from schools across the UK and the rest of the world including Taiwan, Romania, Turkey, Singapore and The Netherlands.  They represented the delegations of China and Malawi in seven different UN Committees and lobbied, negotiated and argued strongly from the rostrum for their own resolutions, and worked together with delegates from twenty seven other schools from across the world to reach potentially world-changing decisions.

After a successful weekend of debate and discussion, proposing solutions to world problems ranging from the far right extremism to preserving endangered languages, and the rights of indigenous peoples to providing healthcare in conflict zones, it soon became clear at the closing ceremony that our delegation had, once again, performed well with gaining a number of individual awards: Jessica Ballard and Anna Ostoja-Petkowska won Highly Commended awards and Clara Cole gained a Distinguished award.

Maria Posada won the most coveted award; Best Delegate, and, as she represented China, she dealt well with the pressures of being the most significant country in her committee impressively. This recognition is all more magnificent as this is the third year Queen’s Gate has won this prestigious award at the conference!

Maria is also this year’s MUN prefect said ‘There were many special moments in the weekend and I would like to highlight a few. Our delegation took full advantage of representing China, emphasising their views with the frequent use of proverbs, Jessica Ballard’s favourite being ‘experience is a comb given to us when we’re bald.’ We were all truly sympathetic to Amy Gillyon’s coffee deprivation, although she lightened the mood with her daily rapping of AJ Tracy and her distinctive laugh. We were all shocked when Laura Finegold and Alexandra Cheytanova ordered a double portion of dough balls at Pizza Express and finished them all. Clara Cole almost went to the formal dinner at Wolfson College wearing mismatching shoes. Aurore Ashe-Taylor won the joke award for being most likely to become a climate activist. Reem Thakur managed to win the full admiration of her committee and was given a flattering joke award linked to her attractiveness and finally, Stephanie Goreli did a sterling job in the General Assembly when she posed some very pertinent points of information.’

Head of Sixth Form, Dr. Lee commented ‘Throughout all committees, Queen’s Gate delegates represented themselves very well, engaging with their topics and making some strong criticism of other schools’ clauses. The four awards brought home by Queen’s Gate delegates were testimony to the hard work and research which they put in behind the scenes, and importantly for the standard of their contributions to the debate. The QG MUN team is growing both in size and ability, and every member should be commended. We look forward to our two other conferences this term which will be held at Godolphin and Latymer School and the University of Oxford.’

With a mixture of letters and numbers still this year, almost 50% of the results were A* or their equivalent 9/8 in the reformed system, which is a record for the School! 70% of the results were graded A*, A, 9,8,7.

Mrs Kamaryc, Principal, commented, “Many congratulations to all of the UV on their GCSE results. We are delighted with this year’s results and congratulate all of the girls on their achievements.  We now wish them well as they embark on A Levels and look forward to their further contributions in the Sixth Form.”

excellence, achieving the highest percentage of A*/As of recent years, with 17.4% of the results graded A* and 54.2% A*/A.

Mrs Rosalynd Kamaryc, Principal, commented, ‘We are very proud of all of our UVI girls who have worked very hard to achieve their successes, whilst contributing so much to the life of the School. We thank all the girls for their commitment and friendship throughout their years, and as they set out on the next stage of their educational journey, we wish them continued success and happiness. We also thank all our staff for their hard work and commitment and our parents for their support. Many congratulations to all!’

to evaluate two new digital story apps this year, for the Children’s Digital Book Award. The competition aims to reward apps, e-books and other digital interactive products, using children as part of the judging panel.

The newly-formed Queen’s Gate Digital Book Club set to work in the Summer Term, meeting one lunchtime a week to explore and evaluate two shortlisted interactive story apps, the ‘Children’s Intel Agency’ app and ‘The Famous Five Adventure Game’.

Girls then created videos reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of each app; alongside submitting posters and forms to give a thorough overview of their thoughts and feelings. The club concluded that their favourite app was ‘The Famous Five Adventure Game’, based on Enid Blyton’s celebrated series of the adventures of Julian, Dick, Anne and Georgina, and of course Timmy the dog.

Much to our delight, the ‘The Famous Five Adventure Game’ was announced as the overall winner on Friday 12 July at the UKLA international conference, where the School was also awarded with a special certificate, in recognition of all the hard work that they put into the judging process – the only school to be granted this honour.

Show to enhance their gardening knowledge, pupils have been taking part in a charity project in partnership with Thrive and Grow for Life. The two charities provide therapeutic gardening opportunities for those with learning difficulties or suffering with mental health difficulties, and our girls have been volunteering their time and skills to create magical fairy gardens at Thrive Battersea ready for a summer children’s programme.

Continuing their hard work outside, pupils hosted the annual Queen’s Gate Flower Show in the Senior School rooftop garden on Thursday 4 July, in aid of the two charities. The show was a colourful success, raising over £200 and it was wonderful to see what they have been cultivating this term!

had an excellent start to their Biathlon careers at the Whitfgift Summer Biathlon. It was an incredibly successful day of competition, with every QG pupil placing and receiving a medal. Well done to all involved!

U12 Girls

Silver medal team – Ella, Izabel and Ava

U13 Girls

Individual 2nd place – Cecilia

Individual 3rd place – Mika

U14 Girls

Gold medal team – Hannah, Melinda and Eleanor

Silver medal team – Gioia, Chloe and Ines Mathais

Individual 3rd Place – Melinda

They sat on various committees including the Security Council, Finance, Human Rights, Health, Disarmament, and Environment, competing against more than 170 students from 15 schools. As always, the girls had prepared thoroughly beforehand and had accumulated a considerable amount of information on their allocated countries.

The topics debated ranged from the Israel-Palestine conflict to the question of water security, and the financial inclusion for women to the elimination of medical black markets, to name but a few. The QG delegations played a full part, proposing motions and amendments, making points of information and voting on the resolutions.

In the afternoon, they also took part in a global ‘crisis’ and were asked to respond to a topic that was unknown to them prior to the conference: the fictitious breaking news that Iran had invaded Israel and had used chemical weapons. The girls had to think on their feet and their debating skills were tested, always mindful that the role of the UN is to avoid war.

It was a hugely successful MUN conference and the QG delegations won two highly coveted individual awards out of the 12 available at the MTSMUN.

Congratulations to Luna Middleton-Roy and Diane-Sophie Capelle, who received the prestigious ‘Best Delegate’ award – both girls dealt exceptionally well with the pressures of representing France and displayed confidence and impressive maturity throughout.

Taking part in an MUN conference requires a huge amount of preparation beforehand, as well as the courage to stand up and make your voice heard in a competitive debating environment. Dr Lee.

Best of luck to the pupils taking part in the final conference of the academic year, at The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in mid-March!

prevented our girls from achieving success. This year our results have been a mixture of letters and numbers, with over 80% of the results being graded A*/A or their equivalent 9/8/7 in the new system. 37% of the results were given the new grade 9. Almost half of UV gained all A*/A or their equivalent and five girls achieved all A*s or 9s.

Principal, Mrs Kamaryc, commented, ‘We are very proud of all our girls’ achievements today at GCSE. Many congratulations to all the girls who have worked hard and deserve their success, but thank you also to our staff who too have worked hard and offered tremendous commitment, and to our parents who have supported their daughters and staff on the journey to GCSE – an excellent team effort! The staff and I send the girls our warmest congratulations and good wishes for Sixth Form and A Levels – well done, all of you!’

achieve these excellent results and they all deserve our congratulations.

Mrs Kamaryc, the Principal, commented, ‘We are sad to say goodbye to such an excellent cohort, but they have exciting new adventures ahead as they set off to University, both in the UK and States, Art Colleges and Gap Years. The staff and I congratulate all the girls and wish them every success and happiness in the future – remember that you will always be Queen’s Gate girls and we look forward to your visits back to School!’