Mr William-Powlett wins IPO Physics Teacher of the Year Award

Mr William-Powlett has been awarded the 2022 Teachers of Physics Award from the Institute of Physics (IOP) for his inspirational physics teaching.

The IOP Teachers of Physics Awards celebrate outstanding classroom practice in the teaching of physics, and recognise the success of secondary school teachers in the UK and Ireland who, by their dedication and excellence in the classroom, have raised the profile of physics teaching in their school.

Year 9 visit the British Science Museum

Our entire year nine cohort were offered the opportunity to join the coach trip to the British Science Museum in London. Whilst being split across two visits, one for the X-side and one for the Y-side, uptake was fantastic, and the excitement in the morning between our students was evident as they boarded the coach to go.
On arrival, groups were each given a map and itinerary which were designed to ensure that they maximised their trip by visiting and experiencing as many of the displays and interactive exhibits as possible.
Some of the key attractions that we visited included;
The Flight zone - where overhead walkways allowed students to get up close to aeroplanes suspended in the air.
Students examined exhibits from the pioneer days of aviation, including the world’s most authentic Antoinette monoplane (1909), Amy Johnson’s Gipsy Moth and the Vickers Vimy, which first flew across the Atlantic in 1919.
The Engineer Your Future zone - An interactive exhibition to get students thinking about their futures, where challenges, games and films helped them to understand what engineers actually do.
A particular favourite was the Energy Hall zone, where students discovered how steam power shaped the modern world.
A wonderful day was had by everyone. The Science Faculty

Birchwood’s British Physics Olympiad Gold Winners

Year 13 Physics students William Blakey and Alex Sawyer have had an amazing start to their final year. It started with their A level Physics teacher Mr William-Powlett encouraging them to enter the British Physics Olympiad; a test for the very best young physicists in the country and beyond. The Olympiad had nearly 5,000 of the best British students and International students entering. Amazingly both young men scored a Gold in the paper, putting them in the top 20% of results in the world. William was amongst the very best results in the cohort and was awarded a Top Gold and invited to try out for the British Physics Olympiad team with an even more fiendishly difficult paper. The good news didn’t stop there. A week after receiving the BPhO results both boys found out that they had received offers from Oxford University to study Physics subject to their grades in the Summer.