Shropshire College students achieve ‘Top Gold’
Four students at a Shropshire school have been awarded a ‘Top Gold’ certificate in the first round of this year’s British Physics Olympiad.
This put the Acton Burnell-based Concord College students in the top 4.3% of all 3,777 students who took part.
A further six students were awarded ‘Gold’ certificates placing them in the top 650 in the country.
A total of 25 Concord College students entered the Olympiad and Dr Simon Richards, of the physics department which supports students entering the competition and runs regular physics challenges within Concord, was delighted at the students’ success.
He explained that achieving so well on such challenging problems was a ‘testament to the hard work of all of the students,’ adding that the amount of study and effort that the students achieving ‘Top Gold’ had put in was ‘something to be very proud of.’
The competition aims to challenge sixth form age students of physics – up to 6.2 year 13 - and to recognise their developing knowledge and understanding of physics. Crucially, problem solving skills.
One of the 6.2 students, Noah Nathwani Murray, 17, from Shrewsbury who was awarded a ‘Top Gold’, summarised the challenge: “Taking part in the round 1 competition this year was, as always, an exciting experience – the two back-to-back papers present some extremely interesting problems which are a joy to pick apart and analyse, providing a refreshing change of context and challenge compared to the A level material.
“But they are also a great opportunity to learn and as with most similar competitions I came out of the exam feeling that I knew far more and understood certain concepts in much more depth than when I walked in.”
Another ‘Top Gold’ recipient was Reid Cao, 17, and from 6.1 were Hayden Chan (16) and Xingzhi Lu (17) who said that for many students Olympiads provided an opportunity to support their future ambitions.
Said Zingzhi: “Preparing for the BPhO pushed me to go beyond the A level syllabus to look at more advanced knowledge that might come in handy in the BPhO.
“Being an interdisciplinary thinker is a valuable skill so it is still useful for me to gain more insight into physics, especially considering how many aspects of physics are used in computer science, such as the use of quantum physics for building quantum computers.”
