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Boys on a trip to Hampton Court Palace discovered the rather modern-sounding reason that paintings of 17th-century female courtiers all look the same.

Year 8 pupils spent some time during this year’s history trip studying art in the palace and finding out about William and Mary (William III and Mary II), who came to power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Head of History Helen McGregor said: “There are paintings of many women during Mary II’s time who all wanted to be painted to look like the queen – a little like copying your favourite celebrity today!”

This year’s visit also saw a greater emphasis on looking at the changing architecture from the Tudor to baroque eras, as well as generally augmenting what the boys had been learning in their History lessons.

During a tour of the riverside palace in Surrey, the boys engaged with actors dressed as characters from the Tudor age. They were able to see features including: the astronomical clock; Henry VIII’s royal apartments and the great hall; the famous painting, Field of the Cloth of Gold; the apartments designed for William III by Sir Christopher Wren, and the Maze.

They visited the costume gallery and the palace kitchens, where boys of the same age as themselves once spent their entire days turning roasting spits so that Henry VIII’s 600-strong court could be fed twice a day.

The QE boys also learned about the Hampton Court ghosts. Hampton Court is reportedly haunted by spectres including The Lady in Grey, the ghost of Sibell Penn, who was nurse to Henry VIII’s only son, Prince Edward. Her grave was disturbed in 1829, when the old church was pulled down. It is said she returned to the rooms she inhabited, after which a spinning wheel could be heard from behind a wall. When that wall was demolished, a forgotten room was found, containing an old spinning wheel.

QE’s season of goodwill got under way in festive style with two popular events combining music and charity.

The Shearly Hall reverberated to yuletide music of every kind at the Christmas Concert, which was held in association with Barnet Rotary Club. The eclectic seasonal mix ranged from the Camerata’s performance of Corelli’s Christmas Concerto to the Barbershop singing an arrangement of the Beach Boys’ Little Saint Nick. Proceeds from the evening help fund Rotary Club activities at home and abroad, including giving lonely, elderly people in Barnet a happy and enjoyable Christmas Day.

On the same day, 26 boys headed off to the Spires shopping centre to sing carols and raise money for Cherry Lodge Cancer Care. The party comprised boys drawn from Years 8–13, including selected members of the Chamber Choir and some instrumentalists.

The final week of term saw all boys and staff enjoying a Christmas lunch, with all the trimmings, in the Dining Hall.

The traditional Service of Nine Lessons & Carols was held at the Chipping Barnet Parish Church. In addition to the congregational singing, the service included contributions from the Chamber Choir and School Choir. The choirs performed to an extremely high standard – pieces included the Chamber Choir’s performance of an Introit by the Renaissance composer of sacred music, Palestrina, and a stirring rendition in many parts of the Carol of the Bells by the massed School Choir.

There were readings by pupils of all ages and by staff, with the Headmaster giving the final reading, the famous opening of John’s gospel, before all joined in singing Hark the herald angels sing! to the familiar strains of Mendelssohn’s music.

Pupils had the opportunity to see QE boys acting in Hamlet, fresh from their successful appearance in this year’s Shakespeare Schools Festival.

The 23-strong team of actors, crew and other assistants staged the abridged version of the play at lunchtime in the last week of term.

It followed their festival performance at the Arts Depot in Finchley, where QE performed the famous tragedy back-to-back with 30-minute performances of Shakespeare plays chosen by other local schools.

Shakespeare Schools Festival is the UK’s largest youth drama festival, offering pupils from all backgrounds the opportunity to perform Shakespeare on their local professional stage in front of a paying audience. The festival works with over 150 theatres from Aberdeen to Jersey, Cardiff to Newcastle. Its patrons include Kevin Spacey, Lord Puttnam, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Tom Stoppard.

QE’s Hamlet was directed by Year 13 pupils Directors Paavan Sawjani and Sahil Handa, together with Technical Director Shiras Patel. The production involved seven other Year 13 boys, as well as eight from Year 11 and five from Year 10.

Around half of all QE’s Year 12 boys attended a special series of lectures on the application of Mathematics at the respected Institute of Education.

The 71 Sixth-Formers headed to the institute’s Bloomsbury premises for the five lectures from leading speakers and academics.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Each lecture was inspiring in its own way and has encouraged the boys to delve deeper into the topics they found most engaging on the day. These lectures are a very good way of introducing branches of Mathematics which are not covered as part of the A-level syllabus and of showing the range of applications to which the subject can be applied.”

The lectures were:

• Happy Birthday Fermat’s Last Theorem, writer and broadcaster Simon Singh
• How big is infinity? Chris Good, University of Birmingham
• Seven things you need to know about prime numbers, Vicky Neale, University of Oxford
• Cryptography everywhere, Kenny Paterson, Royal Holloway, University of London
• Geometry and the art of optimisation, Richard Elwes, University of Leeds.

The day was organised by educational organisation The Training Partnership. It included a session with a senior examiner, looking at developing good strategies for examinations and at common pitfalls.

Afterwards, the boys reflected on what the highlights had been for them. “The Simon Singh lecture was really interesting because Fermat’s last theorem looks like such a simple problem and yet it took 358 years to solve,” said Akshay Narayan. Ananth Balaji “really liked the cryptography lecture because it was relevant to society and the presenter was really engaging,” while Tochi Onuora enjoyed learning about the patterns connected with prime numbers.

The boys were accompanied by Head of Mathematics Jessica Steer and Mathematics teacher Geoff Roberts.

QE have won the regional heat of a national Mathematics competition and the team will now go on to the national final in the New Year.

The four Year 12 boys scored 174 out of a possible 180 points – 97 per cent – to take first place, beating off the challenge from 19 other teams in the Senior Team Maths Challenge. Second place went to St Helen’s School and joint-third place to Watford Grammar School for Girls and Merchant Taylors’ School in Northwood, which hosted the Middlesex regional heat.

Team captain Yuta Tsuchiya, Brian Kong, Aditya Ramachandran and Nitharsan Sathiyalingam were selected to take part in the competition, which is run jointly by the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) and the Further Mathematics Support Programme.

The challenge combines mathematical, communication and teamwork skills, offering pupils an enjoyable way to express and develop their love of Mathematics.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “The boys had a fun afternoon competing with, and meeting, other keen young mathematicians; they are delighted to have qualified for the national final.”

Captain Yuta, who recently qualified for the British Mathematical Olympiad with a perfect score in the UKMT’s Senior Challenge for individual mathematicians, praised his fellow QE competitors for their teamwork in the Team Maths Challenge.

The team members were each given a book prize – a choice between The Music of The Primes, by Marcus du Sautoy and The Problem Solver’s Handbook by Andrew Jobbings.

The national final takes place on Tuesday 2nd February 2016 at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster.

Society magazine Tatler has named Queen Elizabeth’s School in its 2016 guide to the best state schools. QE is one of just 21 state secondary schools from around the country to feature in the glossy publication’s selection.

Written in Tatler’s usual informal style, the guide begins with an introduction written by journalists Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Alice Rose, who make the case for sending children to schools in the maintained sector, before adding: “If David Cameron can send Nancy to a non-fee-paying school, then so can you.”

The section on QE starts by describing the School as the “gold-star answer” to the cry from “despairing” London parents of “But where can we send our boys?”

It highlights QE’s “superb 98.4 per cent A*–B at A-level” and its success in sending more leavers to Oxbridge and Russell Group universities than any other state school, as recognised by the Sutton Trust.

The writers briefly explore QE’s selective admissions policy, before quoting one parent who says, anonymously: “It’s heavily academic, but it’s honestly not mega-stressed.”

Tatler draws attention to the School’s “fabulous position on the edge of the green belt” and its “30 (yes, 30!) well-maintained acres of landscaped grounds”, the eight-lane Martin Swimming Pool and the “100 computers in the new, state-of-the-art library”. All the facilities are heavily used by pupils, the guide notes.

“How do they afford all this?” the article asks. “The indefatigable FQE (Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s), which raised £22,000 from the summer fête alone.”

The Tatler State Schools Guide 2016