Viewing archives for Uncategorized

Queen Elizabeth’s School draws on recent experience and on a long and proud history as it plans for the next four years.

The 2016-2020 School Development Plan represents the culmination of a year of consultation. It builds on the success of the previous plan, covering 2012-2016. And in their front-page message for the new plan, Chairman of Governors Barrie Martin MBE and Headmaster Neil Enright draw inspiration from centuries past, citing both the School’s 1573 foundation Charter and the School Chronicle, which was originally written in 1930.

“The careful wording of both documents reflects an understanding that in a truly successful school, the development of character and positive personal qualities is as important as a focus on outstanding academic outcomes,” write Mr Martin and Mr Enright.

As part of the consultation process, surveys were conducted involving all staff and parents. In addition, there was in-depth consultation with QE’s four Assistant Heads, each of whom has an area of responsibility corresponding to the four major themes set out in the plan. These themes are:

• Meeting academic challenges, overseen by Anne Macdonald, Assistant Head in Charge of Teaching and Learning;
• Benefiting from involvement, overseen by Michael Taylor, Assistant Head in Charge of the Lower School and Enrichment;
• Enhancing future prospects, overseen by David Ryan, Assistant Head in Charge of the Upper School and Pupil Progression;
• Facilitating school progress, overseen by Emi Aghdiran, Assistant Head and School Business Manager.

The back page of the plan features a diagram which shows the equal importance attached by the School to achieving excellent academic results and to the development of good character. The diagram sets out how these are underpinned by what takes place both within and beyond the classroom, thus underlining the importance of extra-curricular activities.

Thirteen Sixth-Formers heard about new and exciting topics in Mathematics from two university academics.

The Year 13 boys headed off to the Institute of Education for the two 2016 London Mathematical Society Popular Lectures. Each year, the LMS selects two lecturers who combine mathematical distinction with prowess in communication skills.

Dr Heather Harrington, of the University of Oxford, spoke on The shape of data in biology. She applied the relatively new field of computational topology to biological systems at differing scales, looking, for example, at the global spread of epidemics and at proteins interacting inside a cell. Using network models for each situation, Dr Harrington showed the insight that could be gained from considering the shape of the data before creating and solving systems of complex equations.

In her lecture, entitled One, Two, Red, Blue, Dr Julia Wolf, of the University of Bristol (pictured above), took as her starting the point the game of noughts and crosses, which, when played by intelligent adults, always ends in a draw. Dr Wolf looked at whether this was also true if the game is played on a larger grid or in higher numbers of dimensions, such as the game Qubic, which is 3D four-in-a-row noughts and crosses. She showed that the question runs surprisingly deep: the number of arrangements of the symbols within the framework of the game quickly reaches a size that is beyond the most powerful computers, yet with relatively simple techniques it is possible to show whether a draw in such a game is inevitable, or whether a winning strategy is possible.

The boys reported afterwards that they had found the lectures stimulating: “I enjoyed considering the Mathematics of higher dimensions,” said Nitharsan Sathiyalingam, while Sanchit Agrawal said: “It was interesting to see that Maths can be found everywhere, even when you are not looking for it.”

QE’s newest pupils attended a special afternoon as part of the School’s programme aimed at helping boys adjust to life at the School; all of Year 7 took part in the House competition activities.

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 that the objective of the programme is to ensure that QE handles the transition to secondary school as effectively as possible, so that all incoming pupils can start to ‘feel at home’ as soon as possible but are also appropriately challenged.

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 Broughton House; they successfully assembled a tower that was nearly 6ft tall.

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 really seemed to enjoy the afternoon, and you could see their House loyalty starting to develop as they tried their hardest to gain points for their Houses.

Labour MP Tristram Hunt delivered a thought-provoking talk to the School’s Politics Society, covering Brexit, the current impact of Jeremy Corbyn and the legacy of Tony Blair.

Tristram Hunt has been the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central since 2010 and Shadow Education Secretary until Jeremy Corbyn’s election in 2015; his constituency was announced as one of the ones to be abolished in the forthcoming boundary changes. The talk was organised by Year 13 student Adrian Burbie (pictured below) as part of a series of talks by politicians and political journalists, and was well-attended by pupils and staff from across the School.

Mr Hunt, 42, who read History at Trinity College, Cambridge, is also a historian, having published a number of books and lecturing at Queen Mary University of London, specialising in urban history, particularly of the Victorian era.

His talk started by looking at the causes of Brexit, saying that ‘those who voted ‘out’ must not be labelled as ignorant, racist xenophobes’. People in deprived areas, such as his constituency of Stoke-on-Trent Central (which voted 70-30 in favour of ‘out’), were clearly not feeling the benefits of globalisation; they had lost heavy industries and were uncomfortable with the pace of immigration. He therefore assessed the Brexit vote as a vote against globalisation.

Mr Hunt then looked at the ‘hollowing out’ of the centre-left across Europe since the financial crisis, which he called ‘Pasokification’ after the centre left Greek political party’s collapse in support. He described the left as being fragmented between the white, traditional, blue collar workers (who were more likely to vote ‘out’) and the more cosmopolitan, urban, liberal voters (who were more likely to vote ‘in’). Jeremy Corbyn exacerbated this divide rather than healed it. In Mr. Hunt’s opinion, the only real hope for the centre left is a model such as Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in Canada.

When asked by a member of the audience about Tony Blair and his legacy, Mr. Hunt was very complimentary about Blair’s domestic record in office, declaring him to be one of the great modernising Labour leaders and on a par with Harold Wilson. Tony Blair had transformed Britain for the better in the late 1990s and early 2000s, introducing equality legislation and the minimum wage. Mr. Hunt recognised that this was an ‘unfashionable’ view to take within Labour at the current time.

Mr Hunt criticised Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and the direction that the Labour Party was taking. Corbyn had only campaigned half-heartedly during the EU referendum., and he was critical of Corbyn’s policy of condemning Tory voters as ‘sinful’ and for believing that he could win an election simply by appealing to young voters, Green voters and the hard left; there simply weren’t the numbers to support this. Corbyn’s approval ratings were currently 60 points behind Theresa May’s. There was therefore a need for a more centrist platform like Tony Blair’s to appeal to the wider public.

Mr Hunt was of the opinion that Corbyn and his supporters were so committed to making Labour a social movement as opposed to an alternative government that they had shunned Tony Blair as a ‘traitor' because the current leadership prioritised pure ideological socialism and viewed Blair’s pragmatism as something ‘dirty’. They weren’t prepared to make any of the compromises necessary to win power.

This was why Mr Hunt had resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and signed the motion of ‘no confidence’ in Jeremy Corbyn; Corbyn was incapable of providing the effective scrutiny of the government needed during Brexit negotiations.

Mr Hunt was also heavily critical of the anti-Semitism which he said did exist within the upper echelons of the Labour party, and of Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of adequate response. Although Corbyn was not an anti-Semite himself, he had created an environment within which it could grow.

Despite backing Owen Smith in the recent leadership contest, Mr Hunt was unimpressed with his plan to have a second EU referendum to give voters ‘a second chance’ and treat the first referendum’s result as merely advisory. This would only lead to further fragmentation of the Labour vote and more haemorrhaging of working class support to UKIP.

Mr. Hunt was critical of boundary review, perhaps unsurprisingly, and especially of the way it was mainly going to affect Labour MPs. He did not support Theresa May’s grammar school plans, stating that there needed to be much better quality vocational options offered which were a feasible alternative to an academic route, and that the grammar school debate was a ‘distraction’ – politicians needed to simply focus on improving schools generally, especially early primary education.

Mr. Hunt signalled that he was open to the prospect of rail renationalisation but did not lend full support to it. He said that the East Coast Main Line, which had been state run, was run well and made good money for the Exchequer. However, renationalisation was not a panacea and would require major investment for there to be any improvement in the railways. He suggested that privatised and nationalised railways should be compared side-by-side and the government opt for whichever delivered the better service.

Tristram Hunt MP finished his address by encouraging everyone to be more involved and engaged in politics.

An Old Elizabethan starting his final year at Oxford returned to QE to extol the virtues of studying English.

Surya Bowyer (OE 2007–2014) spoke to the whole of Year 11 in the Main Hall and encouraged them to study English at A-level and at university. In the afternoon, he also conducted mock interviews for boys considering applying for an English degree.

English, he told his audience, is not only a very well-regarded degree, but can also lead to many interesting careers. For his part, he aims to become a barrister, possibly specialising in either commercial or family law. He said that participating in debating at School inspired him to consider this career.

Surya, who is at Keble College, is passionate about literature. His course at Oxford began with compulsory study of the canons of English literature, including Shakespeare. More recently, he has been able to choose to write a 6,000-word extended essay on Writers and the cinema and a Special Option 8,000-word dissertation on Donald Barthelme, a US short-story writer known as ‘the father of post-modern fiction’.

Surya’s talk gave pupils an overview of university life and was leavened with some amusing anecdotes about cooking food at college. He happily answered boys’ questions.

In addition, he had some tips for those considering reading English at university on how to succeed in the pre-interview English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT), which is used for admission to English courses at Oxford and Cambridge.

QE pupils learned about language and migration at a topical conference for Sixth Form linguists hosted by a leading independent girls’ school.

The Languages conference at North London Collegiate School featured talks by three distinguished academics on the themes of migration and transnationalism. It was attended by 13 Year 12 pupils from QE, accompanied by Languages teachers Marie-Jo Jacquin and Rebecca Grundy.

Dr Siobhan Shilton, of Bristol University, gave a lecture on Paris-based artists exploring identity in video, performance art and graffiti.

Professor Margaret Littler, from Manchester University, spoke about Turkish and German literature and used the example of a rap song to demonstrate how the large Turkish community living in Germany are integrating themselves into society.

And Professor Charles Burdett, of Bristol University, talked about his research into ‘transnationalising modern languages’ with specific reference to Italy and Ethiopia.

Students had the opportunity to ask the speakers questions about their areas of research, about broad cultural issues and about preparing for university.

The three lecturers each gave advice for students who are considering studying languages at university; they should prepare themselves for the broad, challenging curriculum and look to develop their interests.