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An exhibition of the work of former QE Head of Art Hew Purchas held after his death in 2016 proved such a hit that it has now been repeated.

Entitled Hew Purchas re-visited, the second retrospective took place in April 2017 at the Sackhouse in Hew’s adopted home town, Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. First held in September last year, the Wells Maltings Trust states on its website that it decided to repeat the exhibition because it was so well-attended and was highly popular.

Hew, who taught at QE from 1956 to 1987, died in February 2016 at the age of 82, leaving a widow, Frances, whom he had married in 2003 and who curated the exhibition.

Educated at Mill Hill School and Chelsea School of Art, Hew was appointed by Headmaster E H Jenkins as a part-time Art teacher. At that time, the Art department shared its room with the Music Department. In the early 1960s, his role became full-time and, with the expansion of the School at that time, he duly became Head of Art.

He was much involved in producing sets for School plays, was very active in ensuring picture displays around the School were changed regularly and took pupils to art exhibitions as well as on field trips with the Geography Department to North Wales.

“Old Elizabethans have described Hew as a much-loved teacher, a mild and kindly man who inspired his pupils to achieve their potential with careers within the art world or more simply to develop a capacity to appreciate art as part of their life’s enrichment,” his former colleague at QE, Neil Kobish, wrote in his obituary written for The Elizabethan magazine. “He remained in contact with a remarkable number of his former students and he was always delighted to welcome any who cared to call on him at his home in Wells.”

Among those who have paid tribute to him is OE David Leake, who well remembers his Sixth Form Art teacher from the early 1970s. It was, he says, “a wholly enjoyable time spent creating under the kind, supportive tutelage of HP. As well as being an inspiring teacher, Hew was a hugely gifted exponent of landscape and seascape painting.”

Three pictures painted by him currently grace the walls of the School. One is a portrait of E H Jenkins. Another is of the School’s original home in Tudor Hall. The third is a copy of Tudor artist Nicholas Hilliard’s Phoenix portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, produced with permission from the National Portrait Gallery. Neil added: “The minutiae of the lace, jewels and embroidery in this portrait have to be seen to be believed and Hew reproduced these with consummate skill.” The School recently commissioned a plaque for this portrait to honour Hew for his work.

Having acquired an 18th-century cottage in Wells following a summer holiday in Norfolk in the late 1960s, he retired there in 1987 and immersed himself in the local artistic and cultural community, while also concentrating on his own painting.

He exhibited several times at the Royal Academy with the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of British Artists and also had several one-man mixed exhibitions.

Two QE sixth-formers have been selected to be part of a European Union team at the international finals of the UK’s Space Design Competition. Aadil Kara and Brian Kong were among 12 boys who organised themselves to form a QE team.

The team won their regional heat with their design for a mining colony on Mercury in October. Then, at the national finals at Imperial College, London, the QE contingent joined up with pupils from other schools to form a 45-strong fictional company, one of five competing at the event.

Although their company did not win, Aadil and Brian were chosen as members of an EU team made up of three participants from each of the four runner-up teams at the UK finals. They will therefore take part in the international climax of the competition at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in July.

Year 13 pupil Aadil, who was team president at the regional finals and vice-president of marketing & sales at the national event, said: “I am tremendously excited to be going to NASA – and that excitement is shared by my parents, who are of the generation that grew up in the heyday of space exploration.”

Another QE participant, Harikesan Baskaran, also of Year 13, added: “This competition was great fun. It was really satisfying to have the opportunity to tackle large-scale challenges free from the constraints imposed by the classroom curriculum.”

In the regional heat, the brief to design the mining colony specified that it should house 200 permanent residents beneath the surface of the Solar System’s innermost planet. For the national finals, the focus remained on Mercury, but the brief was to design a space settlement for 10,000 residents on the surface, with this whole settlement moving to avoid extremes of temperature by staying in line with the ‘terminator’, the line between night and day. Both scenarios were set in the year 2087.

Having produced a proposal, each company had to ‘pitch’ to win the contract for the construction project.

The competition thus involved not only applying the principles of physics to the space environment, but also consideration of human factors, such as health and recreation. In addition to working on engineering disciplines, participants took on organisational and leadership roles in their teams and sub-teams. Overall, the competition required a combination of creativity, teamwork & collaboration and applied knowledge.

Besides Aadil, Harikesan and Brian (who was vice president of marketing & sales at the regional finals), the QE participants were: Bushry Basheer (at the regionals only); Sam Bayney (Bushry’s replacement in the nationals); Lucas Duke; Agrim Manchanda; Milun Nair, Akshay Narayan; Aran Patel; Neelesh Ravichandran (vice-president of engineering at the regionals); Kavi Shah and Yuta Tsuchiya. All are in Year 13 except Milun, a Year 12 pupil.

It is with regret that the Association announces the recent death of Cyril Kirkman (1936-44).

Sixth-former Bushry Basheer has qualified for the national final of the 2017 British Biology Olympiad.

The Year 13 pupil saw off competition from around 8,000 entrants to win a place at the final at Warwick University, where the 16 finalists will compete to represent the UK in the International Biology Olympiad.

Head of Biology Gillian Ridge said: “This is a fantastic achievement from one of the most humble and talented biologists I have met.”

In this year’s Olympiad, QE entered 35 sixth-formers, whose first-round results – 20 gold medals, 10 silvers, one bronze and three highly commended – represented a new QE record. Bushry (pictured below collecting the Biology prize at the School's Senior Awards ceremony in March) was the highest-scoring Year 13 pupil at QE and Michael Takla the highest scorer in Year 12.

The 100 top-scoring gold medallists nationwide were then invited to take part in round 2, from which the national finalists were selected.

The 100 included seven boys from QE – Bushry and Michael, together with five other pupils, all from Year 13:

• Sam Friend
• Santhosh Ganeshamoorthy
• Viral Gudiwala
• Kavi Shah
• Abhishek Srivastava

To prepare for round 1, the boys had a weekly training session, which included presentations, discussions and examination techniques. Most of the preparation, however, took place at home, with boys using advanced additional resources provided by the School. The competition involved two hour-long multiple-choice papers.

Unfortunately, of the seven, only Bushry was able to commit himself to the rigorous time commitment required to go on to round 2, which involved a 90-minute written paper.

Sixth-Former Ché Applewhaite is heading for Harvard this summer after winning an unconditional offer of a place from the Ivy League university. 

Ché’s success is representative of a growing trend in recent years for QE boys to venture beyond the UK for university, especially to élite American institutions.

He plans to leave for the US the day after receiving his A-level results, which means he will start at Harvard at the same time as Sahil Handa (OE 2009-2016), who is currently on a gap year. Both Sahil (pictured right) and Ché will be reading for a Liberal Arts degree: Ché had initially been interested in a place at Stanford in California but opted for the east coast university after talking to Sahil. He was also inspired and helped by Ramsey Kobeissi (OE 2003-10), the first-ever QE pupil to go to Yale. Ramsey gave Ché advice about the application process, and Ché took away not only practical tips, but “the view that it is possible”.

Ché settled on Harvard in part for its reputation in the arts, humanities, economics and politics. The Liberal Arts course itself was a big draw: “The ability to explore and then specialise, to find your own path through your degree, was particularly attractive,” he said.
He is excited, too, by the “amazing landscape of extra-curricular opportunities”. He hopes to get involved with the Harvard Crimson student newspaper and the international relations committee. He values the opportunities for international study and the way in which everyone at Harvard is encouraged to take a foreign language: Ché is enjoying his French A-level and is keen to carry on with language studies.

The wide range of extra-curricular involvements will mirror his experience at QE, where he has thrown himself into activities such as the School Choir, debating (having been part of the School team in the annual dinner debate against the Old Elizabethans) and the symposia held with other schools. “It all gives you confidence…and universities such as Harvard like people who aren’t afraid to express their views and are articulate.”

Ché (pictured right collecting his prize for Leadership and Involvement at the School's Senior Awards ceremony last term) set up QE’s Forward Thinking Society, where boys discuss new ideas or current social issues. Its guest speakers have expatiated on topics from sexism (Laura Bates) to trans-humanism (Warwick’s Professor Steve Fuller) and the refugee crisis (Nicholas Millet, OE 2001–2008). “The School gives us the opportunity and the space to do that – allowing us to do things of our own volition.” Ché also set up a Food Bank at the School, with assistance from staff. 

Overall, Ché believes QE has been instrumental in his success in gaining a place: “Harvard requires you to have a mature insight and I feel my offer is a testament to the quality of education, to the teaching and support, I have received here.” Indeed, QE has been crucial in broadening his horizons and in developing his aspirations even to apply to such an institution, he explained.

A huge amount of work goes into an application and Ché set out some of the specific help the School had given, including:

• Assistance in preparing for the US universities’ Standardised Admissions Tests (SATs) and for his application essay
• An information session on US universities at which Head of Year Liam Hargadon had arranged for alumni studying in the US to come into School and had set out a clear timeline for the process
• Facilitating conversations with two education students from the University of Connecticut who were on placement at QE in the Autumn Term.

Ché urged other QE boys to apply, saying that he felt the US universities liked applicants from grammar schools. “My advice is that research is key. Look to see what you like and how others have done well, whilst not comparing yourself too closely. Ultimately, do something because you want to do it, because it excites you.”

In this, Ché has long followed his own advice. For example, with his QE peers, he set up the political blogging website Whippersnapper through which he quickly had to learn how to manage a team as well as talk to politicians. “At Harvard, they want to see that you have invested yourself in something and done well in it.”

In his first few days at Harvard, Ché will join other international students as they are helped to acclimatise.  “We will do practical things like get set up with a new phone and a bank account as well as have lectures in American culture. It will be interesting to see what they say in that! I think it may be easier coming from the UK than some other places.”

In a series of special events for British Science Week, QE’s younger boys learned about topics ranging from centuries-old tales of vampires to a new cancer treatment centre in London that is at the cutting edge of medical technology.

The Lower School Science Department celebrated the week with a diverse range of special lessons and extra-curricular activities, including visits by external speakers.

Science communicator Dr Kathryn Harkup explained to Year 8 pupils how to use the scientific method to evaluate folk stories of vampirism, using current medical knowledge of diseases such as rabies and porphyria to understand how such stories could have arisen.

Head of Lower School Science Sarah Westcott said: “It was a fascinating whistlestop tour, which explained how to identify and assess evidence.

“The take-home message was to question all information and to make evidence-based decisions – a principle that doesn’t just apply to Science!” Dr Westcott added.

Dr Simon Jolly from University College London gave a presentation on one of the most exciting developments in medical Science, proton beam therapy. One of the two first-generation proton beam therapy centres in the UK is currently under construction at UCL and is due to open in 2020.

The technology will bring greatly improved treatment possibilities for certain types of cancer, many of which are childhood cancers, explained Dr Jolly, who visited with his PhD student, Laurent Kelleter. The proton beam can target a tumour with great accuracy, avoiding the irradiation and damage of healthy tissue, which is a problem associated with radiotherapy.

Their presentation on the technique ranged in scale from descriptions of sub-structures within cells, such as the haem within haemoglobin, to the huge gantry which surrounds the patient during proton beam therapy, three storeys high and weighing hundreds of tonnes. Dr Jolly spoke about the engineering challenges involved, as well as the medical Science.

Thanking them for their visit, Chemistry teacher Susanna Butterworth said: “We were amazed by the huge scale of the technology required in contrast to the pin-point precision with which the treatment can be delivered.”

The audience included older boys up to Year 12, together with the Lower School pupils. “The audience were highly attentive and asked many insightful questions, including how funding priorities should be decided between this and other cancer treatment avenues such as recombinant DNA techniques,” said Dr Butterworth.

During lunchtimes in British Science Week, boys could sign up for: The Science and Mathematics of Magic and Illusion, which saw sixth-formers performing a range of card and magic tricks for the younger boys, and a molecular modelling workshop, in which Year 7 & 8 pupils explored the structure of a range of compounds from ibuprofen to caffeine, making models to compare their 3D shape and discuss their bonding.

And in their lessons, Year 7 pupils investigated the vitamin C content of fruits and vegetables to identify the best ones for preventing scurvy. “The experiment culminated in them preparing a conference-style Science poster which explained their results,” Dr Westcott said.