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Boys on a Sixth-Form theatre trip explored one of the seminal moments in modern Indian history – the 1948 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Twenty-two Year 12 boys and their teachers went on the History department trip to the National Theatre to see The Father and the Assassin.

It tells the story of Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse, who went from being a loyal follower of Gandhi and his non-violent methods to becoming his killer.

History teacher John Haswell said: “The play explores the conflicting narratives and complex desires of those involved in India’s struggle for freedom, and how Gandhi’s vision of an integrated nation of Hindus and Muslims clashed with the vision of others, including that of his assassin, who saw Gandhi’s integrationist ideals as a betrayal to his Hindu nationalist vision of a free India.

“For some of our students, the characters and individuals on stage were familiar through their own engagement with Indian history. Indeed, for some, the play was a portrayal of a more personal history, as family members may have experienced both the fight for independence and the horrors of partition.”

Regardless of their background, the visit enhanced all the boys’ understanding of Indian independence, showing how competing visions of a post-colonial India clashed, Mr Haswell added. They also appreciated the unique power of theatre to bring such ideas to life.

“The play also echoes beyond India, and speaks to conflicts elsewhere in the world where seemingly irreconcilable world-views collide.”

Written by Indian playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar, The Father and the Assassin premiered at the National last year. It completes its second run there this month.

After the visit, the boys, all A-level History students, gave their reactions. Joel Kidangan Justine said: “This was my first time to the theatre, and I’m amazed by how well they are able to capture the story of Indian independence in such a clever and interesting way.”

Kyshaan Ravikumar described the play as “an enticing reimagination of the struggle for Indian independence”, while Vaibhav Gaddi praised “a captivating story that sheds light on the story of Nathuram Vinayak Godse”.

Twenty-three boys whose work was chosen as the best in the QE 450^th anniversary research project were treated to a rare look at one of the nation’s most treasured documents on a trip to the National Archives.

Among the artefacts viewed by the group during their visit to Kew was the actual letter – known as the ‘Tide Letter’ – written by the future Queen Elizabeth I, founder of Queen Elizabeth’s School, as she battled for survival following her arrest in 1554.

Jenni Blackford, Curator of QE Collections and Head of Library Services, said: “It was amazing to see such fabulous documents close up and it was a testament to our students’ conduct, interest and behaviour that they brought the Tide Letter out to show them at the end of the session.”

The visit was a reward for the boys who submitted the best entries to Project 1573. This involved small groups of boys being given three primary sources relating to a particular aspect of QE’s history and then asked to produce a three-minute presentation after accessing QE Collections – the School’s online archive – and other archival materials.

The winners were:

• Navieeneish Kirubaharan, Param Kapadia, Aarnav Mahajan and Advay Zore, all from Year 8 Pearce form, who researched Timothy Edwards, Headmaster 1961–1983
• Kelvin Chen, Ethan Yao, Jonas Dawit and Rishi Sen, also of Year 8 Pearce, researching E W Harrison, a long-serving teacher who retired in 1950 and is one of the two unrelated people after whom the Harrisons’ House is named
• Shravanth Sadheesh, Pranav Nayak, Arya Ratnakaram and Sriram Muthukumaran, from Year 8, Stapylton, who looked into QE’s 350^th anniversary celebrations in 1923
• Snehal Das, Samir Cheema and Ozgan Cakir, of Year 9, Stapylton, who researched QE becoming a grant-maintained school in 1989, giving it new freedoms to govern its own affairs
• Keeyan Shah, Alex Stack, Shlok Gajjar and Pranith Turaga, also of Year 9, Stapylton, looked into the foundation of the School
• Aahan Shah, Abhinav Sandeep, Jack Tan and Tunishq Mitra, of the Year 9 Broughton form, who investigated the history of Eton Fives at the School.

They saw the Tide Letter, which was written by Elizabeth to her half-sister, Queen Mary I, when the princess was arrested following Wyatt’s Rebellion, an attempt to overthrow the queen, in 1554. Mary gave orders for Elizabeth to be taken to the Tower of London.

“The students were able to see the neat handwriting at the start of the letter become larger and messier as she was likely made to hurry by those waiting to escort her to the Tower. Fearing her enemies might alter the letter, Elizabeth struck lines through the blank space above her signature,” said Mrs Blackford.

“It is called the Tide Letter because it is believed Elizabeth deliberately wrote the letter to buy time so that the daylight low tide that enabled boats to pass safely through the narrow arches of London Bridge would have turned and she would avoid being taken to the Tower for an additional day.”

Eloquently protesting her innocence, the future queen finishes the letter: “Your hignes most faithful subject that hathe bine from the beginninge, and wylbe to my ende. Elizabeth.”

Her stratagem was successful: she was not taken to the Tower until the following day. Elizabeth was eventually released and then succeeded to the throne on Mary’s death four years later, in 1558.

The Year 8 and Year 9 boys saw a variety of later documents from Elizabeth’s reign, including letters, speeches, Plea Rolls (parchment court records) and the queen’s second Great Seal.

QE’s founding Royal Charter of 1573 was authorised with Queen Elizabeth’s first seal. This, however, wore out during her long reign, and, Ms Blackford said, the boys enjoyed finding out about its replacement: “It is noticeably more elaborate, as Elizabeth had started to closely monitor her image.”

The boys also learned about how the National Archives came into existence, hearing how in the 1830s, civil servant Henry Cole submitted to the Government a dead mummified rat with a stomach full of chewed documents among his evidence of the unsuitability of the premises where public records were then being stored.

QE expanded its series of popular challenges for local primary school children this year, adding a humanities day to the programme.

The events, which are part of QE’s partnerships work with the local community, are aimed at giving Year 5 girls and boys an early taste of secondary school education.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We are pleased to support local primary schools in this way.

“I know that our staff and pupils involved in running these enrichment activities greatly enjoy the opportunity to meet the visiting children.”

The first of the three days was the ever-popular Primary Forensics Workshop. The visitors were tasked with completing a number of experiments and analyses to work out who had murdered the Headmaster!

There were stations where the children could undertake: hair and fibre analysis using a microscope; fingerprint analysis, and blood spatter analysis (with a blood substitute).

The pupils worked to solve the ‘crime’, using the evidence they collected to build a case, while also weighing up the respective motives of the suspects.

Boys from Year 12 helped staff run this workshop, engaging with the children at each station.

In the Maths and English Challenge, the girls and boys had to solve a series of games and puzzles that ranged from a cross-number round to a session looking at composing and performing poetry.

There was a focus on teamwork and collaboration. Each team had the support of a QE Year 7 pupil.

Special plaudits went to Foulds School pupils, who achieved a near-clean sweep of the prizes, having impressed across the various disciplines on the day.

The new humanities day hosted by the History, Geography and Economics departments comprised two separate activities.

Firstly, teams were given the challenge of designing a castle on paper. They had to base their design on a certain set of criteria and follow a budget, requiring them to decide which features they wanted to prioritise.

They then faced a number of scenarios, presenting both challenges and opportunities for their fortifications. Could their castle and kingdom survive?

“This was a way of exploring history and strategy in a fun and engaging way,” said Mr Enright. “The Year 5 pupils also had to adapt their plans as the scenarios unfolded, which meant teams had to communicate well and quickly make decisions.”

There was then a Sustainability Challenge run jointly by Geography and Economics. The children had to work in groups and devise a sustainable product. They designed their product, chose a logo and decided on their target market. Then each group presented to the other children in attendance. Among the ideas generated were: a mobile phone where the case is a solar panel and charges the phone, and a ‘plastic’ bottle where the bottle itself is biodegradable.

“Our staff were really impressed with the confidence shown by the children in their presentations and by the creativity they brought to bear in designing their products,” said the Headmaster.

Participating Barnet primary schools this year included: Underhill, Whitings Hill, Christchurch, and Foulds.

A new School society – believed to be the first of its kind in the country – is working hard to decipher QE’s earliest written records.

English teacher Kanak Shah has brought together a group of dedicated Year 12 boys and trained them in palaeography – the study of ancient and pre-modern manuscripts.

Now they have started transcribing QE Governors’ meeting minutes, starting with Volume I, which begins in 1587, and also researching the School Charter, which dates back to the School’s founding year, 1573.

Ms Shah, who has an MPhil degree in Renaissance Literature from Cambridge, said: “Due to its complexity, palaeography is usually only studied at Master’s level. But since I myself have a keen interest in palaeography, manuscripts and the early modern period, and since QE boasts one of the most robust school archive collections in the UK, I was eager for the students to be involved in preserving and curating their own School’s history.”

Working together with Ms Shah and Jenni Blackford, Curator of QE Collections and Head of Library Services, are the following Year 12 A-level History students: Gabriel Gulliford, Ishaan Mehta, Muhammad Nayel Huda, Kai Mukherjee, Danny Adey, Conall Walker and Jeeve Singh. All are currently studying the early modern period and are considering pursuing courses in subjects such as History, Palaeography or Archaeology at university.

“We started by following Cambridge University’s English Handwriting 1500-1700 online course to develop the students’ transcription skills. We then began to transcribe the digitised manuscripts on QE Collections [the School’s publicly available digital archive, launched last year].

“The earliest documents present an interesting challenge as they were written before the standardisation of handwriting, and so require careful decoding,” said Ms Shah.

Having initially familiarised themselves with the subject matter digitally, the group are now working with the original archive materials, guided by Mrs Blackford.

They plan to publish the transcripts on QE Collections in the Summer Term, while they will contribute their research to an exhibition of archival material planned for the School’s 450^th anniversary next year.

“Looking forward to the future, we would be keen to establish a working relationship with Barnet Museum, who possess a complete transcription of these Governor’s minutes that was done many years ago,” said Ms Shah.

It is not clear who made the the Barnet Museum transcription, which was completed  some time prior to 1931. The preface to the museum’s collection of QE translations and transcriptions was written in May 1931 by Cecil L Tripp, author of A History of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, published 1935.

“Transcriptions are often erroneous and subjective, so it is very interesting for the boys to compare their own work with the museum’s transcription, and to contribute to Barnet’s history in such an active way.”

Once the pupils’ transcription has been completed and it and the Barnet Museum transcription have been digitised, they will both be published on QE Collections.

Year 8 pupils who headed for Hampton Court Palace on the first whole-year History trip since the pandemic struck enjoyed the added bonus of a special exhibition about Indian soldiers in the First World War.

At the palace, the boys learned about Tudor life and saw at first-hand evidence of the School’s own links with the Tudor monarchy. They also had the opportunity to see a special exhibition and art installation – on for this month only – featuring silhouetted figures of Sikh soldiers from the British Empire’s Indian Army.

The display, entitled Standing with Giants at Hampton Court Palace, commemorates the soldiers from the Indian Army who camped in the palace gardens in the summer of 1919 following the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty, marking the formal end of the First World War, or ‘Great War’. Along with other troops from nations across the British Empire, they had sailed to the UK to march in the peace celebrations in London.

Helen MacGregor, Head of History and Politics, said: “The silhouetted figures made for a moving display, while the accompanying original letters from soldiers displayed next to them really brought home the fear, danger and reality of life in the trenches.

“Our pupils were fascinated, too, by the carved wooden ceilings in the Great Hall, picturing to themselves Henry VIII sitting under them and also, a few decades later, performances there by Shakespeare’s own theatre company.

“Another point of interest was the beautiful starred ceiling of the Chapel – where the boys were intrigued to find the School motto written some 32 times.” The explanation is that the motto, Dieu et mon droit (God and my right), has been the motto of the UK monarch outside Scotland since the 12^th century and was, therefore, the motto of Queen Elizabeth I, in whose reign the School was founded and after whom it is named.

The year group visited Hampton Court over the course of two days.

As well as the grander areas of the buildings, the boys had an opportunity to inspect the huge kitchens that Henry VIII had constructed to feed his 1,000-strong court.

They also saw the Great Vine – the largest grape vine in the world.

Braving the chilly weather, the QE groups enjoyed a walk around the park and formal gardens, during which they spied a herd of deer across a water feature to the rear of the palace.

“The gift shop was another obvious highlight for the pupils – plenty of catapult and cannon pencil sharpeners were purchased!” added Miss MacGregor.

This year’s trip to key European battlefield sites contained a special addition – a detour to Versailles, where the eponymous treaty setting out reparations after the end of the First World War was signed in 1919.

Head of History Helen MacGregor said the extra visit proved popular with the boys, for whom the whole trip was organised to fit in with Year 9’s History theme about the changing nature of warfare and to explore the links between World War I and World War II.

“Despite persistent rain and the crowds, the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves at Versailles and were particularly fascinated by the Hall of Mirrors, where they re-enacted the signing of the Versailles Treaty,” she said. The group also took the opportunity to wander in the Palace of Versailles gardens, enjoying the views of the water features and of the palace itself.

The first stop for the 44 boys and staff on the battlefields trip was Ypres, where they saw the reconstructed trenches at Hill 62, which enabled them to analyse the construction of the trench system.

This was followed by a tour of Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, where the boys searched out the names of Old Elizabethans who fought and died in the First World War. They included Jack Field, who had been the School Captain and was just 19 when he was killed. In the evening, the pupils watched the daily Menin Gate remembrance ceremony, which was first performed in 1928. Every evening, the busy road through the memorial arch is closed and The Last Post is played.

Towards the end of World War II, on the very evening that Polish forces liberated Ypres, the ceremony was resumed at the Menin Gate, even though bullets were still flying in other parts of the smoke-filled town.

Miss MacGregor said: “The boys were clearly moved by the ceremony and took the time to remember the war dead, including the Sikh regiment who are commemorated there.”

Before moving on, the boys took the opportunity to enjoy the scenery and partake of Belgian waffles, and to buy chocolate for presents and for themselves.

The trip was rounded off with a visit to Calais and the World War II sites of La Coupole and the Blockhouse. They walked around the museums there that record the manufacture and firing of the V1 and V2 rockets.

“The museums were excellent, and the boys really felt the evil inside the abandoned Blockhouse, which is still largely as it was left after the Allied bombardment,” said Miss MacGregor. “We saw moving and informative documentaries at La Coupole, codenamed Building Project 21, about the suffering inflicted by the Nazis during the building programme; using prisoners of war and compulsory work units from concentration camps.”