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The School has won a prestigious national business competition for the second consecutive year.

A team of four Year 11 Economists took first prize in Tune into Business 2011. Bennie Jaderberg, John Otugade, Marco Saccardi and Nigethan Sathiyalingam were required to step into the shoes of a high-powered music executive and decide on the most viable artist to invest in out of a choice of three. They had to justify their decision using market data, financial information and other social variables.

The annual competition is run by The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) in partnership with The b-Live Foundation, a careers and community site aimed at pupils at secondary schools.

“We are very proud of the boys’ achievement,” said Headmaster John Marincowitz. “To win such a prestigious competition in two consecutive years speaks of the consistently high level of performance from our boys.”

As part of their prize, the boys spent a day at the Chartered Accountants’ Hall in London where they met Mark Protherough, ICAEW Executive Director of Learning and Professional Development. The visit included an executive lunch at leading City venue, One Moorgate Place.

Commenting on the day, Mr Protherough said “The ICAEW remains the most popular breeding ground for future business leaders; 14 of the FTSE top 100 Chief Executives qualified with the Institute and 84% of those companies have at least one of our members on their board. Through competitions such as this we hope to perhaps find the business leaders of tomorrow.”

Fourteen-year-old Kavi Pau has won a top drama prize at a leading arts festival after impressing judges with a series of performances across different categories.

Kavi took the Drama Versatility Cup at the North London Festival of Music, Drama and Dance. The festival is affiliated to the Federation of Festivals and each year attracts a substantial number of entries in competitive classes including piano, composition, singing, choirs, speech & drama, and instrumental. All entrants perform in front of a live audience and are given feedback by the adjudicators.

Kavi won the cup for the most outstanding all-round performer (13-18 years). He took first prize and the gold medal in the Solo Classical Acting category; the Sight Reading category, and the Verse Speaking open category. He also picked up third place and the bronze medal in the Prose Reading section.

He received the cup from Nona Liddle MBE, former leader of the London Sinfonietta. She complimented Kavi on his delivery of the Brutus speech from Julia Caesar: “You had them turning around looking for Caesar’s body. You and your School can be extremely proud of the fine work you delivered.”

Kavi’s prize also included theatre and book tokens to help him to develop his Drama talent further.

A QE Sixth-Former has picked up second prize in a prestigious nationwide literary competition. Mohammad Bhatti (pictured) was named runner-up in The John Salter Memorial Kipling Essay competition which focused on the poetry of Rudyard Kipling.

Mohammad’s prize was £100 for himself, £100 for the School and a year’s free membership of the Kipling Society. The judges were also impressed with Nikos Yerolemou’s entry and awarded him a consolation prize of a £20 book token along with a year’s free membership of the Kipling Society.

“I am very proud that two of our students caught the eye of the judges in this prestigious and challenging competition,” said Head of English, Susannah Sweetman. “As a department we have been promoting the School’s drive to encourage independent learning, which we feel is essential when aiming for academic and personal success.”

Mohammad received his prize from Sir John Chapple, the President of the Kipling Society.

QE musician Anthony Zhang has been awarded a national bursary after achieving one of the highest marks in the country for his grade 8 piano examination.

The £150 Silver Bursary from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music caps a year of achievement for Anthony.

The School’s Director of Music, Kieron Howe, said: “His mark of 145 out of 150 (97%) is an astounding mark at any level and particularly at grade 8.

“This academic year Anthony has won silver medals at the Watford and North London Music festivals, playing the piano in the open category, where he was competing against adults – again a fine achievement.”

He also played the violin with the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain between Easter and December 2010, performing at the Hexagon in Reading and the South Bank Centre in London.

Anthony plans to put the £150 towards his piano lessons.

The First XI comfortably retained the Read Trophy on their tour of one of England’s cricketing heartlands.

The boys won all three of their matches during the annual QE visit to Lancashire, batting first and setting formidable targets for the opposition to chase. QE’s superior bowling attack then ripped through the opposition batting order, resulting in three victories – each by more than a hundred runs.

The matches were played at Penwortham Cricket Club and New Longton Cricket Club in Preston against Hutton Grammar School, Liverpool College and King’s School Chester.

“All the boys performed to an extremely high standard both on and off the field and we received many compliments both for their cricket and conduct,” said Head of Games Mark Peplow. “It was pleasing to see that our batting finally matched the quality of our bowling, which was the outstanding feature compared to the other teams. At one stage we had 10 fathers supporting the team, which was fantastic.”

The players were: Nir Shah (captain), Anton Bridge, Paarth Darber, Divyen Patel, Kunal Shah and Viyaasan Umachandra all in Year 13; Jonathan Bradshaw and Drew Williams (wicketkeeper), both in Year 12; Sarim Jafri, Neil Gujar and Chandi Uduwawala of Year 11 and Year 10 student Sebastian Feszczur-Hatchet.

In the first match QE scored 325-9, bowling Hutton Grammar School out for 84, with Uduwawala taking 5-15. Against Liverpool College N Shah scored 101 not out in a total of 247-3. Liverpool College collapsed to 60 all out, with Darbar taking 5-13. In the final against Chester, QE scored 213 and then dismissed Chester for 72, with Bridge taking 4-18.

“Almost for the first time in the season the boys constructed three good batting innings with excellent contributions from a number of boys. Without doubt we possessed a considerably stronger bowling attack than any of the opposition. That, backed by some excellent ground fielding, made us far too strong for our opponents. It was a fitting finale for the six Year 13 boys who have represented the 1st XI for three years,” added Mr Peplow.

QE has been developing its links with two high-achieving girls’ schools to enable boys to benefit from encountering different perspectives in their studies, whilst improving their social and inter-personal skills.

Forty-one boys from the Year 10 Gifted & Talented cohort joined 100 girls from North London Collegiate School to take part in a series of academic symposia designed to share ideas on a wide range of issues.

Students were divided into groups of 10 and each group was given a theme to discuss, chaired by Year 12 students from the two schools. The subjects included Art, Music, Classical Civilisations, Geography, History and Science. Seven QE teachers took part and materials for three of the symposia were provided by QE.

The symposia were based on six sources, including written articles, images and videos and each student gave a short talk on one source, followed by whole-group discussion.

QE teacher Tahmer Mahmoud, who is responsible for Academic Enrichment, said: “The event was designed to stretch pupils’ thinking within the subjects represented. It included the use of material at a level beyond what they would usually encounter in their GCSE courses, such as articles written by academics.”

Year 8 students enjoyed a day-long debating consortium with girls from The Henrietta Barnett School (HBS).

The day, which was hosted by QE, was spent discussing topical motions. Pranesh Varadarajan, Norbert Sobolak and Paavan Sawjani reached the final alongside three girls from HBS, debating the motion This House believes that the UK should not have a monarchy.

All the boys enjoyed their first experience of debating outside the school and are now looking forward to competing for places in national competitions from next year.