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Old Elizabethan William Forrester has been presented with his Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award at Buckingham Palace.

During the ceremony, William (OE 2009–2016) took the opportunity to share his experiences of fulfilling the demanding requirements of the award with the Earl of Wessex, who is a trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. The presenter at the palace was British Army Officer David Love, a Staff Officer with the Royal Military Police and an expedition co-ordinator for both the military and for the D of E scheme.

To achieve gold, William was required to volunteer for 12 months, learn a skill over six months and participate in a fitness activity for 12 months, as well as taking part in a week-long residential course and planning and undertaking an expedition in wild country.

For fitness, William turned to his longstanding passion for Ju-Jitsu – in 2013, he was named the U16 British Champion in both Grappling and Takedown in the sport’s Ishin Ryu (One Heart/Mind School). He fulfilled the volunteering requirement by teaching Ju-Jitsu to 4-11 year-olds. For the six-month skill requirement, he concentrated on the piano.

He completed the residential week on the Isle of Arran, where the focus was on conservation work. After a four-day practice expedition in the Peak District, he and his fellow award candidates headed off to the Brecon Beacons, where they had to battle through horrendous weather: it was very cold and, in addition, it rained non-stop for four days, which made both navigation and communicating with team mates almost impossible.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to William on receiving the Gold Award: I know that it was a proud day both for him and his parents. He certainly made his mark as a pupil at the School and this award reflects his characteristic determination, resilience and commitment in pursuit of a goal.”

William is now reading for a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Sheffield.

His interest in engineering took wing while he was at QE. In Year 9, William and a classmate, Ollie Chick, set up an engineering club for his year. In Year 12, he spent three days at a summer school on aerospace engineering organised by the educational charity, The Smallpeice Trust.

Also during his time in the Sixth Form, he was part of an award-winning team of four formed under the Engineering Development Scheme’s Engineering Education Scheme. The team’s solution to the problem of dust particle inhalation on construction sites – a water-fed broom – won the South East Regional Final of the Constructing Excellence 2015 competition. They then progressed to the national finals, where they were the only school team and were up against professionals. As part of the national final requirements, the QE pupils gave very well received presentations to two meetings of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), the world’s largest occupational health & safety organisation. Their invention even attracted the attention of household products company, Vileda, which wanted to create a prototype product.

William maintains close links with the School and is currently an invigilator at QE during his university vacations. His father, Peter, accompanied William to Buckingham Palace, and his mother, Karen, met them both for lunch after the ceremony. Mr and Mrs Forrester have been longtime stalwarts of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s.

Old Elizabethan George Mpanga – aka George the Poet – has released a powerful video of him reading a poem on hate crime to coincide with the anniversary of the murder of MP Jo Cox.

It is now a year since the 41-year-old MP was shot and stabbed by a far-right extremist in her West Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. More recently, police have reported that hate crimes are on the increase following terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. This week, a worshipper at the Muslim Welfare House mosque in Finsbury Park died after a man drove a van into a crowd outside.

George (OE 2002–2009) released the two-minute video in collaboration with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to encourage people to report hate crimes. He has achieved growing fame for his spoken-word work, recently performing in front of the Queen at the Commonwealth Day Service in Westminster Abbey.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “George’s poem is a timely reminder of the need for vigilance against all forms of hatred.

“I trust his example will inspire boys here at the School to stand up for causes greater than themselves in line with our mission statement, which urges boys to achieve fulfilment by ‘seeking to make a contribution to society rather than pursuing only personal gain’.”

The poem addresses issues such as inaction in the face of hatred and misinformation about those who are the victims of hate crimes. It begins with the following lines, which are reprised later in the poem:

The defining characteristic of a hate crime is not actually hate.

It’s prejudice.

‘We use the word the word ‘hate’ to define it

Because the prejudice is born of a hateful climate.’

Thousands of events have been taking place around the country to celebrate Jo Cox’s life. Her husband, Brendan Cox, who was behind the idea of the anniversary events, has urged the country to unite against hatred.

George’s poem ends with the words “You can’t fight violence with silence”, before cutting to the address for the web page of the Equality and Human Rights Commission at which people can report hate crime – equalityhumanrights.com/hatecrime.

David Isaac, chair of the commission, told the Independent: “We will not go back to a ‘them and us’ culture where distrust and hate exist, and the best way to help end prejudice is by talking to each other and understanding our various communities.

“The Commission is calling for a zero-tolerance approach to hostility and hatred, and I would urge anyone who experiences or witnesses hate crime to report it.”

George’s poem has been reported by a number of news organisations. He is thus the second Old Elizabethan poet to make headlines this month: on General Election day, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn published a poem commissioned by his party from Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994–1999).

Forty-five QE boys gained some sobering insights into war on a History department trip to the French and Belgian battlefields of World War I.

The boys, all from Year 9, visited locations including trenches around Ypres and the sites of the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele. They explored original dugouts, as well as some of the support tunnels that ran towards the front line during the Battle of the Somme.

History teacher Matt Dunston said: “The pupils were taken aback by just how close the two sets of trenches were to each other. They have been studying the tactics and weapons of World War I and so this experience really highlighted how senseless the slaughter was.”

Pupil George Raynor added: “I couldn’t believe how grim the conditions were in the trenches and how dangerous it would have been to have lived in them for weeks at a time,” while Samir Shah said: “When you learn about something in a war or a battle in a lesson, it sounds really cool and exciting, but to see the real places where people fought and died was totally different.”

During the visit, the boys saw several cemeteries and memorials, including the Menin Gate, which bears the names of Old Elizabethans who fell at Ypres. 2017 is the 100th anniversary of a number of World War I events, including the Battle of Passchendaele: commemorative ceremonies were taking place while the boys were there.

The last day of the trip was dedicated to World War II. The boys visited two rocket production and launch sites which the Nazis used to bomb London. “They were shocked at the size of the sites and at how industrialised warfare was by 1945,” said Mr Dunston.

Pupil Chen Liu said: “The World War II rocket factories were just awesome. I hadn’t really thought about the scale of it all before.”

Newly qualified doctor Joseph Masters is in Brazil as part of an EU-funded project conducting research into the Zika virus.

Joseph (OE 2004–2011) recently finished his medical school examinations; his work in Recife, in north-east Brazil, is the final elective placement that he must complete before he graduates.

Recife is at the epicentre of the Zika virus outbreak that hit the headlines in 2016. Joseph is working at Hospital da Resturação, the largest public hospital in the city, with neurologist Dr Lucia Brito.

He explains in his own blog how the virus first grabbed his attention in 2016: “I was captivated by my news feed as I followed the spread of the epidemic. Thousands of mothers, mostly from poor communities and already living challenging lives, suddenly found themselves with the additional burden of having to raise disabled children with limited resources.

“Above all, I wanted be able to do my bit, however small, to help the families affected by this terrible disease. Throughout medical school, I’ve often felt like a bit of a spare part on the wards, conscious of being there mostly there for my own learning, with limited opportunity to really make a difference to patient care. However, the Zika outbreak presented an opportunity to change this. I felt compelled to move on from being a passive observer and to put my skills and knowledge into action.

“I wanted to experience the excitement of working at the heart of an outbreak of a new infectious disease: the fast-paced research environment, the sense of urgency and the challenges of tackling such an unknown and unpredictable virus. I was excited by the idea of working in a huge international collaboration and being part of something where, for once, the whole world is working together towards a common goal.”

While the birth defects caused by the virus are well known, the neurological complications it causes in adults have received less publicity. Most commonly, these complications involve a type of paralysis known as Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS).

Since Joseph has always been fascinated by the brain – he plans to train to become a neurologist – he was eager to get involved in this aspect of Zika virus research. “Dr Brito was the first doctor to notice that patients with Zika virus were developing GBS as a complication. The connection between Zika and GBS has since been scientifically proven, but there are still many unanswered questions,” he says.

Joseph is working with a group called ZikaPLAN, which is funded by the EU and links 25 research and public health institutions around the world. He has joined researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), which functions as Brazil’s main public health institution and the research arm of Brazil’s Ministry of Health, and works closely with researchers from the University of Glasgow, University of Liverpool and the International GBS Outcome Study, which is co-ordinated from Erasmus University, Rotterdam.

In the few weeks since he arrived in Brazil, he says he has fallen in love with the “enchanting city” of Recife.

In his final year at QE, Joseph was one of the first-ever recipients of a new prize sponsored by Queen’s College, Oxford, which rewarded the best Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), with one awarded for Sciences and the other for Arts & Humanities. Joseph won the Sciences prize for his EPQ on the quest for a malaria vaccine.

He then amassed an impressive collection of accolades during his medical studies at ‘Barts and The London’ (The London School of Medicine and Dentistry), which is the medical school faculty at Queen Mary University of London.

After their first-term examinations, Joseph and his QE contemporary, Priyank Patel, both secured scholarships awarded according to a combination of merit and financial need.  Joseph’s scholarship was The John Abernethy Scholarship, which commemorates the founder of the Barts Medical College, who lived between 1764 and 1831.

The pair also won merit-based awards from a City of London livery company, The Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers, to support their year intercalating (taking time away from their medical degrees to pursue a separate but related research degree).

And Joseph won the Association of British Neurologists' Intercalated Degree Award – which is awarded to just two medical students nationally – and a merit-based award from the Eleanor Rathbone Charitable Trust, again for his year intercalating.

In 2015, he returned to the School to speak at the 50th anniversary Elizabethan Union Dinner Debate alongside Arjun Sajip (OE 2004–2011). The pair successfully opposed the motion This House Believes that prosperity is the best measure of success.

• To read more about Joseph’s work and experiences in Brazil, visit https://joseph-masters.com

Children from seven Barnet primary schools had the chance to carry out a scientific investigation of a fictional crime committed at Queen Elizabeth’s School – the heinous murder of the Headmaster!

QE’s Lower School Science department hosted a special forensics workshop for 32 visiting Year 5 & 6 boys and girls, who were invited to solve the crime.

The children were given an initial briefing in a CSI-style workbook, which recorded that Headmaster Neil Enright had been found dead in the School car park with an inflamed puncture wound on the hand, signs of an impact to his head and blood on the side of his car, yet with no sign of a struggle.

In teams of four, the children collected evidence from the crime scene and then carried out a series of tests, including blood spatter analysis and microscopic analysis of hair and fibre, as well as fingerprint and dye analysis. They then put together presentations of their evidence so they could decide who committed the crime.

They concluded that the evidence pointed unerringly to QE’s Head of Lower School Science & Head of Pupil Development, Sarah Westcott, one of four suspects named in the briefing. Her motive? The Headmaster had refused her permission for a Science trip!

Dr Westcott explained the rationale for the forensics day: “This workshop is designed to reach out to local primary schools; we invite their students in to work in laboratory facilities that they may not have access to in their schools.

“They certainly enjoyed being in the lab environment and using equipment such as the microscopes. They demonstrated a good awareness of the role of the forensic scientist and had lots of ideas about solving crime based on their experiences of TV detectives.

“They took the analysis of the evidence very seriously and had lots of good ideas about the possible culprit and their motives, including one team who suggested that two of the Science teachers were in cahoots!” said Dr Westcott.

At the conclusion of the event, the visiting primary school children were awarded certificates for: best detective skills; evaluation of evidence, and presentation skills.

Year 10 boys had the chance to hear some high-level perspectives on policy and even see politicians in action during a visit to central London.

The day trip took in some of the famous sites at the heart of the UK’s political system.

Head of History Helen MacGregor said: “The past year has been one of the most tumultuous-ever periods in peacetime politics either side of the Atlantic. This trip was therefore an excellent and timely opportunity for these boys to hear from political experts and to watch the House of Commons debating one of the great issues of the day, namely the Grenfell Tower fire.”

The 15 boys’ political tour of the capital began at the US Embassy, where, after clearing stringent security checks, they were treated to an interactive talk on US foreign policy and enjoyed some challenging debate.

After that, they proceeded to SOAS University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies), where a lecture considered President Donald Trump and his policy towards Europe.

The boys then walked across London, stopping for a picnic in Green Park, pausing by Buckingham Palace and strolling through St James’s Park, before making their way to the Houses of Parliament via the Treasury, the Foreign Office and Downing Street.

Having arrived at the Palace of Westminster, the group passed the security checks, showing the special invitations they had received from the Liberal Democrat parliamentarian, Baroness Featherstone, and the charity TEAM, which aims to encourage ‘the leaders of tomorrow’ to engage in world affairs.

“They immediately went out on to the terrace of the House of Lords, which is right next to the Thames. It was a beautiful day and they had a great view of Westminster Bridge and the London Eye,” Miss MacGregor said. “Then we had a formal afternoon tea, with the boys learning about the required etiquette from myself and Miss Coleman [History teacher Charlotte Coleman], including how to eat scones properly.”

The group had a talk from Baroness Featherstone about her life and about her role in getting key bills passed, such as the one introducing same-sex marriage. She encouraged the QE pupils to become involved in politics.

The talk was followed by a tour of Parliament, during which the boys learned especially about the history of Westminster Hall, which was the site of Charles I’s trial and of speeches by significant figures including Presidents Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. Westminster Hall is also the place where past members of the Royal Family, as well as Winston Churchill, have lain in state.

“The boys were then fortunate enough to go into the public gallery of the House of Commons and witness MPs such as Caroline Lucas debating the Government’s action following the Grenfell Tower tragedy – interesting and very relevant! It was a memorable day for all involved,” Miss MacGregor concluded.