Viewing archives for Uncategorized

Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers gave QE boys an insider’s perspective on the joys, challenges and duties of life as a politician.

Mrs Villiers, who is Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, spoke of the dual nature of her job, split between her constituency – which includes the School – and her Parliamentary work.

She was invited to QE by Year 12 boy Adrian Burbie, whose political blog, Whippersnapper (run with fellow pupil Ché Applewhaite), has been attracting the attention of many at Westminster. Adrian has also resurrected the School’s Politics Society and hopes one day to become a politician himself. Mrs Villiers is pictured here with, from left to right, the Headmaster, Callum Cuddeford (School Vice-Captain), Norbert Sobolak (School Captain), Adrian and Head of Politics Liam Hargadon.

All at the School were invited to the Main Hall to hear her talk, which was put on by the Politics Society.

She explained to Adrian and other politically ambitious pupils how one becomes an MP and what an MP’s duties are. They include being engaged in party politics, listening to the concerns of constituents “when the bureaucracy has failed them” and trying to help them resolve such problems. Mrs Villiers explained that she is very involved in the local Cypriot community and has, for example, been championing the cause of a family with a complaint against the police following the death of a daughter.

She also takes an interest in more general local concerns and referred to her almost-weekly hounding of BT over the poor broadband speed in Barnet: “The job of an MP is to nag.”

In the course of her visit, she answered a number of ‘hot potato’ questions, including whether 16 & 17-year-olds should be given the vote in the forthcoming EU referendum and how she would campaign ahead of that referendum if PM David Cameron is unable to secure a better deal.

On the first of these, she stressed the importance of politics and urged young adults to vote, but stated that she opposes lowering the voting age, since she has seen little desire for it among young people.

On the latter, she said she was confident that Mr Cameron would secure a good deal – and that she did not like answering hypothetical points.

Mrs Villiers divides her time between her constituency home in Arkley and Hillsborough Castle, an official Government residence in Northern Ireland. An MP since 2005, she has been a Privy Councillor since 2010 and Northern Ireland Secretary since 2012. Before that, she was a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 until she stood down after the 2005 General Election. Becoming an MEP had been almost “an accident”, she said, reflecting that she preferred being an MP.

Asked whether she felt Westminster’s first-past-the-post electoral system was fair, particularly with regard to the selection of MPs, she answered in the affirmative.

She is pleased with the new agreement in Northern Irish politics, but spoke of her frustration that the political situation too often takes a backward step because of a shooting or other crime which sparks renewed sectarian tensions.

Mrs Villiers also professed her enthusiasm for the witty but brutal political TV comedy, The Thick of It, describing it as “genius” and praising its accuracy. There were times when the programme’s plot lines exactly matched her own experiences of running a Government Department: she recalled, in particular, the panic-inducing experience of sitting in a car on the way to a policy announcement, just as that policy was being scrapped in a last-minute volte-face. Her department does, however, have “a little less swearing” than its fictional counterpart, she stated.

Raphael Herberg has been crowned the 2015 Year 7 Chess Champion after an exciting finish to the popular QE competition.

Both Raphael and Om Deshpande finished the tournament undefeated, with each winning six games and drawing one. Raphael then triumphed in a very competitive play-off.

Yuvraj Manral finished third and Varun Vijay Kumar fourth, with 6 points and 5.5 points respectively.

Congratulating Raphael on his victory, teacher in charge of chess, Geoff Roberts, said:  “I am very pleased to see a large group of highly able and enthusiastic chess players developing in Year 7.”

The tournament attracted a “high-quality” field of 61 boys, who took part in an “enjoyable and competitive morning” and demonstrated “a good standard of chess” at this early stage in their School careers.

Mr Roberts also praised Sixth-Formers Ananth Balaji, James Bunyan and Jake Breindel for their support. The trio administered the pairings for each round and acted as arbiters when there were queries over the rules. “The Year 7 boys undoubtedly enjoyed receiving coaching and advice between rounds from Sixth Form boys who have been highly successful at chess over many years,” he added.

Professor Steve Fuller delved into the very essence of what it means to be human when he spoke to boys about transhumanism during a visit to QE.

The American-born Professor of Social Epistemology in Warwick University’s Department of Sociology was invited to the School by Year 12 pupil Prashan Balendran.

He gave a lunchtime talk in the Main Hall to any boys who wished to attend and then held a seminar-style discussion for Sixth-Formers in the afternoon.

In the lunchtime talk, Professor Fuller explained transhumanism, the movement that seeks to develop technologies to enhance human capacities. He distinguished between biological transhumanists and other transhumanists who believe that more can be achieved by uploading our consciousness to a computer. His talk, entitled Ethics of Science & Human Enhancement, outlined the ethical issues surrounding such a step and also considered questions such as cloning: ‘If your clone was to commit a murder, are you responsible for its actions?’

In the session for Sixth-Formers, which was aimed particularly at those undertaking an Extended Project Qualification, Professor Fuller considered further the issue of uploading consciousness, pointing out that some advocates considered this to be an improvement, because it would eliminate the need for ‘carbon-based’ human bodies.

He looked at how enhancing human longevity could affect the evolutionary process: it might, for example, lead to people having fewer children, thereby reducing the pool of new people with new ideas to improve human lives. There was discussion of one potential pitfall of artificial intelligence, namely the tendency for AI to make pragmatic, rather than moral, decisions.

In addition, Professor Fuller set out some pros and cons of advanced prosthetics: if people begin to replace natural limbs with prosthetics because of their greater efficiency and thus become more machine-like, will that amount to an improvement or regression? 

QE’s Sixth-Form linguists met up with counterparts from across Hertfordshire for a symposium aimed at those considering studying languages at university.

Sixteen boys headed off to St Albans High School for Girls (STAHS) for the event, which featured workshops run by academics from Cambridge, Nottingham and Birmingham universities. They worked alongside pupils from other county schools.

Head of Languages Christopher Kidd said: “Our boys were very impressive and were keen to demonstrate their knowledge. They got an insight into what studying a language at university would be like and they found it an enriching and rewarding experience.”

In the French workshop, participants looked at surrealism and had the opportunity to compose a poem. The German workshop looked at history. There was also a talk about studying, working and living abroad in which the value of language-learning was emphasised: it was pointed out that the UK is losing out on trade worth £50 billion annually because of poor language skills.

The symposium’s host school, STAHS, was recently named The Sunday Times Independent Secondary School of the Year 2015-2016 at the same time as it was confirmed that QE had retained its first place in The Sunday Times Parent Power league table of the country’s top 200 state schools.

All the QE pupils enjoyed the day, Mr Kidd added. “It has certainly given them more confidence in their language lessons and has made many of the boys consider taking a language as part of their degree.”

The boys were accompanied by Assistant Head of Languages Burgunde Lukasser and French & German teacher Marie-Jo Jaquin.

QE has won the regional heat of an international children’s literature competition in the School’s first-ever year of entry.

Four Lower School boys successfully fought off challenges from the host school and from a previous national winner.

Siddhant Kansal and Lev Shafran, of Year 7, and Aadam Choudhary and Desh Ganeshamoorthy, of Year 8, lifted the trophy after a close-fought battle in the North West London Heat of the Kids’ Lit Quiz: it ended with just half a point between them and their closest competitors, the team from Arnold House, the school where the heat was being held.

They comprised Team 1, who were one of two QE teams in the competition. They were battling against 16 other teams from schools across North London, including City of London School for Girls, which has won the round for the last four years and was national champion in 2013.

Librarian Ciara Murray, who had prepared the teams, said: “To win the first time we’d entered the competition was just brilliant. Their energy was fantastic, I could see them all conferring busily after each question and there were some educated guesses that made all the difference!”

Team 1 member Desh said: “It wasn’t until we had a couple of really good rounds towards the end that I started to think we could actually win.” His teammate Siddhant added: “The five minutes that we spent waiting for the result to be announced were so nerve-racking!”

The Kids’ Lit Quiz competition first started in 1991 and has spread across the world, with national competitions held annually in the USA, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and the UK. The competition is principally about celebrating young readers aged 10-13, enabling them to show off their book knowledge and compete for great prizes.

The North London heat featured ten themed rounds of ten questions each, and the boys scored particularly highly on both the Wings and Wizards rounds, with judicious use of their joker to double their points at a crucial time.

Participants also had the chance to square off against other competitors to win books and cash prizes. Lev Shafran came away with the biggest haul for his lightning-quick answers, and even teacher Geraldine Booth, who came to support the boys, walked away with a prize for her knowledge of Sebastian Faulks’ novels.

The regional heat victory gave Team 1 a place in the national final at Oxford, which included a celebration tea for all participants.

Ms Murray also congratulated Team 2 “for their valiant attempt and their committed involvement in the preparations”.

Year 8 pupil Devin Karia beat off stiff competition from boys up to four years older than himself to be crowned Chess Champion for 2015.

After seven rounds of QE’s annual Years 8-11 Chess Tournament, three boys were tied on 6 points apiece – Devin, Aneesh Chopada, of Year 11, and Federico Rocco, of Year 9. Devin, who won last year’s QE Year 7 Chess Tournament, emerged as the overall winner in an exciting three-way play-off.

Teacher in charge of chess, Geoff Roberts, said: “I’m delighted to see Devin Karia secure the title; it is particularly impressive for him to win when he is still only in Year 8.”

The competition, which is held over the course of a morning, attracted a field of 53 boys. After the play-offs, Federico and Aneesh were tied for second place and were also best in Years 9 and 11 respectively. Fourth place overall went jointly to Devin’s brother, Rishul Karia, of Year 11, who is the current U16 European Chess Champion, and George Ivanov, of Year 9. Robert Sarkar and Asad Shah were jointly best in Year 10.

Sixth Form chess stalwarts Ananth Balaji, Jake Breindel and James Bunyan were on hand to help ensure the smooth running of the tournament, administering the pairings for each round and acting as arbiters when any queries occurred over the rules. They also dispensed hints and advice to the younger boys throughout the competition.

“All of the competitors undoubtedly enjoyed receiving coaching and advice from Sixth Form boys who have been highly successful over many years.

“As in the recent Year 7 tournament, we had another high-quality field and I am very pleased to see the number of highly able and enthusiastic chess players we have at Queen Elizabeth’s,” Mr Roberts added.