Viewing archives for Uncategorized

Pupils took part in their own Science Fair, following weeks of preparation during the second half of the Summer Term.

The boys, now in Year 9, firstly spent time during lessons choosing a research question, following a similar process to that undertaken by many Year 12 students when they select an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) topic. They then planned an appropriate method for collecting results and over a period of two weeks collated the data.

The next stage was for them to produce a poster to present their ideas to students and staff – similar to the posters that PhD students and other academic researchers are often asked to produce to explain their work.

The projects selected by the boys included:

• Redesigning the digestive system to cope with a modern diet
• Exploring aspects of psychology by investigating the causes of musical preferences
• Examining the factors which can influence magnetism.

At the fair, the boys had to justify their experimental approaches and explain their findings to an audience of students and staff, thereby developing both their confidence and their skills in articulating their thoughts.

Head of Lower School Science, Sarah Westcott, who is also Head of Pupil Progression, said: “It was important that students could experience the ‘real’ scientific process where experiments do not always go to plan and you have to learn from your mistakes and move on.”

Dr Westcott also explained the thinking behind the Science Fair: “In recent years, older pupils at QE have benefited greatly from our emphasis on encouraging independent thought and analysis through research. Through events such as the Science Fair, we are now extending this approach to ever-younger boys to further improve their education.”

She added that Year 12 students had commented on how impressed they were with the standard of the work, despite the relatively young age of the boys involved.

QE mathematicians from all sections of the School drew fresh inspiration for the new academic year from a host of extra-curricular activities during the summer.

•  – The Year 7 Maths Fair, which featured a morning of events inspired by the national UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) Team Challenges, but organised as a House competition;
•  – That was followed by a visit by thirteen boys from Year 12 (now in Year 13) to the Institute of Education for two lectures organised by the London Mathematical Society (LMS);
•  – The final days of last term saw all of Year 8 involved in a Creative Maths Workshop;
•  – Yuta Tsuchiya, a pupil now in Year 12, took advantage of a coveted invitation to join the National Mathematics Summer School. 

In the Year 7 Maths Fair (pictured below right), the boys took part in a carousel of activities; some that were familiar mathematical problem-solving activities (A Question of Maths, Cross Numbers) and others that were more practical (Origami, Tangrams).  Then all teams took part in a relay which combined speed in movement about the room with speed in solving a mathematical problem. Each team was supervised by a Year 12 Mathematics student and Sixth-Formers helped with the logistics of the whole event, giving them an opportunity to interact with the youngest boys in the School. All six houses were also required to create a poster on What is Mathematics? for the fair.

The overall winners were Underne, with 713 points, second was Broughton, with 705, and third Stapylton, with 689.  Underne have subsequently been presented with the Scarisbrick Shield in assembly. The award for best poster went to Harrisons’.

“It was amazing to win the Maths Fair and I’m very proud to be Underne’s captain,” said Nilash Ambihapathy.

This year’s annual LMS Popular Lectures were on:

• The mathematics of randomness, Professor Martin Hairer, University of Warwick (pictured top)
• How many…?  Estimating Population Sizes, Dr Ruth King, University of Edinburgh

Prof Hairer, who is one of the world’s foremost experts in the field stochastic partial differential equations, gave a lecture describing how the probability distribution of particles (as observed in Brownian motion) and the probability distribution of stock prices can both be linked to Fourier’s heat equation. Dr King’s was about estimating hidden population sizes using incomplete observational data and applying ratios and proportion using the Lincoln-Peterson estimator and Bayes theorem.

The lectures provoked an enthusiastic response from the QE contingent. “I was amazed by how Brownian motion can be applied to finance,” said Rohan Haldankar.  “The applications of randomness were really interesting,” said fellow Year 12 pupil, Keerthanen Ravichandran, while Akshat Joshi found the explication of how statistical processes can be applied and misused “fascinating”.

In the Year 8 Creative Maths Workshop, the aim was to discover who had attempted the murder of Michaela Maths, a (fictional) top female footballer. Boys were put into teams of five to solve mathematical clues and thus eliminate the suspects. They also had to create shapes, such as a referee’s whistle and a lion, using only their bodies and whilst listening to more clues.

Yuta’s (pictured above right) invitation to the National Mathematics Summer School, held at Woodhouse Grove School in Leeds, followed his excellent performance in the Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad. He joined around 40 of the UK’s most talented young mathematicians.

Sponsored by the UKMT, the six-day event included whole-group masterclasses, small group work and team competitions. However, there was also time for relaxation, with evening events such as bowling and a mathematical mélange in which participants could display their musical, dramatic or juggling ability.

Three boys took part in the final of a prestigious London-wide debating competition after winning the Borough of Barnet heat.

Tej Mehta, of Year 10, and Zakariya Shah and Jamie Watkin-Rees from Year 9 competed in the Final Day of the London Debate Challenge held at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies. They took part in three debates:

• This house would use nuclear rather than renewable energy sources to solve our energy crisis;
• This house believes reality TV does more harm than good;
• This house would legalise performance enhancing drugs in sport. 

The competition is run by the English Speaking Union; more than 20 teams participated this year, representing different London boroughs.

The borough competition involved two debates. After the first, the two best teams subsequently progressed to the Borough Final. Borough winners then took part in Final Day, at which the two best teams competed in the Grand Final.

“Although the boys did not make it to the Grand Final they competed really well, showing great debating skills as they represented the borough against tough opposition,” said History teacher Charlotte Coleman, who oversaw the boys’ involvement in the event.

The three were also invited to attend a local council meeting to observe a debate.

Earlier this year, Tej and Jamie were part of the team which won the regional heat of The International Competition for Young Debaters.

QE’s youngest pupils attended a special afternoon as part of a new initiative aimed at helping boys adjust to life at the School. All of Year 7 took part in the activities in the Shearly Hall.

The afternoon was part of QE’s transition programme, which has been established to enable boys to adjust to secondary school and QE’s House system, as well as to encourage bonding and friendships. It is spearheaded overall by Michael Taylor, who is Assistant Head with Responsibility for Extra-Curricular Activities & Transition and also Head of Year 7.

Dr Taylor said: “HM Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw recently highlighted in a special national Ofsted report the importance of supporting and challenging pupils properly when they make the transition from primary to secondary school. The objective of our new programme is to ensure that QE handles this transition as effectively as possible for the benefit of all our incoming pupils.”

The boys were first organised into their House groups:  Broughton; Harrisons’, Leicester, Pearce, Stapylton and Underne.

They then took part in three competitive tasks:

• A word search
• An anagram challenge similar to that on the Countdown TV show in which they had to find as many words as they could within a jumble of letters
• A construction task involving drinking straws and sticky tape, to find out which team could build the highest free-standing structure in 20 minutes.

The overall winners of the afternoon were Underne House, who successfully assembled a tower that was 8ft tall – nearly twice the height of an average 11-year-old boy!

Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor Matthew Dunston led the afternoon, while Dr Taylor and other Year 7 form tutors were in attendance.

Mr Dunston said: “The boys got their first real taste of House competition and did everything they could to try to claim House points. You could see the rivalry between the Houses starting to develop; their commitment was fantastic.”

Old Elizabethan George the Poet – or George Mpanga – had a truly global audience when he performed at the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup.

2015 has been a glittering year for George (OE 2002-2009), who is booked to return to his alma mater in February 2016, when he will be the speaker at the Year 12 Luncheon. He will also lead a poetry workshop in the English department.

After gaining A grades in English Literature, Sociology and Politics A-levels at QE, George won a place at King’s College, Cambridge, to read Politics, Psychology and Sociology (PPS). He was elected Chair of King’s College Student Union.

In the opening ceremony at Twickenham, his highest-profile event to date, he strode on to the pitch and told the crowd: “We have earned a place in history.” Observing that “one side’s domination will be the pride of a nation,” he continued: “It’s a time of elation, a time of destiny, respect, integrity, a special kind of beauty.” And he concluded with these lines: “It will be remembered, we came together as one.”

George was described by the Cheltenham Literature Festival in August as “the hottest name in spoken word”: he headed the poetry strand as a Guest Director and spearheaded the festival’s schools’ poetry competition.

He is shortly due to embark on his second national tour of the year, having completely sold out venues from Glasgow to Brighton during the spring.

His first poetry collection, Search Party, was published in February.

Among the other triumphs he has enjoyed this year are:

• A runner-up place in the Brits Critics’ Choice Award, fifth place in the prestigious BBC Sound of 2015 Award and tenth place in MTV’s Brand New for 2015 competition – in each case competing as a poet against a field that comprised largely musicians
• Appearances at this year’s Penguin Random House 2015 conference, on BBC Radio 2 to talk about his book and on BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme to discuss the day’s news
• The launch of his video for the Prince’s Trust highlighting the emotional problems faced by young people. The video features his poem, Only One You, written in response to the trust’s 2015 Youth Index, which found evidence of high levels of anxiety among young people
• Being the subject of a BBC Radio 1 documentary and of several national newspaper features.

Renowned scientist and medic Lord Winston inaugurated a new lecture series for younger boys at Queen Elizabeth’s School.

Boys from Years 7-10 packed the Shearly Hall with their teachers to hear The Right Honourable Professor The Lord Winston deliver the first of what will be a series of termly enrichment lectures, which will feature a range of speakers. A parallel programme has also been developed for the senior years. The initiative is being led by QE’s Head of Academic Enrichment, Nisha Mayer.

Lord Winston’s lecture covered many themes in Science, with reference to his own achievements and career. Lord Winston spoke without notes or visual aids in a natural conversational style; he thoroughly engaged the boys, making the lecture interactive and asking them many questions.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “What an excellent inaugural guest he was! Lord Winston delivered a fascinating and inspiring lecture; we were honoured to welcome him here.”

Born in London, Robert Winston graduated from The London Hospital Medical School in 1964 and is well known as an expert in human fertility and as a scientist, writer, broadcaster and politician. His father died as a result of medical negligence when Robert was just nine, which formed part of his motivation for his eventual choice of career.

The holder of innumerable awards, including the Faraday Medal from the Royal Society, he has written many books, for both adults and children.

His lecture at QE included the following:

•             It is important that scientific research is done for its own sake, as we never know where it will lead. For example, the science behind lasers was discovered by Albert Einstein in the early 1900s, but lasers as we know them were not developed until the 1960s. Applications of lasers that we are now very familiar with, including spectroscopy, laser surgery and barcode technology, were not really developed until the 1990s, demonstrating how there can be unpredictable benefits to scientific research;

•             However, there will also always be negative side effects of scientific developments. Lord Winston discussed the benefits of aeroplane technology to society, and then asked the audience to name an unintended negative social consequence. The boys listed disbenefits including pollution, climate change and accidents. But Lord Winston broadened their thinking to encompass the spread of infectious disease, such as aeroplanes being responsible for Ebola cases breaking out around the world;

•             Lord Winston then talked about his pioneering work on embryos and in particular the diagnosis of genetically inherited diseases. He led the IVF team that pioneered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, which identifies defects in human embryos. He remarked that everyone in the hall had at one time been invisible to the naked eye. He got the boys to rub their hands together and on their blazers, and then clap. He said that the invisible skin particles that as a result had flown up into the air – and then been breathed in by the boy sitting next to them! – were actually larger than a three-day-old, eight-cell embryo, the sort that Lord Winston had worked on. At this stage, the embryos’ cells are undifferentiated, that is ‘stem cells’.

Lord Winston asked the audience to name a genetic disorder; one Year 9 pupil named Huntington’s Chorea. There are about 7,000 known genetic disorders, said Lord Winston, most of them quite rare. We all inherit many dozen genetic mutations from our parents, but most of them do not manifest themselves.

•             Lord Winston said that each boy in the hall had a brain of exactly the same size and shape as Einstein – we know this because his brain was removed and analysed after his death! – so each boy had the potential to contribute something great to society.

Lord Winston commented privately to the Headmaster afterwards on how impressive the boys were, praising them for answering questions eagerly and in a knowledgeable way.