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A team of four QE pupils beat off 35 other teams to win the regional Team Maths Challenge and secure a place in the competition’s national finals.

Team captain Nigethan Sathiyalingam, together with Shane Mahen, Gabriel Gendler and Mahdi Elango, combined mathematical, communication and teamwork skills to win the regional event hosted by Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls in Elstree. The Team Maths Challenge was conceived by the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust to offer pupils a way of expressing and developing their enjoyment of Mathematics.

The team, which is drawn from Years 8 and 9, will compete at the national finals in the Camden Centre, London, on 22nd June – the first time that Queen Elizabeth’s School has reached the ultimate stage of this competition.

QE’s Bollywood Orchestra has won a place in the Music for Youth National Festival.

Eighteen boys from Years 9-12 prepared a version of A R Rahman’s Raga’s Dance, including elements of improvisation, at the Bollywood workshop at the start of March, working with Bollywood expert Sam Suriakumar. They first entered a recording of this in one of the regional festivals run by Music for Youth, a long-established educational charity.

The boys will play at the National Festival on 8th July at the Adrian Boult Hall, part of the Birmingham Conservatoire. The performance will also include pupils from Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School dancing to the QE boys’ music.

Boys from QE achieved success across the board in a competition about World Citizenship.

The competition, which was organised by the Baha’i Community, was open to Year 7 pupils in all Barnet schools. This year’s topic explored whether world peace is possible without unity and justice. Pupils were invited to submit a poster, an essay or a poem. Koji Takahashi won first prize in the poster category; Alex Chinweze came first for his poem, while Reuben Chacko’s essay was also judged best.

Twenty QE students who had shown particular commitment to the School’s play, Animal Farm, were rewarded with a visit to The Globe theatre.

The theatre on the South Bank is a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe. The students watched a clever adaptation of As you Like It, enjoying individual acting performances of real quality.

The whole of Year 7 took part in a visit to Bhaktivedanta Manor in the village of Aldenham as part of the Summer Term’s Religion & Society topic of Hinduism.

The boys dressed up in traditional costume, observed an Arti ceremony at the shrine and toured the grounds. The day also included a visit to the cow sanctuary and bullock cart rides. Back at School, the boys used their experiences to research and build a website on various aspects of the Hindu religion.

QE’s U13 cricket XI qualified for this year’s national David English/Bunbury Cup as last season’s Middlesex champions – the first time a QE team has achieved this feat.

The team had a bye in round 1, then achieved an emphatic win in the next round over Hertfordshire champions, St Albans. In the third round, Surrey Champions Whitgift proved too strong, setting a formidable target which the QE boys could not match.

At a regional level, the U14 XI cruised to an easy victory in the Gubby Allen Challenge match – an annual game between the Middlesex Champions and the Inner London Schools champions.

Hopes are high for similar success in these national and regional contests next year, since both the U12 & U13 XI have reached the final of the Middlesex Cup for the second consecutive year, following convincing wins over Highgate in the semi-finals. The U14 XI face Enfield Grammar in their semi-final.

• A group of Year 10 boys from QE umpired this year’s Eric Shearly Memorial Cup as part of their Sports’ Leadership course. Named after the former QE pupil and teacher, the Cup is Barnet’s biggest primary school cricket competition, attracting entries from 23 local schools. “The day was a great success and the leaders were a real credit to the School,” said PE teacher Nick Bird, who organised the event jointly with Old Elizabethan Paul Barnfather.