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Year 7 boys were treated to a musical tour de force by older boys who performed at a special concert. The event in the School’s Shearly Hall combined full orchestral pieces with spoken introductions to, and musical demonstration of, individual instruments.

“The concert was a wonderful success,” said QE’s Director of Music Kieron Howe. “It gave the Year 7 cohort the opportunity to see and hear a wide range of orchestral instruments played live.”

The aim of the concert was to build the Year 7 boys’ skills to identify aurally the orchestral instruments, whilst at the same time introducing them to the range of extra-curricular opportunities available in the School.

The central ensemble was the School’s Symphony Orchestra, which performed Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King – from the Ibsen play Peer Gynt, based on a Norwegian folk-tale. The orchestra then split into the string, woodwind and brass families for the boys to be able to hear these instrumental families on their own.

The concert also included a performance of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody by the 90-strong Choir. After a short percussion demonstration by Jamie Mui of Year 12, Janan Sathiendran of Year 13 and Year 10’s Anhad Arora, the Symphony Orchestra came together again to perform the final piece, an arrangement of music from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

“The boys of Year 7 left the concert thrilled and exhilarated to have had the opportunity to hear all of these instruments played live, just for them,” said Mr Howe.

Saturday 3^rd November marks the 80^th anniversary of the official opening of QE’s Main Building.

The ceremony in 1932 was conducted by Prince George (later Duke of Kent). It was covered by the local newspaper, The Chronicle, which reported on the “fine modern buildings for Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School for Boys in Queen’s-road which are to take the place of those occupied since the school was founded in 1573”. The photo to the left shows the Prince symbolically opening the School's main front door.

In declaring the new School site open, the Prince said: “The appearance of the new buildings indicates the progress of secondary school education.” He added: “Speeches have ever pleased us best when once they are fairly over,” – a quotation he attributed to Queen Elizabeth I.

The ceremony was attended by a number of local dignitaries including: the Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire; The Bishop of St Albans; the Chairman of the County Council, Sir Joseph Priestley; the Chairman of the County Education Committee; the Chairman of the School Governors, H E Fern, and the Headmaster, E H Jenkins.

Mr Fern formally received the Articles of Government of the School from the Chairman of the County Education Committee. He said: “It will always be our endeavour to be mindful of the interests, both educational and recreational, of the boys and to preserve the customs and traditions of the School.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School was first established in Tudor Hall in Wood Street, Barnet, which remained its base for more than 350 years until Hertfordshire County Council ordered the construction of the new building at Queen’s Road.

Since 1932, a number of alterations and additions have been made to the site, including the addition of the Fern and Heard buildings, the Friends’ Music Room, the Clark Laboratories, the Martin Swimming Pool and the Shearly Hall. Most recently, a new Food Technology suite was completed, and work is currently underway to create a new Library and Dining Hall.

The Old Elizabethans’ Dinner on 16^th November in the Main School Hall will be linked to the anniversary celebration. “We have offered our Old Elizabethans the opportunity of arranged tours of the School,” said Headmaster Neil Enright. “I’m sure they will enjoy seeing the changes made over the last 80 years both to the Main Building and across the whole site.”

Four QE boys have been selected to represent Hertfordshire at a regional tournament. In addition, a boy from Year 9 and a Year 10 pupil are currently undergoing national water polo trials.

Sam Carling, of Year 10, along with Kavi Pau, Dinos Caryotis and Marcus Rodin from the year above all made it through the Hertfordshire County Water Polo trials, which took place over three weeks. They joined the squad of 13 players competing at the East Region Inter-Counties Tournament at the Luton Sports Village Pool during the half-term holiday.

Meanwhile, Louis Waloshek, of Year 9, who is undergoing trials for the England squad, spent half-term in Rome at a training camp. Alex Northcliffe, of Year 10, is also taking part in national trials.

All the boys met with the Headmaster, Neil Enright, to receive his congratulations. “I am very pleased with the individual achievements of the boys,” said Mr Enright. “They have all worked hard to progress in their sport, balancing their achievements against their academic studies. The School’s Martin Swimming Pool is an impressive facility and I have no doubt that it has played a part in enabling our water polo players to attain such a high standard.”

QE boys enjoyed the opportunity to inflate lungs with a rubber tube and to focus a lens from an animal’s eye on newsprint during the Society of Biology’s first-ever national Biology Week.

Lung and eye dissections were among the activities laid on at the School for the week. Other activities at QE included the cultivation of ‘grassy heads’, where grass seed was grown on round head shapes, and the construction of paper skeletons.

“Boys from all years were invited to sign up for a range of events, some of which were targeted at specific year groups,” said Biology teacher Martin Bassett-Jones. “The grassy heads and skeletons have been displayed around the School and have provoked a substantial amount of interest. But I think it’s fair to say the dissection sessions were the most popular.”

The activities were designed to be stimulating and to go beyond the curriculum for those boys who were keen to learn more.

“Overall the week was a great success and it’s possible that it may become a regular event for us,” said Mr Bassett-Jones.

QE’s cast and crew have been lauded for their performance in the Shakespeare Schools Festival. The event involved four local schools, who took part together in workshops before each staging an abridged version of a Shakespeare play in front of a public audience at the Arts Depot in Finchley.

Lydia Lewison, the Regional Co-ordinator for Shakespeare Schools Festival, said: “Our team really enjoyed working with the QE cast, who performed a powerful, gripping and mature production of Julius Caesar. The boys had a brilliant grasp of the language and delivered their lines with conviction and honesty.”

She also commented on the boys’ commitment to the project: “They were a pleasure to have in the theatre – so supportive of the other casts and really in tune with the festival ethos of celebration and inclusivity.”

QE was one of 700 schools that took part in the national event, which was supported by 90 professional theatres. The boys received expert help at a drama workshop at Finchley from an actor/director from the Central School of Speech and Drama. “It was a joy to see their confidence and performance levels rise,” said QE’s Drama Co-ordinator Elaine White. “They clearly relished and benefited from the professional theatre experience.”

The Shakespeare Schools Festival charity is the largest youth drama festival in the country. Its patrons include Dame Judi Dench, Kevin Spacey and Sir Tom Stoppard.

Queen Elizabeth’s School has retained its place as the country’s top boys’ state school in the Sunday Times Top 200 State Secondary Schools league table.

QE has twice been the Sunday Times’ State School of the Year. This year, as in 2011, it took second place nationally behind a girls’ school – The Henrietta Barnett School – although its 2012 A-level results were, in fact, slightly better than those of HBS.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It is very satisfying to be the top boys’ state school once again.“I am also pleased to note that, in terms of the A-level statistics published in the Sunday Times’ table for independent schools, QE is matching the top-placed boys’ school, St Paul’s, and narrowly outstripping the next, namely Westminster. QE can thus lay claim to being the joint top boys’ school – whether from the state or independent sector – in 2012.”

Earlier this term, QE was also named the best boys’ state school in the Financial Times’ Top 1,000 Schools table.