Houses battle in fiercely fought quiz contest

Houses battle in fiercely fought quiz contest

Stapylton emerged as winners after taking on Pearce in front of the whole Lower School in the inter-House QIQE competition.

The six Houses first competed against each other in two leagues during a pool stage, with the rules stating that the two teams achieving the highest score in any of their pool matchings would progress to the final (rather than the teams with the greatest number of wins).

Until the last rounds of this stage, it looked as though this would be Leicester and Harrisons’, but then Stapylton, maintaining an unbeaten run, stormed through with a huge total of 175 over Leicester. Pearce had lost their opening quiz to Harrisons’, but when they took on Underne, they garnered 150 points to secure the other finalist’s spot.

In the final, which had a time limit of 15 minutes, all of Years 7 to 10 watched as Stapylton and Pearce fought it out, answering questions on topics from anatomy and famous inventors to food and film music. Stapylton pulled clear to achieve a 115-90 victory over Pearce.

Extra-curricular Enrichment tutor James Clarke said: “Special mentions should definitely go to Anshul Sajip, of Year 10, who performed admirably for Harrisons’, Year 7 boy Vignesh Rajiv, who took Pearce to the final with his knowledge of ancient Greece, scoring 25 points late on his own, and Year 10 Aaryan Sheth, for his outstanding performance in the final for Stapylton.”

Although named with a nod to TV’s popular QI programme, the format of the inter-House quiz was similar to another TV favourite, the BBC’s University Challenge. It involved ‘starters for ten’ put to the fastest team ‘on the buzzer’ (actually, holding up a paddle). If answered correctly, this then led to three thematically-linked bonuses, each worth five points.  Conferring with teammates was allowed for the bonuses, but not for the starters. Each team comprised one boy from each of Years 7–10. The quizmasters were Mathematics teacher Greg Lee and English teacher Alex Ulyet.

The winning Stapylton Team comprised: Rohit Balkrishna, Year 7; Arjun Arunkumar, Year 8; Swattik Das, Year 9, and Aaryan Sheth, Year 10.

The runners-up, Pearce, were: Vignesh Rajiv, Year 7; Olly Salter, Year 8; Sheikh Mohiddin, Year 9, and Deshraam Ganeshamoorthy, Year 10.

The overall standings in the competition are as follows (with the Houses’ highest scores from the pool stage given in brackets):

1st – Stapylton (175); 2nd – Pearce (150); 3rd – Leicester (130); 4th – Harrisons’ (100); 5th – Broughton (100) and 6th – Underne (70).