Farnham Heath End School’s heroic History Bowl team has tasted further success – this time on a European stage thanks to the support of Herald readers.

The team of six travelled to Barcelona last weekend as the only state school to qualify for the History Bowl European Championships – and won an incredible bronze medal in the team contest.

There was individual success too,  with Hayden B the best of a brilliant bunch, finishing third in the Elementary History Bee.

The FHES team booked their place in Barcelona by winning the International History Bowl and Bee contest in London in March, defeating a team from Eton College on the way, and the trip was part-funded by generous Herald readers responding to an appeal.

The below is a report of the team's trip to Spain, written by Amelie, FHES History Bowl team captain and Year 8 student.

The FHES History Bee team with their trusty frog mascots!
The FHES History Bee team with their trusty frog mascots! (FHES)

'A fabulous experience'

Thanks to the generous support of Herald readers, over the weekend the Farnham Heath End team flew out to Barcelona and competed at the European Academic Championships. 

On Saturday we competed in the individual History Bee tournament. Hayden from Year 7 was the top-scoring student in the preliminaries but finished third in a close final of the elementary competition. In the middle school competition, Amelie finished seventh and Gethyn finished 13th.

On Sunday it was the main event: the History Bowl. All seven of us competed as a team against 13 other teams from across Europe in the Middle School category. The team finished with a record of 4-1 with victories over three different schools from Azerbaijan and the Swiss International School, Basel. 

Our only defeat came in a narrow loss to 18-time French High School of the Year École ​Jeannine Mannuel A. We qualified for the quarter-finals as third seeds. 

We comfortably won our quarter-final against defending champions Dunya School from Baku, Azerbaijan 210-90 before unfortunately falling to defeat against the eventual champions École Jeannine Manuel A.

Eyes on the prize! FHES History Bowl team members tackle a tough question during their European Championship bid in Barcelona
Eyes on the prize! FHES History Bowl team members tackle a tough question during their European Championship bid in Barcelona (FHES)

Following that defeat, we competed in 0the third-place playoff against École Jeannine Mannuel B. We were victorious and claimed third place with a score of 220-180.  The tournament was a great challenge for our historical and general knowledge but it was a great opportunity to meet students from around the world and we got on particularly well with students from schools such as Stefan Batory School from Warsaw, Poland, Lycee Saint-Germain Paris and Eton College.

The team was well supported by FHES staff including Ms Kelly who was with the team all day and head of history Mr Boulton who was a question reader for the sixth form competition. 

Also we were able to spend some time sightseeing, including visiting Park Güel – the stunning park designed by Gaudi – the farmers’ market Mercat de la Boqueria and the amazing Sagrada Familiar. We also enjoyed the tapas!  

All in all, it was a fabulous experience and we look forward to competing in other academic tournaments in the next school year.