Filter Content
- Message from the Headteacher
- Prom Season
- Help to support individual student activities
- Sixth Formers raise the bar on QEHS school tours
- Experiencing the World of Work. Work Experience Programme for 2021-22
- Queen Elizabeth's High School recognised for excellence in science teaching
- Scientists of the Year
- Arkwright Engineering Scholarships 2021
- Oliver Sampson - Junior England Team
- Physical Education and Sport
- 2021 Valencia ETU European Championships
- The Army Engagement Team visit
- Karl Watson Presentation on Travel and Backpacking
- ParentMail Revision Guides
- New Grade Card for 2021
- Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (DofE)
- Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme: Bronze and Silver Awards
- The QEHS Imp on The Lincoln IMP Trail, Summer 2021
- QEHS Imp
- All England Championship
- Blue Peter Badge Winners
- Pupil Premium
- Civvies Fundraising
- Term 2 House Events
- Do you have some time to spare?
Dear QEHS Community,
What a fantastically full-on start to the new academic year we have enjoyed here at QEHS! Thanks to the enthusiastic approach of students and staff alike we have experienced an extremely positive return to school this term. Whether engaging in extra-curricular activities, returning to Science labs and DT workshops, listening to guest speakers, reading in the library, planning House events, signing up to music sessions and teams for fixtures, rehearsing for Drama productions or heading out of school on Duke of Edinburgh expeditions, the broad array of educational experiences offered by QEHS is well and truly back!
Without doubt there is a palpable sense of collective joy to have returned to normal and the buzz and energy coming from the students is there to be harnessed and will serve to continue to drive the school onwards. The end of term letters you will receive from respective Heads of Year and House Leaders will convey a further impression of just how productive and creative our students have been since September. There is absolutely no doubt that the reset button has been firmly pressed!
Over the past couple of weeks, prospective parents and students have been visiting school and taking advantage of the tours we have offered to afford families the opportunity to see inside ‘big school’. Arrangements around these visits have been fully student led, and our new Sixth Form Marketing Team have performed a sterling role in touring guests, relaying their own experience of life at Queenies, and answering the array of questions which inevitably come from excited Year 5 and Year 6 youngsters.
Within the pages of this edition of the newsletter you will read of numerous successes and achievements. Amongst the many highlights, recognition of our amazing Science Department through the award of Platinum Quality Mark, together with May’s national and Oliver and Mrs Baldwin’s international successes, plus Evan, Sadie and Lance’s status as ‘Scientists of the Year’, alongside Kishnar’s Arkwright Engineering Award all serve to demonstrate the incredible success stories the QEHS community share. Oh! And the QEHS Lincoln Imp has returned home to school too!
At QEHS we are very proud to be able to confidently throw open our doors at any time and be sure visitors will see a calm, well ordered school founded on academic rigour and pastoral wellbeing. So, if you or friends or family would like to experience QEHS first hand, please do look out for the booking form on the school website as we look to offer weekly tours throughout the rest of the academic year.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Mr R M Eastham
Headteacher
Proms are a wonderful celebration of students’ efforts and achievements and mark important milestones in their academic careers. After the trials of Covid, we were determined that our proms should go ahead this year, even if it meant holding them during the summer holidays, which ultimately it did!
Year 11 had a wonderful evening at the Hemswell Court Hotel on Sunday 25 July. A cavalcade of vehicles, eclectic to eccentric served to kick off proceedings and students enjoyed a formal meal followed by a disco as well as speeches by the students and the award of prizes.
Year 13 marked the end of their school careers in similar style during the following evening, Monday 26 July at the Double Tree by Hilton in Lincoln. With spectacular views of Lincoln Cathedral and Brayford Wharf, the students bade farewell to school life and one another and looked forward to the challenges and triumphs ahead.
Mr J Kingdom
Assistant Headteacher
Help to support individual student activities
The aim of the school charity (QEHS Foundation) is to support and assist the students of Queen Elizabeth's High School by funding activities and projects that could not normally be funded through the school’s grant from the Local Authority.
One of our strands of support is for grants to individual students for things such as extra-curricular sporting, music and performing arts activities or learning activities outside of school where they may need financial assistance. Recent awards have included assistance for travel to compete in national sporting competitions and supporting the attendance of a student at an international event. Any student can apply to the fund for a grant of up to £200.
Applications can be made throughout the year and students should submit their case (in no more than 300 words) by email to [email protected] outlining:
- What the activity is and why they are unable to fund it themselves or from family support
- What the educational or other benefits to them will be from the activity
Mr Eastham, Mr Harrison, Dr White (QEHS Foundation Trustees)
Sixth Formers raise the bar on QEHS school tours
Over the last two weeks we have been welcoming prospective parents and their children through our doors to see the school in action during a typical day. Three times daily our Sixth Form students have been leading school tours for youngsters who have just taken their 11+ entrance exams and are currently deciding which school to choose for their secondary education.
Our Year 12 and Year 13 students stepped up to this task with enormous enthusiasm, planning the routes, organising a schedule of tours and planning what they wanted to say in order to communicate the many strengths of the school in a short time period. Their keenness to lead on these tours was a joy to behold and their talented approach won them much positive feedback, such as that from a parent who emailed the school to make sure we knew just how wonderful he had found his tour guides:
‘’Hi
Just a quick email to say what a great tour we had around the school today.
The students doing the 2pm tour were extremely knowledgeable and polite. They were a credit to the school and their families.
Thank you very much.’’
By the end of half term, these school tours will have accommodated around 370 visitors who will all have had the chance to look at our impressive facilities and observe our super students hard at work – quite an achievement on the part of our Sixth Formers I am sure you will agree.
It is true to say that the dedication of this group of Sixth Formers has ensured these tours have been able to go ahead and, in doing so, have afforded families the important opportunity to look inside the school following the restrictions associated with the past 18 months. I myself am very grateful for all of their work and I cannot wait to see what they can achieve when we get down to planning the extended school tours that will take start to take place weekly each Wednesday afternoon for the remainder of the academic year.
Mrs E Watson
Experiencing the World of Work. Work Experience Programme for 2021-22
I am pleased to report that we will be able to offer opportunities for Work Experience to students in Year 10 and the Sixth form this year having found a new partner to provide our Health and Safety cover. Year 10 students will be able to sign up to undertake a block placement from Monday 04 July to Friday 08 July 2022 and Year 12 block work experience is being offered in the same week, so that students who were unable to take part in their programme in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, can benefit from carrying out a placement next summer. Sixth form students who wish to use part of their Complementary activities time for carrying out a work placement, are being encouraged to do so.
The roll out of the programme has been delayed as our usual health and safety partners took the decision, at short notice, to withdraw from offering the service to cover real time work experience placements. However, we would expect that shortly after half term, Parentmail letters will go out to parents of Year 10 and Sixth Form students explaining the process for this academic year and I will be speaking to Year 10 and 12 students over the coming weeks. I would like to thank the Sixth Form students who sourced extended placements early on this term for their patience whilst we worked to find an alternative Health and Safety partner. I will be in touch with these students as soon as the new database is available to accept placement bookings from students at QEHS.
One of the new procedures it is worth mentioning here, is that placement bookings will now be done through Google Forms. Hopefully this will streamline the booking process but Google is not yet able to accept an attachment to a Google Form and all students will therefore need to remember that their confirmation from the employer- either an email or a formal letter- will need to be sent separately to Mrs Thorpe by email.
Placements cannot be processed without this employer confirmation, so students must get into the habit of using their email account to pass on the required details.
We would encourage parents and students to use their own contacts to source work experience placements but I also have records of past placements we have used which students can look through if they need guidance. At this stage we do not know if Covid 19 will have impacted on the availability of work experience placements, especially as we cannot sanction one to one working at an employee’s home, but hopefully the employment landscape is beginning to return to normality.
Extended placements can be booked throughout the year and should be sent in as soon as the employer has agreed to take the student- please remember our Health and Safety partners will need 3-4 weeks lead time to carry out any checks needed before the extended placement can start.
For students who choose to take part in work experience in July, the deadline for submitting work experience placement forms along with a written or emailed confirmation from the employer is Friday 22 April 2022. This lead time is longer than for extended placements due to the volume of places which will need health and safety checks carrying out. Most schools in the Lincolnshire and East Midlands area undertake work experience in Term 6.
Please encourage your child to make sourcing a work placement a priority as time will pass quickly, employers can often take a long time to reply to a work experience request and competition for places will be quite strong after reduced availability over the past two years.
Applications can be made to most companies by letter or formal email but the student should also include/attach the school support letter. This letter will be available in the Work Experience area of the school website as well as on the W drive or a copy can be requested directly from Mrs Thorpe. I would still advise sending a formal letter, even in this age of electronic communication, as emails can easily remain unread or not reach the right person, leaving the student without a response.
This year’s work experience cohorts have a lot to live up to, but year on year the comments from employers continue to reflect the character of our students and I am sure this year we will see similar comments from employers as those in previous years. These comments from employers sum up the impression our students make when on placement:-
“Your student is amazing”, “a joy to have with us”, “from the outset he worked hard to form positive relationships with staff, “a credit to herself and the school ”.
Mrs J C Thorpe
Work Experience Co-ordinator
Queen Elizabeth's High School recognised for excellence in science teaching
Queen Elizabeth's High School have been awarded the prestigious Platinum Science Mark, in recognition of the excellent work undertaken by their Science Department.
Science Mark was created by the National STEM Learning Centre and Network to recognise and celebrate best practice in secondary Science departments across the UK. Schools and colleges receive the Science Mark when they can show that they are delivering inspiring lessons for students and demonstrate their department’s commitment to high-quality Science education.
Adam Little, Professional Development Leader at the National STEM Learning Centre and Network said,
“We are delighted to congratulate Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough on receiving the Platinum Science Mark. Science Mark is prestigious because we are so rigorous in assessing those who receive the quality mark. Every school who receives Science Mark has demonstrated a real and ongoing commitment to excellent science education in their school. Queen Elizabeth's High School is a great example of this.”
Mr Eastham (Headteacher) said,
“To attain this Platinum Science Mark is true recognition for the efforts, energy and innovation the QEHS Science Faculty demonstrate on a daily basis. To have attained the Platinum Mark at the first attempt is testament to the drive and determination of the Science team who always seek to deliver the very best teaching and learning experience for our students. The fact that students may now access laboratories and experience the reward associated with conducting practical lessons following so long in ‘bubbles’ has added to the palpable sense of joy and academic stimulation gained through hands-on learning, deep analytical thinking and methodical approaches. The fantastic Science team ensure both classroom based and co-curricular learning through STEM Club and extra-curricular activities serve to develop the enquiring minds amongst our students. A fantastic achievement and most well deserved!”
It has been fantastic to have three of our A Level students acknowledged by Lincoln University as ‘Scientists of the Year’.
Receiving their certificates earlier in the term, Evan Amanious, Sadie Austin and Lance Holden were recognised as outstanding young talents within Biology, Chemistry and Physics respectively.
Evan intends to go on to pursue Dentistry at university, whilst Sadie is looking to read Bio-Chemistry and Lance Mechanical Engineering.
To be acknowledged as ‘Scientists of the Year’ has certainly done their UCAS Personal Statements and CVS no harm at all. Very many congratulations indeed to Evan, Sadie and Lance.
Arkwright Engineering Scholarships 2021
Congratulations to Kishna Haldipur who has recieved an award for the Arkwright Engineering Scholarship.
An Arkwright Engineering Scholarship is the most esteemed and prestigious scholarship of its type in the UK, designed to inspire students to pursue their dreams and change the world as a future leader in engineering.
The Scholarships are awarded to hard-working 16 year old students through a rigorous selection process, supporting them through their A levels.
Every Scholarship is sponsored by a commercial company, trade association, university, professional institution, armed service, government organisation, worshipful company, charitable trust or personal donor. This means that support is offered in various different ways, for example, valuable hands-on work experience, support for your curriculum project and a personal mentor who can help you with aspects of your studies and career planning. Students are also given a financial bursary along with their Scholarship.
Students are first nominated by their teachers and can apply for their scholarship by writing their own resume and personal statement which will be assessed and marked. Students will then be filtered and those who go through will sit an aptitude exam specific to engineering. This will once again filter students and those who are successful will have an interview with industry professionals who will recommend the student for the scholarship if they deem them suitable.
Kishna was the first student of our school to participate in this Award and our first to achieve it. He has been sponsored by the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust.
Oliver Sampson - Junior England Team
Well done to Oliver Sampson and the rest of his Junior England team members who represented Team England, Down The Line (DTL) shotgun. They won on Friday 17 September for Home International. They then competed in the British Open game on Saturday 18 September.
What a fantastic term of Physical Education and Sport it has been at QEHS. We have welcomed back our extensive extra curricular provision with over 18 clubs running at lunchtime and after school. In addition, we have had the house football and netball competitions that were such a superb spectacle and was lovely to see so many participants and spectators. Keep a look out for our new extra curricular timetable in Term 2 and plenty more House sporting competitions to get involved in, including badminton and cross country.
The Go Sketch Golf program we are currently involved in with Thonock Park has started and it is amazing to see the development that is being made by our students. A big thank you to Thonock Park for the amazing work they are providing for our students.
Furthermore, our school teams have started exceptionally well in our league, county and national competitions this term. Our Sixth Form football team have progressed to the National Cup 3rd Round as well as our Year 10 netball team. Our Sixth Form netball team have qualified for the county championships and still remain in the national cup.
In addition, our Year 7 netball, Year 8 netball and football teams remain undefeated this year and top their district leagues. A big well done and thank you to all those students who have represented the school with such distinction this term. We have so many more opportunities coming up over the course of next term and this academic year.
I hope you all have a lovely and restful half term, please keep a track of all things sport and PE at QEHS on twitter and instagram @qehspe
Mr J Burge
Head of Physical Education and Sport
2021 Valencia ETU European Championships
It had been 1 ½ years since I had last competed in a GB age group International event. I was fortunate enough to have travelled to Punta Umbria in Spain and competed in the 2020 ETU European Standard distance duathlon Championship. Here I finished 2nd overall in my age group and a Silver medal. Little did we know when we travelled back that Spain would go into lockdown 4 days later and GB a week later, the start of the Covid pandemic and lockdown. Hopefully, we are over the worst and things are starting to get back to normal. Most competitions were either cancelled or re-arranged. I was incredibly lucky to travel to Valencia the last weekend in September to take part in the 2021 European GB age group Standard distance triathlon Championship, an event in which I had qualified for 2 years ago.
The Sprint event took place on the Saturday morning and I went down to look at transition and how it was operating. Saturday afternoon saw the Junior elites, Para elites. I am in awe of those athletes and the elite Male/Female races which saw Alistair Brownlee finish a very close 2nd overall and ETU Runner Up.
Sunday morning I was up at 05.45 for breakfast and I had to rack up at 06.50-07.20. It was strange that it was still dark and didn’t get light until just before 8am when the first wave was off. I was off at 08.35 and started with a long 1500m swim (over 1600m). It was a non-wet suit swim as the water in the harbour was 25/26 degrees with a dive in start. We were set off 3 seconds apart and I quickly got into my stroke. I was straight out and into transition to pick up my bike. It was then 40km on the bike over a 3 lap technical course with several dead turns. Back into transition, rack the bike and then out onto the 3 lap 10km run. I had taken on my gels and energy drink on the bike, but it was now quite hot and well over 30 degrees. I thought I was well up in my age group, but couldn’t be 100% sure with the staggered start. I finished in 2.30.47, 1st in my age group and Gold medal by over 3 ½ minutes.
I had a dream and the dream came true! I am the 2021 European Age Group F55 Champion which is what the President of the BTF said to me when presenting me with my medal. Hard work and determination does pay off! Thank you to QEHS for their continued support and if anyone would like to get involved in triathlon, please e-mail me at school. My final message to everyone, always have faith and believe in yourself.
Mrs Baldwin
The Army Engagement Team visit
Students from Years 11 and 12 were put through their paces by the Army Engagement Team on Wednesday 22 September. The team told the students about life in an armoured regiment, the Medical and Veterinary corps, the Adjutant General’s Corps and the infantry. The students were then tasked to build a wheelbarrow for a wheelbarrow race, a challenge to which they rose with all of the style and panache that we would expect!
Karl Watson Presentation on Travel and Backpacking
In September, Year 13 had a guest speaker talk to us about backpacking, travel, and inspiration for a gap year. I really enjoyed the zoom presentation by the well-known British YouTuber Karl Watson, as somebody who enjoys travelling and would like to spend time touring and backpacking in the future. The main focus of the talk was about travelling the world safely alone or with friends. He had some very helpful tips, such as identifying the best ways to do activities in the areas you stay by attaching to a group who helps organise the more adventurous activities (e.g. skydiving), and the advice with regards to eating, and when to cook versus when to get food in from elsewhere/eat out. The section about first trips was particularly interesting, as I wouldn’t have known that Asia was such a cheap and easy option, with such a large amount of backpacking support without having been told. The way that the information was presented made it seem as though travelling and backpacking would be really easy and was quite encouraging: Karl also effectively confirmed that it was very enjoyable to be able to travel with no responsibilities for an extended period. In addition, the advice for overcoming languages barriers was reassuring. The information about touring Europe was particularly helpful too, and the advice to take the train around the continent is likely something I will bear in mind for when I travel that area of the world in future. I think that the presentation was very well structured and clearly delivered, imparting a lot of useful information while leaving time for questions and also managing to be interesting by weaving stories and opinion into the bulk of the information.
Andrew Belleini, Y13
Website: https://www.karlwatson.net/
When ordering books on ParentMail please note this is a two-step process:
- Place the order on Parentmail.
- Send an email to [email protected] informing us that you have placed an order.
When your books are ready for collection your child will be notified and asked to collect them from the Library. If you have not received them within 10 days please contact the library.
End of term grade cards are approaching fast and we are delighted to unveil our new look grade card, which will be sent to every student week commencing 01 November. Rather than reporting student engagement, we will be using the criteria of the new QEHS Learner Standards: Behaviour for Learning; Learning to Learn and Leadership for Learning to summarise students’ performance. The criteria for each of these standards is included in the student planner, page 59 for years 7-9 and page 34 for years 10 and 11 and page 56 for sixth form students. The criteria are alongside a table of suggestions of how students might ensure the very highest performance in the standards. The aim of the new standards is to add clarity to our communication of the strengths and weaknesses of each students. We believe that this will help both staff and parents to support students and will allow students a clear picture of what they are doing well and any areas that need attention.
J M Kingdom
Assistant Headteacher
Assessment and Progress
Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (DofE)
QEHS has the honour of having the highest pass rate for DofE awards in Lincolnshire. Covid 19 had caused something of a backlog of DofE expeditions and we were determined to clear it this year. With the help of a dedicated team of staff and the enthusiasm and determination of our students, we are delighted to report that we are nearly there.
The Silver award requires an expedition of two nights and three days trekking in challenging terrain. Our team of ten students set off on the penultimate week end of the summer term and tackled all that an unseasonably hot July could throw at them. Their navigation, camping and cooking skills, although maybe not faultless, were certainly improved by the end of the trek and we congratulate them all on an outstanding effort.
110 students in Year 10 had missed their expedition the previous year and were keen to pit their wits against the challenges of Clumber Park. Again, the weather was hot and again the students battled through and achieved their aim. DofE is meant to be testing and it certainly was! It is also designed to teach resilience and teamwork as well as skills, in particular navigation and camp craft. The expedition managed to do all of these things and was great fun. Our heartiest congratulations go to all of the students who conducted themselves magnificently.
It only remains for the final cohort of Year 9 students to complete their expedition in September when, of course, they will have graduated to Year 10. We are sure that they too will rise to the challenge and emerge all the better for the experience!
We could not run DofE without our staff who give up their own time to shepherd students through what can be a testing time. Huge thanks are extended to all of the staff who are key to making DofE the huge success that it is.
Mr J Kingdom
Assistant Headteacher
Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme: Bronze and Silver Awards
It was a long, hot summer for students completing the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme at QEHS this year. As ever, we were hugely impressed with the resilience and determination of the students in completing all of their sections, not least the expedition phase which was very hot and dusty. The students all rose to the challenge and we are pleased to report that almost two hundred students have completed an expedition since July.
The QEHS Imp on The Lincoln IMP Trail, Summer 2021
Over the summer, Lincoln was alive with the arrival of 31 individually designed, hand painted Imps by professional artists, and 50 Education Imps, including our QEHS Imp, as part of the Lincoln IMP Trail to celebrate, Lincoln, its art, culture and heritage.
The Trail ran from July to September 2021, with the Imps being displayed at various well known locations throughout the city. Primary, and secondary schools from around Lincolnshire, alongside local colleges and universities, have all taken part in the programme, creating sculptures that rival some of the professional artists.
Some of our students took part in designing our QEHS IMP based on imagery inspired by Gainsborough’s historical context and connection to Lincoln. Some of our A Level Artists spent many hours in between their lessons and in their lunch time, painting our imp sculpture, and it’s been such a positive thing for them to do after such a difficult year. There’s so much creative talent within our school community and we’re sure the public were as impressed with our QEHS, as we were.
Our QEHS Imp features the school crest, which has been deconstructed with the individual elements positioned across the head and body of the Imp and a Saxon cloak, drapes across the Imp’s shoulders and over the stonework and stained glass windows that represent the interior of Lincoln Cathedral.
Many of you spotted our QEHS Imp hanging out in the Waterside Shopping Centre and have shared photos of you taking part in the Lincoln IMP Trail. The QEHS Imp now sits proudly in the school reception area, watching over our day to day life in school and waiting for the opportunity to get up to some mischief!
Mrs E Walsh
Head of Art
This summer May (11D) competed in the All England Open Dance Championships at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.
Dancing live at the home of Ballroom May's outstanding performance saw her crowned winner of the All England Open Junior Solo Classical Sequence Championship.
Huge congratulations go to May for her fantastic achievement, this title is in addition to winning all of her Under 16 Sequence categories in the United Kingdom Junior Classical Dance Solo Title at the prestigious Blackpool Online Spring Festival of Dance earlier in the year.
Her latest title was hard fought against 50 other dancers from across the UK, meaning May is currently the UK's top Junior Sequence dancer!
With such phenomenal achievements already, we look forward to future updates on May's dancing career.
Last term's Blue Peter Awards
7A
Ethan CD, Hollie C, Evelyn C, Monty D, Grace H, Noah J, Lily J, Arun J, Scarlett K, Olivia L, Verity L, Zarna L, Jax M, Samuel M, Hannah P, Alexa P, Jessica P, Johann RJ, Christian S, Oliver S, Elsa S, Joseph W, Hugo W, Weixi W
7B
Macy A, Sonny A, Tsara B, Charlie B, Bethany C, Chloe C, Ewan D, Leo D, Mackenzie F, Maddie G, Poppy G, Alfie H, Seb H, Sajin J, Martha K, Kanye L, Evie L, Keogh P, Georgina P, Pavithira R, Imogen S, Licsha S, Matthew W
7C
Falan S, Jonny W, Purdy T, Emily B, Austin M, Leo P, Charlotte P, Alice L, Jonah R, Oliver M, Ellie W, Miah N, Iris H
7D
Liberty B, Summer D, Tom G, Zhi-xuan L, Emma D, Anna J, Chloe B, Ava L, Adam T, Addison L, Isla W, Emily M, Olivia L, Sebastian S, Joleen A, Konrad S
7E
Catherine P, Nidhi M, Isaac K, Oliver P, Ava M, Jennifer W,Ava K, Tommy R, Kaveesha K, Aden L, Millie M
7S
Meisha R, Ahmed M, Maya N, Tejas K, Andres-Kee R, Angel H, Barry L, Amy O’L, Austin S, Lucie F, Thomas L, Charlotte T,Talitha O, Poppy B, Sarah H
Is your child is eligible for Free School Meals? To check see: http://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/schools-and-education/free-school-meals/
The application doesn't take long to complete and could be very beneficial. Please do not hesitate to speak to our Attendance and Welfare Officer, Miss Carter at the school if you require any further help.
Full details are available on our website under The School: Funding and Financials; alternatively click here to view our Pupil Premium information.