Private School News

STONYHURST MEDAL SUCCESS AT BRITISH PHYSICS OLYMPIAD

THREE Stonyhurst pupils have won gold, silver and bronze medals at the British Physics Olympiad (Round Two AS Level), which makes them the highest achieving physics students in the country.

The gold medal was awarded to Joe Lea (17) from Hurst Green, currently in Year 13. His medal success was described as ‘a significant achievement’ by the British Physics Olympiad committee, as only the top 5% of the 1047 competitors achieve the required marks. Last year Joe was selected to attend the Senior Physics Challenge Summer School at the prestigious Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge University. Joe also has a conditional offer to study mathematics at Oxford University.

The silver medal went to James Chui (18) Year 13, from Hong Kong. James is no stranger to medals as he has previously won gold medals in the GCSE and AS Level Olympiads. He intends to read engineering at Imperial College London upon completion of his studies at Stonyhurst.

Padraig Alton (18) from the Ribble Valley, currently in Year 13, was awarded the bronze medal. Padraig has a conditional place to read Natural Sciences (Physics) at Cambridge.

In addition to the three medals, Lucy Wang (16) Year 13, from Shanghai, was awarded a commendation. Lucy has also been offered a conditional place at Oxford University, even though she is only 16.

For the competition, all the pupils had to sit an examination paper at the school; 50 successful candidates from this round will be asked to move on to round three, 15 of whom will be offered places at a training camp before selection for the British team in the Physics Olympiad.

“To gain even a silver or bronze 1 is an outstanding achievement (our best performance in recent years at this level was a silver in 2004) so Joe really has excelled in winning a gold; only 48 have been awarded out of 1047 entries. Joe is now invited to compete in the final round for a place on the UK physics team of five,” said Mrs Lucinda Fisher, Head of Science at Stonyhurst College.

Picture caption:
The medal winners with Head of Science, Mrs Lucinda Fisher on the left and Stonyhurst Headmaster Mr Andrew Johnson on the right.