The British Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad was launched in 2015 and offers schools across the UK a series of competition papers that focus on astronomy and astrophysics. It is a gateway to competing in the International Olympiad in Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA), allowing students to represent their country and compete with over 40 other nations.
At the end of 2021, Year 13 Physics students, Owen and Sam, both took part in the first round of the UK competition. This is an extremely challenging problem solving paper, requiring a level of skill beyond that tested at A Level. Both students worked hard to prepare for the test papers, which were over two hours in length, and they were very pleased to receive their results this week.
Owen and Sam both achieved highly enough to place in the “medal” categories - Sam with a Bronze II, and Owen with a Gold, which puts him in the top 16.1% of the 2300 students nationally who took part.
“As a department we are very proud of both of them for putting themselves forward and spending their own time preparing to such a high level.” — Dr Hodrien