Star at physics competition and Linguistics Olympiad
Some of the Senior Physics Challenge winners from Latymer Upper School
Three students from Chiswick Have distinguished themselves in recent school competitions winning prizes in the face of stiff competition.
Ed, Same and Pluto were among 18 sixth formers from Latymer Upper School taking part in the Senior Physics Challenge. They won gold, silver and bronze respectively. Overall, the school claimed 6 Bronzes, 2 Silvers (which means they scored in the top 19% of those who sat the paper) and 4 Golds (top 9% of those who sat the paper).
The Senior Physics Challenge for Year 12 is an opportunity for students to stretch their problem-solving skills and apply fundamental physical principles to novel situations. Over 6,000 students take part in the competition each year. Students have to take a one-hour paper that provides a tool to assess and challenge students’ ability to work at a high level in Key Stage 5 and beyond. It consists of several short questions followed by one or two longer questions that test only core subject knowledge and application.
“The whole department is absolutely thrilled as these are superb results and in such a prestigious competition,” said Mr Birchmore, Head of Physics. “With lockdown it’s been a few years since we’ve had the chance to do this, so when these students said they wanted to take part I was delighted; for them to have then done so well, I am simply over the moon! Well done to Pluto, Jaime, Balthazar, Saskia, Hamza and Hugh for getting Bronze; to Sam and Ellie for silver and Ed, Daniel, Sofia and Leo who got gold – really incredible feat!”
Stella from Chiswick was among the 13 students from Latymer Upper School who competed in this year’s UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO) Advanced Level. This is the highest number of entrants ever fielded by the School for the competition and they have achieved the best results the School has ever enjoyed.
The UKLO aims to be a fun but challenging competition in which students compete to solve problems based on some of the world’s 7,000 languages. Participants use data from a given language to crack codes and solve puzzles. It requires analytical skills and critical thinking. Linguistic Olympiads started in Moscow in the 1950s but there are now over 40 national competitions taking place every year leading up to the International competition.
The participants in the Linguistics Olympiad
Stella and fellow Year 11 students Adam and Rhea entered the competition for the first time as did Year 12 students, Juliette, Alexandra and Bee who all performed brilliantly according to their school. Stanley; Esme; Elfreda and Sanna came away from the competition with a Bronze as did Didi who narrowly missed out on Silver by 1.2%.
Amitai (Y12) and Xane (Y13) both won Gold and qualified for Round 2 of the competition which involves a 3.5 hour exam. Candidates who do well at this stage are then selected for the UK team for the International competition.
Last year Xane achieved a high Gold award in UKLO Round 1 and was one of 51 students, out of the 1000+ who competed in the Advanced Level competition, to qualify for Round 2. In that second round he was one of the eight highest performers and qualified for the UK team who competed at the 18th International competition, hosted by Ventspils, Latvia in July 2021. Due to pandemic, 216 contestants of 54 teams representing 34 countries took part, competing remotely in their countries, making it the biggest competition in the history of IOL, in terms of the number of contestants.
“This has been the most incredible set of results and Amitai and Xane have done so incredibly well to get through to the next round,” said Mrs Collier who coordinated Latymer’s entry. “They all engaged really enthusiastically with our training sessions and I hope that many of them will have been inspired to participate next year.
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March 26, 2022
