Queen Elizabeth II High School held its annual prize giving last week.

The prizes awarded were:

Forster Prize (Best A Level Results), Nathan Harmer

Forster Prize (Best GCSE Level Results), Megan Griffin

The Lucas Cup for service to the School, Amy Anderson

The Royal British Legion (Peel & Western Branch) Prize for Progress, Mikey Makin

Michael Kewley Memorial Shield - for Endeavour, Luke Smith

The Rotary Club of Rushen & Western Mann Prize for Progress, Jamie Gelling

The Walter Cannell Literary Prize, Darcie Gray

The Hanson Technology Prize, Daniel Radcliffe

The Peel Town Commissioners Music Prize, Shellan Leeming

The Kodhere Casket, Yingying Ross

The Lockett Senior Art Prize, Augusta Atherton

The School Association Prize for Best Year 11 Art Exam Work, Megan Griffin

The Laurence Delaney Prize for Physics, Nathan Harmer

The Pantin Prize for Services to the Library, Alice Main

German Commissioners Modern Language Prize, Sophia Clague

The Cathedral Chapter Senior Divinity Prize, Megan Griffin

The Marown Parish Commissioners Prize for IT, Ellie Kniveton

The Zurich Financial Services Business Studies Prize, Benjy Woodford

he Hector Duff Dunkirk History Prize, Mikey Makin

The Michael Commissioners Shield - English Prize, Megan Griffin

The Patrick Commissioners Centenary Cup and History Prize, Rosie Hind

The School Association Chemistry Prize, Rhys Owen

The School Association Geography Prize, Amy Anderson

The School Association D&T Food Prize, India Trimble

The School Association D&T Textiles Prize, April Ralph

The Celtic Gold Prize for Art, Hannah Lillie

The QEII Old Scholars’ Association Trophy for Science, Reuben Allan

The QEII Old Scholars’ Association Trophy for Sport, Barton Beaumont

The Headteacher’s Prize, Rachel Smith

The Deputy Headteacher’s Prize, Jack McLean

The Assistant Headteachers’ Prize, Shannon Caren, Diona Biju and Juan Gill

The Corrin Public Speaking/Drama Prize, Amy Bennett

The David McGlashan Media Award, Reuben Allan

The Viking Lodge Higher Education Award for Science, Nathan Harmer

The Viking Lodge Higher Education Award for Arts, Darcie Gray

he Royal British Legion Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award, Harry Lovelady

The George Kermode Prize for Achievement in D&T, Jake Dillon

The School Association Award for highest UCAS Point Score, Nathan Harmer

Bettridge Motors Design and Technology Prize for Graphics, Layla Moffatt

Dr Richard Moore Memorial Shield for Physics, Nathan Harmer

Hinnigan Trophy for Performing Arts, Shannon Caren

The McLeod Biology Prize, Amy Anderson

The Deans Trophy for Contribution to the School and Community, Shellan Leeming

The Gillian Lace Trophy for Endeavour, Nicole Halsall-Polo

Headteacher Sue Moore gave a speech at the event, whose guest of honour was the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Richard Gozney.

We reproduce it here:

Your Excellency, Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen

We are very grateful to your excellency for finding time in your busy schedule to present the prizes on the occasion of the 40th annual prizegiving for the school.

Indeed, in your time on the island, you have embraced the eclectic range of experiences available in our unique community and become a friend and supporter of many organisations.

Your willingness to join in at grass roots, including being a volunteer with Junior Achievement for our Year 9 [aged 13 and 14] students and supporting our production of ’School of Rock’ has endeared you to many.

Thank you for being our guest of honour.

It is my privilege this evening to report to you on the state of the school and the highlights of its 40th year.

When the school opened, it was, in the words of its first headmaster Bob Forster, ’the culmination of the dreams and hopes shared by many people from the west of the island for many years’.

We still have students who are the first in their family to continue their education past GCSEs to A-level and still more for whom university has only just become a realisable dream.

With pressure on government finances, there is sometimes the temptation, in the mistaken belief it will save money, to centralise post-16 education in Douglas.

This would be catastrophic for the communities not just here in the west but for south and north of the island as well.

The school is at the heart of the community and I know that everyone here in the hall tonight appreciates and values that.

We have become used to the school producing high standards and offering great opportunities for students.

It is easy to take this for granted and forget the hard work and commitment that is required each year to make sure our students achieve and succeed.

This year has once again been hugely successful both in terms of examination results and in the wider aspects of education.

About three quarters of GCSE examinations taken were awarded a grade C or above, with ¼ gaining top A/A* grades. 64% of students gained 5 Cs or above including maths and English. 80% of students achieved their C or above in Maths and 78% in English. 23 students achieved at least 5 A*/A grades.

For a comprehensive school, this is outstanding. You could be cynical and ask, ’well was this a particularly strong cohort of young people?’ but when we look at their progress from when they arrived in Y7 to their exam results now, we are ’inspirational’.

The students have worked hard, been taught by experts and done well.

The top achiever was Megan Griffin, who achieved 8 A*,an A, a B and a C in Japanese which she took in Y10 after attending a club in her own time.

She was narrowly ahead of Reuben Allan, who also achieved 8A* and an A grade and is awaiting his engineering result.

Shellan Leeming and Katie Roberts both got 6A* and 4 As, Sophie Bell 6A* and 3As, Gabrielle Divall 6A* and 1 A, Sophia Clague 5A* and 3 As, Jamie Gelling 4A* and 6As, Rosie Hind 3A* and 6As I could go on!

As always, some of our students have embarked on specialist courses at the University College of Man and we have 126 in the sixth form or Key Stage 5.

Many people over the summer asked me how the results were.

I’m not a great fan of statistics, particularly at A level where numbers are small.

I prefer to look at individual students and how they have done.

My response, therefore, has been that the results have been great - people have got what they deserved!

Those who worked hard have achieved grades they can be proud of.

Those who preferred to spend time on other areas of life than academic study, have done less well. It reinforces the old adage that the more you put into something, the better you do.

The statistics are also easily skewed as we are only allowed to include people in a certain age bracket.

This means that every time we allow a student to continue with one A-level into y13 and start two new ones with the intention of continuing for a third year to achieve three good grades, only the first grade ever counts in the stats and they are recorded as having one A level.

To make our figures look better, we should insist that they start the whole of Y12 again so none of their grades count.

Or, if we have a student who looks as if they are only going to get E grades, we could ask them to leave - immediately our stats would improve. However, this school has always worked on the principle that young people come first.

If it is in the best interests of students to be allowed to continue their studies, we think that is more important than the possible negative effect on statistics. That is why I am not a fan of league tables - the pressure on schools to manipulate their position rather than put students first becomes too great.

Having said that, the A level results, including stats are really good!

The pass rate was 99.2% (just one U grade) and 43.7% of grades were A*-B with the average grade being 35 UCAS points - between grade C and grade B.

We are comfortably above the island average.

Given that this was the first year for many subjects of the new linear courses, this is a real achievement and students should be very proud of their success.

As you will see from the programme, Nathan Harmer, our head boy, was our top performer achieving an A*, 3As and an A* in his extended project.

The head girl, Amy Anderson, achieved 2As and 2 Bs and Rhys Owen got 3A grades.

Shannon Caren achieved starred distinction in both performing arts and sport BTEC level 3 courses and a B in biology.

We are especially pleased with the success of the level three BTEC results. The collaboration between Ramsey Grammar School, Castle Rushen High School and ourselves continues to offer a wide range of courses and opportunities for teachers to work together.

Twenty students have decided to go to university this year.

An increasing number are choosing instead to take up apprenticeships and employment with training.

Amber Ratnavel won the Simcocks competition across the whole island for a placement in the firm. The opportunity to earn while taking further qualifications is appealing, especially in today’s economic climate.

Our vision for students is to help them leave ready for success with positive caring values so they can become flourishing members of our community.

This entails far more than academic success. There is so much going on that our newsletters have become epics!

The following is a selection.

The performing arts continues to thrive with the benefit of specialists in music, drama and dance

The production this year was a charming performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was imaginative and fun and showed that Shakespeare has lost none of his appeal.

It has been another busy year for the wind band. In addition to the usual school concerts at Christmas and Easter and the annual concert with the Isle of Man Wind Orchestra, the band performed at the Glenfaba Civic Service.

They also completed a whistle stop tour of QEII’s partner primary schools, performing four concerts in one day!

A particular highlight for the school was hosting HM Band of the Grenadier Guards during their visit to the island for Tynwald day, with parts of the event being broadcast on BBC TV.

The sight and sound of so many young people from all over the Island performing with such world-class musicians was deeply moving. I was very proud! Thank you to Mr Kinley and Office of Tynwald for making it happen.

Holly Macrae won an all-island competition to become the first Manx Youth Bard and Esther Walters was runner up.

Holly has had a busy year, performing at many community cultural events, including on Tynwald Day. We hosted the award-winning Syrian poet Amineh Abou Kerech who was visiting as part of the Isle of Man Choral Society premiere of her work set to music by Karl Jenkins.

Once again our students won North American Manx Awards. Shellan Leeming received the award for ’outstanding achievement in Manx music’ and Tosh Teare received the award for ’Manx language’.

A group of our students danced at the Barbican as part of the annual Roots and Shoots Awards in recognition of the work done by the school to protect the environment.

We were in the top 11 schools out of over 2,000 involved in various eco-projects.

We continue to support charities both at home and abroad. Y11 raised £1,000 for the Peel RNLI and we were grateful to the crew for their support in our raft race in enrichment week.

As part of that week, year 9 students all walked to Kirk Michael and cleaned the beach having listened to a talk by Bill Dale of Beach Buddies.

After persistent lobbying by the school council, we have installed a water fountain to cut down on use of plastic bottles and are reducing our single-use of plastics.

Enrichment week was also an opportunity to spend time on wider aspects of education such as the Y8 multicultural day, cultural trips to England and Wales and all sorts of adventurous experiences.

Some students worked with Gavin Carter to create the fabulous new wood sculpture at the front of the school to commemorate our 40 years.

The history department’s Paris trip with year 12 was very successful. They saw Notre Dame Cathedral among other iconic sights. The history trip, in conjunction with Castle Rushen High School, to the war graves in Belgium to commemorate 100 years since the Armistice of the First World War, was deeply moving.

Max Yates and Josh Gleaves laid a wreath at the Menin Gate memorial.

Hector Duff, who is 100 years old this year, visited students in key stage 3 to share his experiences of World War Two as we remember 80 years since it began. Both anniversaries remind us of the importance of protecting democracy and our human rights and freedom.

Alex Warrilow and Jake Dillon did QE2 proud at the Swaglok-sponsored D & T awards, held at the Isle of Man airport.

Jake won the best A level award for his concrete desk lamp while Alex won the best overall award for his fire pit table.

The creative arts exhibition in July was as always a fantastic display of the creative talents of students throughout the school, including GCSE and A-level technology and art work.

The Y9 science fair was a resounding success.

Alex Brew won a scholarship to study at NASA’s United Space School.

A-level biology students enjoyed residential field studies with the Manx Wildlife Trust.

Some students attended the Isle of Man Biomedical conference and listened to worldwide guest speakers and leaders in their field.

Students benefited from workshops at TaxaGenomics, an Isle of Man-based DNA sequencing lab.

On the sporting front, there were, as always, many individual and team successes.

We won the Isle of Man senior basketball shield. Jack Elliott, Oliver Penfold, Lorenz Freno, Noah Dale Beeton and Peter Boussougou were selected to represent the Isle of Man at basketball for the all island schools trip.

Peter Boussougou and Will Corkill were selected to represent the Isle of Man at the Natwest Island Games in Gibraltar for basketball and cycling respectively.

Y9 won the cricket inter-schools tournament.

Y11 were a particularly strong year for sport. Kate and Alice Cashin continue to excel at athletics, Corrin Leeming at cycling. I’m not going to list them all.

Suffice to say that there have been so many sporting successes that we held the inaugural sports awards evening in July with former All Black rugby star Mark Robinson presenting prizes to many students from all years.

In the summer, the Gold D of E group successfully battled a heat wave followed by torrential downpour whilst completing their expedition in the Cumbrian fells.

Thanks to Shannon Caren and Lesley Sleight for stepping in at the last minute. Congratulations to Lesley for her many record-breaking competitions in archery over the year too!

The PE department organised the second junior swimming gala at the Western Pool

This year there was a new cup in memory of a much-loved teacher Leonie Cooil.

We were so pleased her parents were able to present the award. Steve was my swimming coach way back last century!

Leonie was an inspiration to us all and is much missed both as colleague and friend. Her courage and fortitude in facing her illness over so many years was truly remarkable.

Few people knew the determination it took for her to realise her ambition of going to Australia as part of the Isle of Man team for the Commonwealth games.

She was seriously ill at the time but masked it with her usual cheerful positive outlook.

A real example to us all of making the most of what life has to offer, however short a time we may have.

Visitors to the school always comment on the positive, welcoming atmosphere.

This is due to the commitment and contribution of all the adults who work here.

We are a team with one mission - to support and encourage the young people in our care.

I am very proud of the staff here.

Each person is truly dedicated and willing to go the extra mile to help young people.

The site staff don’t just make sure the school is well-maintained and clean but also notice and help when a child is upset or ill.

Our catering team takes pride in promoting healthy eating and looking out for some of our most vulnerable.

The technical staff, office staff and support for learning team all perform a myriad of roles from the essential and ever-growing paperwork to the provision of tissues and encouragement for students and colleagues alike.

Our teachers as we have seen teach great lessons and inspire a love of learning in students both in and beyond the classroom.

It says something about how special this community is that teachers are happy to stay here for so long.

Miss Sykes, retiring after 37 years here, said she has never wanted to go anywhere else.

A moment from last term epitomises for me the spirit of our school.

At his last sports day, Mr Scarlett was given the ’QE2 Olympic flame’ and asked to run a lap of honour around the track.

As he started off, members of the staff team joined him and then there was a surge from the bank as hundreds of the students spontaneously rose to join in what became a triumphant lap of community solidarity and love.

Every single member of our community makes a difference and contributes to the high standards we have come to expect from the Queen Elizabeth II High School.

Equally important in helping young people to thrive is the support given by parents and family.

You are here because you care. I know you are really proud of your children and their school.

Many of you are alumni yourselves and it is this real spirit of community which makes our school unique.

People in the west value this school as ’our school’ and continue to support us long after their own children have grown and moved on.

The School Association is an example of this.

With increasingly busy working lives, many adults find it hard to commit time to support school PTAs [parent, teacher associations].

Here in Peel, we have a thriving School Association committee comprising parents, former students, family and friends.

The fact that they spare the time from incredibly busy lives to help us raise funds for the school is amazing.

This year they raised thousands of pounds and provided some really entertaining events to enjoy, from the Christmas fair to the Retrospect party - both now annual fixtures - and this year supporting our 40th anniversary ball.

This was a wonderful reunion of some of the original staff and students mixing with current staff and sixth formers and people from all the years in between. The first chairman of the School Association, Joan Hinnigan was there with her son and daughter, both former students.

Mrs Hinnigan was on the Board of Education when I was appointed and was part of our governing body.

Governors can make or break a school.

If the relationship is right, they act as both support and guide to the leadership team, providing an important sounding board and holding the team to account.

I have always been very lucky in the governors at this school and the current governing body is extremely effective.

Part of what makes this work is that they know the community and are committed to the school.

Our parent governor is a former student.

The Education Council members, Mr Smith and Mrs Simpson, bring a wealth of experience in leadership roles and the two co-opted governors, Mr Cole and Mrs Heywood have both been successful school leaders themselves. Mrs Creasey and Mrs Quine, our staff governors, complete the team and share their experience, insight and wisdom.

We were very sad to hear of the untimely death last term of a former governor of the school, Terry Bennion.

Our thoughts are with his family as they come to terms with their loss. Terry was particularly supportive of some of our most challenged and challenging students, having himself taught children with social and emotional needs.

His empathy and concern for young people were a real asset and he is much missed by all the Peel community.

As always, I am grateful for the support and collaborative working of our partner primary schools and the University College of Man.

Together we aim to make our students’ experience of education a positive and continuous journey.

Looking ahead, we have just started to work with the Department in planning the much anticipated and badly needed STEM block and I hope that this year we will make serious progress in getting the building work actually started.

After 40 years, the school is an established part of the community of the west of the island.

Alice Main organised a wonderful befriending tea dance in the hall in conjunction with the Western Live at Home scheme.

We were delighted when the local Co-op made us their chosen charity for a second year

The prizes awarded tonight have been donated by local businesses, individuals and community groups.

Some are named in honour of former students and staff.

The prize winners and certificate winners tonight should be proud of their success as they take their place in the history of the school.

Perhaps they too will come back as guest speakers, governors, members of staff or parents.

Whatever they choose to do in future life, I hope that our students, whose success we celebrate tonight, will remember their time here fondly and be proud to be alumni of the Queen Elizabeth II High School.