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Queen Elizabeth’s School has been awarded a rare and prestigious accolade in recognition of its achievements in chess and its work to promote the game.

Just two schools are selected annually to receive the British Chess Educational Trust Award. The awards, which are administered by the English Chess Federation, began in 1913. QE was last chosen in 1952.

The award citation details the high priority given to chess development at the School over many years, pointing out, for example, that it has entered the Times chess competition since at least 1959 and consistently enters the largest number of teams of any school into the UK Schools Chess Championship. The citation also highlights QE’s “growing reputation” in chess, as evidenced in recent years by its invitation to compete in an international tournament in Dubai.

QE Chess Master Geoff Roberts says: “We have in excess of 100 boys of a wide variety of standards, who regularly participate in a wide variety of chess activities. We are very pleased to have been nationally recognised as a school that makes a significant contribution to the development of chess.” 

• The citation and the list of current and previous winners of the award are published at www.bcf.org.uk/events/bcfawards/bcet.htm.

On 2nd March, 19 boys took part in the Bollywood workshop with Sam Suriakumar. The boys worked for three hours putting together over six minutes’ worth of music.

They played a version of A.R.Rahman’s Raga’s Dance including elements of improvisation. The boys worked with very different notation to that which they were used to, having to listen to, work out and remember the rhythms and structure of the piece. The boys played a mixture of both Western and Indian instruments and combined them seamlessly. The performance will go forward to form our entry for the Music for Youth festival. Listen to the recording here.

Upper Sixth-Former Jian-Siang Poh has been selected to participate in the second round of this year’s Chemistry Olympiad. Last year, only 23 students from across the country reached this stage of the competition.

Round 1 consisted of a two-hour examination which Jian-Siang sat at QE earlier this term, together with classmates Jimmy Lam and Jack Scannell. Rounds 1 and 2 of the competition are organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

“Jiang-Siang scored very highly, achieving a score of 55 out of 64 to secure his place in the next round” says QE’s Head of Science, Malcolm Russell.

The second round takes place at Cambridge University on 27th-29th March and will this year involve around 25 students. From these, four or five will be selected to represent the UK in July at the 41st International Chemistry Olympiad, which is also being held in Cambridge – the first time the international competition has ever come to this country.

The 33rd annual Rugby Sevens tournament at Queen Elizabeth’s School was a great success, with good rugby underpinned by excellent organisation.

The annual seven-a-side tournament, believed to be the country’s second-biggest schools sevens competition, takes place on the second Sunday each March. This year, it featured 40 leading schools, with teams from as far afield as The Wirral, Gloucestershire and Wales. Games are played on fullsize pitches at the School and at Barnet RFC.

Teams compete in group stages at U14 and U16 levels, with 32 teams in each age division. The winner of each group goes through to the Main quarter-finals, while the second-placed team proceeds to the Plate quarter-finals.

QE U16s reached the semi-final of the Plate competition, while the U14s were knocked out following the group stage.

Head of Games Mark Peplow said: “This was another highly successful tournament that ran smoothly throughout the day, with very competitive rugby played in an excellent spirit of good sportsmanship.”

Mr Peplow paid tribute to the contributions made by the staff, the London Society of Referees and by the QE ‘tea mums’, who raised £250 for the North London Hospice.

Four Year 12 boys taking part in the national Engineering Education scheme are working at the forefront of environmental technology.

The boys, Jack Evans, Andrew Kettenis, Ibiyemi Ogunyemi and Rikesh Poonja, who were selected from 20 QE candidates, are working in partnership with local company Lovell Partnerships to design an energy system based on a hydrogen fuel cell. The system will be suitable for incorporation into new developments to power heating and lighting in a more sustainable way, meeting Government eco-targets.

The team, along with QE Head of Design Simon Vincent, attended a three-day residential workshop in the University of Hertfordshire, where they worked alongside Lovell engineers to clarify their concepts and start testing. 

• QE pupils Priyesh Patel, Sam Catchpole-Smith, Sergio Ronchetti and Nikul Vadgama have taken the Arkwright Scholarship examination and are waiting for the results. Under the national scheme to support young engineers, successful candidates receive a scholarship in their Sixth Form years. Other recent developments in QE’s Design and Technology Department include the installation of new sanding tables to reduce dust contamination in the workshops.

The Government has given Queen Elizabeth’s School its Sportsmark Award in recognition of the amount of sport played by its pupils.

The award from the Department for Children, Schools and Families celebrates the fact that “at least 90% of pupils do at least two hours’ high quality PE and sport a week”.

Headmaster Dr John Marincowitz welcomed the award and added: “Many of our boys, of course, exceed this significantly with their participation in the School’s extensive programme of extra-curricular sport.”

The School has received a certificate to mark the achievement and is also entitled to use the Sportsmark logo on its stationery.

As a result of the award for QE, Barnet Central School Sport Partnership (of which QE is a member) qualified for the related Partnershipmark Award, since 96% of children in its schools are now participating in two or more hours’ sport a week.

The Sportsmark Award is awarded to secondary schools, with primary schools given the equivalent Activemark Award.