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The whole of Year 9 watched a comedy performed entirely in German by a visiting theatre group.

Entitled Zwillinge (Twins), the play, which is new for 2016, centres on the antics of twin brothers Lukas and Dominik, who change places to play a prank on their friend, Anike, when she is revising for a drama examination.

It was performed by two native German actors, one male and one female, from the Onatti theatre company, who specialise in producing plays written especially for foreign language-learners. Zwillinge is intended for pupils in Years 9–11, so the 180-strong QE audience were at the lower end of this age range.

Christopher Kidd, Head of Languages, said: “When the twins switch roles, it led to much laughter. In fact, for boys who have completed only two years of German, they showed an excellent grasp of the language and they were highly commended by the actors involved.”

The 50-minute production included some audience participation, with a number of boys being selected to join the actors on stage.
Onatti also perform plays in French and Spanish.

Pupils and teachers turned out in force for a talk at the School by political journalist and TV presenter Evan Davis.

Organised by Year 12 pupil Adrian Burbie under the auspices of QE’s Politics Society, the lunchtime lecture drew large numbers to the Main Hall.

Mr Davis, who is a main presenter of BBC’s Newsnight, the host of the Dragons’ Den series and a former presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, delivered his talk in his trademark passionate yet erudite, jargon-free style.

Dragons’ Den takes up only about ten days of his year, yet his appearances on the programme are largely responsible for him being recognised on the street. He therefore began by pre-empting the question which has proved most popular when he has visited other schools – his favourite ‘dragon’ was Deborah Meaden, he said. However, his audience at QE did not, in fact, ask any questions about the show, preferring instead to focus on economic and world issues.

A trained economist whose stock-in-trade is analysis of the global situation, Mr Evans advised the boys to take particular interest in the current economic picture: he told them that we are living through very interesting times – and not all periods of history are either as interesting or as troubling.

During his talk, he gave a run-down of recent decades, beginning with the days prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 when a full half of Europe was cut off and one never met anyone from Poland. We were living in a sort of ‘golden age’ by about 1992, when many nations were in the European Union and tensions over issues such as varying levels of economic development and the pressures of migration had yet to surface.

Two seismic events– 9/11 and the economic crisis of 2007/08 – changed that world, and we were still living with the consequences of them, he said.

In economic terms, the biggest shift over the last 30 years had been the rise of China, where tens of millions had gone from eking out a basic subsistence to having a disposable income and living in homes with luxuries such as TVs and computers.

In his wide-ranging lecture, Mr Davis also turned his attention to migration. This was now occurring from troubled and impoverished countries to stable and developed ones, not just because people were fleeing from war zones, but as a consequence of globalisation in general: with the advent of technology such as smartphones, it was possible for people everywhere to get a glimpse of life in any other part of the world.

Even the old political order, with its binary division between left and right, had changed. Politics was now more about, on the one hand, parties and candidates who represented the status quo and, on the other, those who represented ‘outsiders’ and offered a different and more populist standpoint. They did not split down left/right lines, but represented popular views of groups in society, Mr Evans said. Politicians such as David Cameron and Hilary Clinton were seen as part of the former category, while Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage were all examples of the latter. The question was, despite the passions such outsiders raised, would they gain enough votes across the entire electorate to be voted in?

And Mr Davis said he thought that even if Britain stayed in the EU, it was not a simple matter of ‘in or out’. There were at least three different types of European state at the moment as represented by: Germany – fully in the EU and Eurozone; the UK – not in the Eurozone and wanting various opt-outs, and Norway – not in the EU but having various agreements with EU states. Therefore, the picture was not as black and white as might first appear, he concluded.

A QE Sixth-Form team competed in the national final of a prestigious Mathematics competition, having first won their regional event.

The four-strong team were pitched against other leading academic schools from the independent and state sectors in the UK Mathematics Trust’s Senior Team Maths Challenge final, which was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in St James’s Park, London (pictured).

They qualified last term by romping through the regional final at Merchant Taylors’ School in Northwood with a score of 174 points out of 180, or 97 per cent, beating off 19 other schools to secure their national final place. It was the second time that QE have qualified for the last stage of the competition.

In the national final, team captain Yuta Tsuchiya and his fellow Year 12 pupils, Nitharsan Sathiyalingam, Brian Kong and Aditya Ramachandran, scored 147 points out of 186, putting them in 39^th place out of 86 schools. The challenge was won jointly by Westminster School, Ruthin School and King Edward’s School, Birmingham.

Afterwards, Yuta reflected on the national final as “a good experience”, while Brian added: “It was fun spending a whole day doing Maths.”

Team organiser Wendy Fung, who is Assistant Head of Mathematics, said: “The boys were disappointed at their placing – although they should be proud that they qualified in the first place.”

QE’s youngest boys enjoyed the opportunity to express themselves in a drumming workshop during a visit from a visiting theatre company.

All 180 boys in Year 7 took part in the event, with half in a whole-morning session one week and the remainder having a similar session the following week.

The workshop, which was on the School’s chosen theme of Expressions of Spirituality, was led by the Iroko Theatre Company – a London-based group which aims to enhance understanding and appreciation of African culture and arts.

QE’s Head of Religion & Society, Jack Robertson, said: "Iroko provided us with a very exciting and educational day. Besides having some fun and expressing their creativity, the Year 7s learned a great deal about music, theatre, and the connections between different forms of spirituality across the globe."

Mr Robertson added that comments from the boys included:

·         "I had an amazing time. I learnt a lot about how to make a story more interesting to listen to. I can't wait to try out my new skills.”

·         "It was great seeing so many people all creating a song together with about forty-five musical instruments."

·         "The Iroko Theatre Company was inspiring. They taught us about African culture, music and theatre. I wish every day was like that."

The Iroko Theatre Company, which takes its name from an African tree, was established in 1996 by Nigerian-born actor Alex Oma-Pius.

Snow arrived right on cue for a School trip to the Italian Alps – so 52 boys were able to enjoy skiing at its very best.

PE teacher Richard Scally, who organised the trip for Years 8-13, said: “After an epic coach journey, we arrived in the resort to find the snow had also arrived with us! For the next three days we enjoyed great conditions as the snow continued to fall. As the clouds moved on, we were then left with near-perfect conditions, which meant everyone got the most from the trip.”

During the trip to Folgaria, the boys enjoyed a solid five hours on the slopes every day, taking advantage of the deep, powdery snow, crisp sunshine and blue skies – conditions described by some of the older boys who had been skiing with the School before as the best they had ever known.

Beginners had been able to benefit from ski lessons run by the School beforehand at a ski centre in the UK, helping them get the most from the trip.

Folgaria, an elegant and historic village resort in the highlands of Trentino, features a ski lift system that has been developed to provide interlinked lifts that cater to all abilities. The boys’ hotel enjoyed a central position near the foot of the ski slopes, close to the lifts.

The price of the trip included not only equipment hire, a lift pass and travel insurance, but also daily skiing lessons.

Mr Scally said the week concluded with a group race, which was enjoyed by all the boys.

Political journalist Nick Robinson mounted a strong defence both of the BBC and of his own impartiality when he visited Queen Elizabeth’s School. 

In the latest talk organised by Year 12 pupil Adrian Burbie under the auspices of QE’s Politics Society, Mr Robinson urged boys to broaden their own thinking by engaging with ideas with which they disagreed. And he also spoke of his concerns about the deleterious effects of the internet on political discourse.

Speaking to a large audience in the Main Hall, the presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme reflected on his career, which has included working as a deputy editor at Panorama, as Chief Political Correspondent at the BBC and as Political Editor firstly for ITV and then for the BBC. The talk was also attended by pupils from a QE partner school, St Albans High School for Girls.

Among the highlights, he said, was his challenge of Vladimir Putin on Russia’s human rights record at a conference at which Putin was urging African nations to improve their human rights.

He also spoke of the famous run-in with American President George W Bush in 2006. Bush showed dissatisfaction when asked if he was in denial about the situation in Iraq, snapping back at Mr Robinson with "It's bad in Iraq. Does that help?"

He had another run-in with President Bush at a press conference at Camp David, when the president asked him: "You still hanging around?" He then suggested to Mr Robinson, with reference to the heat, that "Next time you should cover your bald head". As the president walked away, Mr Robinson replied: "I didn't know you cared", to which Bush responded: "I don't".

He spoke of his parents and of his maternal grandparents fleeing the Nazis – a party who were, he reminded the boys, democratically elected. Mr Robinson read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford and was president of the university’s Conservative Association: it was important, he said, for him to be involved in politics from a young age. Indeed, he said indifference towards politics leads to extremism and had made possible the rise of the Nazis.

While conceding that the BBC may not be perfectly impartial, he noted that it – and he – were accused of bias by the supporters of whoever he interviewed, with the allegations coming from both left and right. The corporation, he said, “tries not to be partial”, unlike US networks such as Fox News, which Mr Robinson criticised heavily.

He did, however, acknowledge that the BBC could do more to represent the views of the country outside London on topics such as dissatisfaction with immigration and concern over gay marriage. Most people at the BBC were middle-class and from London and the south east, which leads inevitably to a socially and economically liberal slant.

Mr Robinson also took a number of questions. Asked if his presidency of the Conservative Association at Oxford compromised his ability to be impartial, he said he despaired of the “internet mob” who were unable to cope with opinions that differed from their own. In one example, he had recently interviewed a British Medical Association representative about the junior doctor strikes and asked: “Aren’t you doctors just being greedy?” He received an intense backlash and abuse on Twitter, notwithstanding the fact that he had merely asked a question, not made an assertion.

Although a user of Twitter, he criticised it and many of the young people on it, stating that it too often functions as an ‘echo chamber’ where people only ‘follow’ people they agree with in order to shut down opposing ideas, thus avoiding having to deal with them.

To counteract such tendencies, he encouraged QE pupils actively to seek out ideas they disagree with in order to challenge themselves and understand why people think like that. “If you hate the Daily Mail, read it – understand why it speaks to so many people. If you think the Guardian is a load of left-wing tosh, read it – so you can understand why people think that way,” he said.

Mr Robinson also donated signed copies of his books and CDs to the School: they are currently on display in The Queen’s Library.