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QE’s senior water polo team competed against five other leading schools in some close-fought games in the sport’s national finals.

The 2017 U18 English Schools Swimming Association water polo finals were held at QE’s Martin Pool in a last-minute change of venue after Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School’s pool plant room suffered problems on the day.

QE’s senior team had reached the nationals by seeing off Warwick School, Cheltenham College and hosts Northampton School for Boys to take second place in the semis.

PE and Games teacher Richard Scally said: “In the national finals, even with the unexpected bonus of home advantage, the competition proved very tough. Although the games were close, any missed opportunities at this level are punished and unfortunately we did not progress out of the group stage.

“Overall, this term has been a busy one for many of the QE water polo sides, with many firsts achieved. The Seniors did magnificently to qualify for the national finals. The U15s qualified for the National Plate finals held in Northampton, notching up some convincing wins over Bedford School, St Ambrose College and Birkdale High School. However, defeat by City of London meant they were runners-up in the final.  The U13s are currently in round 2 of their national competition and will hope to emulate the success of the older years.”

QE operates its water polo in partnership with Watford Water Polo Club, and the club’s Chairperson, Nikki Baker, has congratulated the team on qualifying for the finals, describing it as “an awesome achievement”.

One of the School’s leading young musicians took part in the star-studded gala performance at the National Theatre that raised more than £1m to provide access to the arts for children and young people.

Drew Sellis, of Year 10, performed with the Finchley Children’s Music Group choir at the biennial fund-raising Up Next Gala.

The event featured live performances from celebrities including Sir Lenny Henry, Tamsin Greig, Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff and the programme included a new piece specially commissioned from Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Other guests were Billie Piper, Lily James, Nathan Lane, Adrian Lester and Danny Sapani.

The gala was held to raise vital funds for the National Theatre’s Learning Department, which provides young people from across the country with the opportunity to access the arts, develop new skills and experience live theatre performances. NT Learning works with schools, young people, families, community groups and adult learners. In 2015-16, it engaged with more than 181,000 children and young people.

Drew won a Music prize in this year’s QE Senior Awards. He also performed one of the musical interludes at the Senior Awards Ceremony, playing alto saxophone in Phil Woods’ Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano.

Named as a Music Scholar in Year 7, Drew last year won the Original Composition category of the Spring Grove Music Festival. For his work, Swing Groove, he played alto sax, while classmates Tai Oyama and Bhiramah Rammanohar made up the ensemble.

Speaking on the eve of Britain triggering Article 50, retired senior diplomat and Old Elizabethan Sir Leslie Fielding has warned that Britain lacks the expertise necessary to conduct the detailed Brexit trade negotiations that are about to start.

Interviewed by BBC Radio Four’s flagship Today programme, Old Elizabethan Sir Leslie (OE 1943-1951) not only reminisced about his experiences in 1973 when he was one of the first British diplomats to be sent to Brussels as Britain joined the European Community, but also spoke of his feelings and fears now that Britain is leaving.

“To a degree I feel terribly upset – it gives me a deep sadness, not only because of the effect on the unity of the UK and on Brits generally, but also because I think it could be in part such a shock to the EU that might result in something much bigger, more dangerous happening.”

Sir Leslie said the negotiations will be “hellishly complex”. Prior to going to Brussels, he had been involved in international negotiations, but not trade negotiations. “I found I was joining a team there who were absolute aces… it was jumping in the deep end and I found it tricky.

“It’s commonly said that we don’t really have many people in Whitehall now who these days know very much about these things, because it’s all been done by the Commission. It’s tricky and it’s a particular brand of knowledge which you don’t find easily on call.”

He said his friend, Pascal Lamy, former European Commissioner for Trade and former Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, had warned him that the negotiations could take five to 12 years.

Sir Leslie graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with a First in History; he studied Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and was a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Following his graduation in 1956, Sir Leslie was placed second in the open competition for the Foreign (now Diplomatic) Service. His career as a diplomat later took him to Tehran, Singapore, Cambodia, Paris, Brussels and Japan.

He joined the External Relations Directorate-General of the European Commission in 1973 as the Director with special responsibility for Europe's relations with the US and the Commonwealth. He subsequently became EC Ambassador in Tokyo for five years, returning to Brussels as Director-General of External Relations from 1982 to 1987.  He was knighted in 1988.

Asked about his first day in Brussels in 1973, he told the Today programme: “I remember it vividly; I remember turning up and finding I had an office but without any telephone or blotting paper, and it was a struggle to get oneself organised. But that was understandable – after all, I was a newcomer, a dreaded Englishman, thought to be unable to speak any other language than English.”

In fact, Sir Leslie was fluent in French and had gone to Brussels with clear instructions to use it. “I was told by [Prime Minister] Ted Heath to speak French all the time: he didn’t want any linguistic chauvinism. Ted, of course, didn’t speak a word of any language other than English.

“I spoke French all the time and it was ok – the problem was it was 24 hours a day…The French language demands facial exertions different from those required when one mutters away in English with a clipped manner…my throat, cheeks and lips began to rebel after 8-10 hours of that!

A career diplomat, he brought with him many years of experience of international relations. Although he felt the EC was in some senses a “well-oiled machine”, he added: “I thought on the whole that our methods were better than theirs…As a Brit, I had better man-management skills than most of them.”

He was particularly struck by the fact that they could not communicate confidentially with the EC’s external offices around the world: the only cipher machine was left unused because nobody knew how to use it and there was no diplomatic bag service; instead, communications had to be sent by the ordinary post. “Things like that were, for a Foreign Office man, rather strange.”

During his time in Brussels, he was treated “cordially, but with a certain reserve”, he recalled. “They wondered whether I was perfidious Albion and one of Mrs Thatcher’s spies.”

“Looking back, I would say it was absolutely worthwhile,” he added.

After retiring from the diplomatic service he returned to England, where he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex from 1987 to 92. He has been a Lay Reader in the Church of England for more than 30 years. In recent years he has been busy writing and publishing – mostly on international relations, but has also produced a novel and a screenplay. Sir Leslie is married to the eminent mediaeval historian Sally Harvey and they have two children, Emma and Leo.

QE’s team came second out of a field of 35 schools in a Mathematics competition.

The four-strong team’s total of 210 points out of 236 gave them the runners-up spot in the UK Mathematics Trust’s Team Maths Challenge, ahead of hosts Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’, who took third place, but behind Merchant Taylors’.

Captain Guy Flint and his teammates, Athiyan Chandramohan, Anshul Sajip and Thilakshan Thayalan, who were selected to represent QE from Years 8 and 9, also faced competition from other leading schools in the regional round, including Habs Girls’, St Albans, Dame Alice Owen’s, Verulam and Roundwood Park.

The competition combines mathematical, communication and teamwork skills and aims to help pupils express and develop their enjoyment of Mathematics.  It involves four rounds:

• Group round – working as a team of four to solve ten problems
• Crossnumber – working in pairs where one pair is given the ‘across’ clues and the other the ‘down’ clues
• Shuttle – working in pairs to solve problems, where the answer to the previous question feeds into the next
• Relay – working in pairs to solve problems, whilst also competing in a relay.

Guy said: “We’re disappointed not to have won, but we had a very enjoyable day doing lots of Maths,” while Thilakshan added: “This competition has made me better at problem-solving.”

The team will have to wait until June, when all the regional heats have been held, before discovering whether they have made it through to the national finals.

The spring music concert at QE brought some familiar sounds from film and television to the audience in the Shearly Hall.

The Sounds from the Screen concert featured performances from 11 School ensembles, ranging in size from the four-strong Saxophone Ensemble to the dozens of boys who sang with the School Choir.

Among the highlights were the boys of the Barbershop group being joined for part of their set by Director of Music Cheryl Horne and her fellow teachers, Jen Brown, Tom Jack and Lucy Riseborough.

Other staff appearances included Chemistry teacher Susanna Butterworth, who played as part of the Camerata, which was directed by Old Elizabethan Simon Purdy, a summer 2016 leaver, and Biology teacher Simon Hall, who played his cello with the Symphony Orchestra in their performance of Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre, an arrangement of which was famously used as the theme to the TV series, Jonathan Creek.

Some of the pieces had been arranged by boys: Year 11 boys Binu Perera and Uday Kataria teamed up to arrange Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins for the Wind Quintet and Binu also arranged a journey through Seven Years at Hogwarts comprising a medley from the Harry Potter films for the same ensemble.

The theme music played spanned the era of TV and film: the School Choir’s contribution included the Bond theme, Skyfall, and The Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games, while the Senior Strings tackled a Thunderbirds Medley, the Concert Band played The Dam Busters March, the Chamber Choir sang Rhythm of Life from the film and musical, Sweet Charity and the Brass Ensemble performed the famous Twentieth Century Fox theme.

The Senior Indian Ensemble’s performance featured songs from two Tamil-language films – Vennmegam Pennagha from the 2008 family drama, Yaaradi Nee Mohini, and Kannodu Kanbathellam from the 1998 romantic comedy, Jeans.

QE debaters have reached the national round of the European Youth Parliament competition after scoring a comprehensive victory against other leading schools.

The resolution proposed by the eight Year 12 pupils was the first to pass – by a vote from all the delegates – and was one of only two motions out of six that were passed during the day-long regional forum, which was held at the European Commission’s London offices in Smith Square.
Academic Enrichment Tutor and Geography Teacher Helen Davies said: “The QE boys came out as the clear top-performing team on the day. It was fantastic to see them getting fully involved in an event which requires such a wide base of knowledge about political events in the EU, as well as excellent public-speaking skills. 

“It was particularly pleasing to note the feedback of the judges, who could hardly find any fault with our team. All eight boys should feel very proud of their performance,” said Miss Davies.

Team member Atul John reflected on a “thoroughly enjoyable experience”, saying: “Having only been given a few weeks to prepare for this, I was very pleased with how much we were able to contribute on the day. Being chosen to go through to the national round is a brilliant result and I’m really looking forward to it.”

The European Youth Parliament (EYP) is a competition which gives pupils the opportunity to discuss a range of topics affecting young people across Europe. Six resolutions were proposed throughout the day, each by a different ‘committee’ (i.e. school) and all delegates had the opportunity to respond, before a vote was taken on whether to pass each one. Other participants included teams from North London Collegiate School and City of London School for Girls.

QE’s team were representing the Committee on Human Rights and were proposing the resolution: “With the aftermath of Brexit showing a sharp rise in hate crimes, how can the European Union protect its minority groups from racially motivated crime whilst safeguarding its citizens’ rights to freedom of expression?”

The team comprised: Fawwaz Ahmed, Eddy Burchett, Atul John, Rahul Kanwar, Ravi Karia, Usman Merchant, Karan Sanghavi and Jathieesan Umaasuthan. 

“Ravi started off the QE session with a rousing three-minute speech outlining the key moral themes behind the resolution,” reported Miss Davies. “Atul took on a key role, effectively responding to attacks and proposed amendments to the resolution from other delegates.” Key ideas covered by the team included the importance of education at all levels in society, as the most viable and long-term solution to reducing prejudice, and the importance of community service for more minor offences as a method of ‘paying back’ to society. 

“Rahul gave a very clearly constructed summation speech, referencing past EU law and emphasising the importance of unity and cohesion between EU countries to enable a more effective solution.”

Throughout the day, the QE team also responded to resolutions on a range of other interesting issues, including: EU relations with the new US administration; the EU’s ethical obligations in terms of its arms exports, and how best to support the large percentage of EU citizens who experience mental health problems and how to reduce stigma in this area. 

“Jathieesan gave a particularly insightful and inspiring speech attacking another committee’s resolution which proposed market control on sugary drinks: it played an important role in preventing that motion from being passed,” Miss Davies added.

“The judges noted that all eight of our students were very good public speakers individually, but also worked very effectively together as a team, sharing ideas and information with each other throughout the day. In addition, they were praised for knowing their research inside-out and for applying key points and evidence at appropriate points through the debates, rather than just listing facts and figures. On many occasions, our boys brought an entirely new line of thinking to the debate, which was then followed up by other schools.”