Our motto ‘Challenge and Wonder’ perfectly summarises the successes that have been achieved this year in the Physics Department.

The British Physics Olympiad annual competitions were sat by over 120 pupils and we are delighted that the challenge of these competitions was enjoyed by so many. Several pupils earned very impressive results including Gold Awards for Andrew Li and Henry Brown, and Silver Awards for Isabel Churchfield, Charles Maynell, Aleks Zhuravlev, Stepan Ruzencevs, Ann Wang, Eric Liu, Ellie Miskin and Emelie Seelmann.

Pupils have also had the opportunity to enjoy three different engineering competitions, each one developing their problem solving and teamwork skills. Pupils in the Safe Cracking elective have designed and built physics themed escape room challenges. A team of pupils designed, built and tested a Mars Rover as part of a Cheltenham Education Partnership competition. Two teams of Lower Sixth students earned the Industrial Cadets Gold Award by designing and building marine machines in response to a brief set by professional engineers at Thales UK.

We are sorry to say goodbye to Miss Fran Buist and Mr Alexander Kealy, two fantastic teachers who have contributed so much to the Department and inspired so many.

Mr Matthew Cole