Jackson, Debra UK’s Business Development Manager, and Christo Kapourani, a sufferer from EB, both spoke at the dinner, and Mr Kapourani also announced the final total towards the end of the evening.

Rishi said: “I feel personally connected to these charities, therefore it was easy to present with passion. That, allied with the presentations from the Debra representatives, had a high emotional impact, which undoubtedly inspired the guests to be generous with their pledges.”

Rishi hopes to go to Nepal this summer to work as a volunteer and to present the money raised.

Another QE boy, Aaryan Sheth, of Year 11, also assisted on the day.

The international migrant crisis in southern Europe may have faded from the headlines in recent months, but the humanitarian challenge remains, Old Elizabethan Nicholas Millet reminded QE boys when he returned to his alma mater.

Nick (OE 2001–2008) co-founded Refugee Education Chios, which provides education, support and training for teenagers and young adults living on the Greek island of Chios, which became a de facto detention centre after the 2016 EU-Turkey agreement.

The project offers safe places – a youth centre and a learning centre – outside the Vial detention camp, reaching up to 250 children and youth aged up to 22 each week. Both centres tailor their work to the refugees’ particular needs, with, for example, the learning centre offering a trauma-sensitive curriculum and the youth centre helping teenagers develop trusting relationships and confidence in their own abilities and skills.

He spoke to boys in the middle years of QE about the charity’s work and about the migrant crisis in general, highlighting the ongoing nature of the problem, which, he said, was all too easily forgotten.

Thanking him for his visit, Head of Academic Enrichment Nisha Mayer said afterwards: “Nick provided an enormously insightful and, at times, emotional talk, which was a good reminder of the importance of being involved with humanitarian causes.”

Nick first got involved in the refugee relief work before the 2016 agreement came into force. Inspired to take action to help refugees by a weekend visit to the ‘Jungle’ camp at Calais, he put his successful career as a management consultant on hold and flew to Chios, which lies just 7km off the mainland of Turkey.

The island was the arrival point for the highest number of refugees after Lesbos, with up to 1,500 men, women and children making the journey across the Aegean Sea every night at that time. During his talk, Nick showed the boys photographs of refugees arriving on Chios, often in perilously overloaded rubber dinghies. Other images revealed the poor conditions in the camp.

Nick, of Stanmore, has a history of involvement in humanitarian projects. Shortly after leaving QE, he spent time at the Sri Sathya Sai School – a village school in Kerala, India, which QE has supported since 2002. And, while he was reading for the Politics, Psychology and Sociology Tripos at Cambridge, he undertook research for the Grameen Bank, the Nobel Prize-winning microfinance organisation based in Bangladesh which works to help the poor.

On his most recent visit to QE, Nick mentioned especially the desperate plight of lone child refugees, telling the boys: “Children are sent because their parents can’t afford for the whole family to escape.”

Festive traditions taking in church, charity and Christmas lunch helped bring the Autumn Term to a suitably seasonal end.

The Service of Nine Lessons & Carols at Chipping Barnet Parish featured Christmas music spanning the centuries. Boys and staff raised money for local charities seeking to help the disadvantaged. And the penultimate day of term brought the ever-popular full Christmas lunch in the Dining Hall.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We had a busy, enjoyable end to the term, with boys also taking time among all the festivities to remember those less fortunate than themselves. As we begin the holidays, I extend my very best wishes to all for Christmas and the New Year.”

At the Carol Service, the congregational singing began with Once in royal David’s city and ended with Hark! The herald angels sing. Interspersed were musical offerings from the Chamber Choir and the School Choir, including their respective renditions of the modern A Child is born in Bethlehem by Malcolm Archer and John Rutter’s Christmas Lullaby, as well as an introit by 16th-century Renaissance composer Palestrina, performed by the Chamber Choir.

The ‘nine lessons’ (Bible readings) were read by a boy from each year, including School Captain Aashish Khimasia, and by staff, culminating in the Headmaster’s traditional Christmas contribution from the opening chapter of St John’s Gospel.

The service was preceded by a short reception for staff past and present, and for governors, members of The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s and alumni. The reception was held close to the parish church in Tudor Hall, Wood Street, the historic home of the School until it moved to its present location in 1932.

While charity work takes place throughout the year at QE, a special effort is made at Christmas, the traditional season of goodwill. This year, there was a collection for the local food bank and for a local homelessness charity. Boys and members of staff contributed over a week-long period, and a large volume of donations was made.

These charity efforts were organised by Head of Extra-Curricular Enrichment, Rebecca Grundy, with the assistance of prefects.

In addition, in line with recent QE tradition, boys from the School Choir went out carol-singing in aid of Cherry Lodge Cancer Care in Barnet.

A group of sixth-formers are working to set up a new charity in London after spending a day out on the streets helping the homeless.

Kieran Dhrona, Humzah Hameed and Kabishan Sivarasan, along with a non-QE friend, planned the event in which around a dozen of their friends from QE and a further 25 from other schools, spent a Saturday handing out essential provisions to homeless people in the heart of the West End.

The group, all in Year 12, gathered packs of water, non-perishable foods, clothes and toiletries from friends and families which they then distributed to those they encountered living on the street. On the day, 85 packs were given out and the volunteers engaged with more than 100 people. In certain cases, where additional needs were observed, they took other steps, such as bringing hot food.

Headmaster Neil Enright said “I sincerely commend the boys for taking the initiative and giving up their own time to organise and participate in this charitable event. It sets a fine example to their peers whilst embodying the QE spirit of service unto others.”

Throughout the day the boys had conversations with people living on the streets from Soho through Leicester Square and Embankment down to Southwark. They gently asked the homeless people they encountered how they came to be in their current position and made sure they were aware of the work of Centrepoint. Centrepoint is a leading homelessness charity which provided a room for the volunteers to use as a base for the day.

Kieran, Humzah and Kabishan are working to set up a new charity called youthconnectionlondon which will focus on helping the homeless in the capital. “The more we grow, the more people we can help,” said Kieran. They are also exploring whether they can work further with Centrepoint, looking for a base from which they could prepare hot food.

Kieran had previous experience of similar charitable activities with his family when younger. “I was touched by it and so thought I’d use my initiative to start this project. We all live in a wealthy city and have grown up in comfort, and often don’t see how others live – yet you have wealth and poverty in such proximity. We are the future generation and it is really important that we make a contribution as early as possible to keep this vital work going.”

They are establishing a social media presence and working on a website to draw in further volunteers.

“I wish them every success as they attempt to establish this charity and help more people as they progress,” said Mr Enright.

Stapylton House are the winners of the 2017/18 House Cup – reclaiming the coveted trophy from last year’s champions, Underne.

Stapylton’s victory means this House has now won the trophy – formally the Eric Shearly Memorial Cup – for three of the last four years.

The triumph was announced at the end-of-year House assembly, where the cup was presented to House Captain Oliver Than-Lu and his Deputy, Omar Taymani, both from Year 12 (pictured above).

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to all Stapylton boys: this victory reflects their consistency of achievement in extra-curricular enrichment activities across the academic year, with the older boys’ efforts being boosted by a particularly strong Year 7 cohort. I trust that boys in other Houses will be inspired to redouble their efforts next year to challenge Stapylton for the crown.”

The assembly celebrated outstanding performances over a wide range of fields, including the performing arts, sport and charity work.

For this year’s House Drama competition, participants were challenged to produce original plays on the theme of a dystopian future: Leicester won the competition for the third consecutive year.

The House Music competition was won by Pearce.

In chess, the winners of various competitions were honoured, as were the boys chosen to receive junior, intermediate and senior colours.

Similarly, the assembly highlighted the names of boys who had won colours for music and sports.

There was a review of performances in sport throughout the year, including cricket, rugby, water polo, swimming and athletics. One innovation was the announcement of ‘teams of the year’ for cricket and rugby, which included leading performers from all year groups.

House charity fund-raising events during the year were celebrated, together with the work done to support the Sri Sathya Sai English Medium School in Kerala, India, with which QE has enjoyed a longstanding partnership.

Participation in The Duke of Edinburgh Award at QE remains strong: 100 boys from Year 10 enrolled for the bronze award in October and are due to complete their Qualifying Expedition in August, it was announced, while 34 Year 11 pupils signed up for the silver award and 18 Year 12 boys for the gold.

The assembly also recounted details of:

• The various challenges run on a specially arranged House Afternoon
• The QIQE quiz, which was by Stapylton
• A number of House competitions run by the academic departments: these included, for example, a Languages competition to design a poster about a famous and influential linguist, which was won by Year 8 Stapylton pupil Jashwanth Parimi, and a photography competition for Years 7–9 run by the Geography department.