Sixth Form students from schools across the ContinU Trust of The Wyre Forest and Hagley scooped awards for their efforts and abilities in physics at a prestigious awards ceremony at Birmingham University recently.

The young scientists, all nominated the best Yr 12 physics student in their respective schools - Baxter College, The Bewdley School, Hagley Catholic High School, Haybridge, King Charles 1 High School and Stourport High School - attended the event with family members and the teachers who nominated them. The group was welcomed by University students and Physics Department staff. Their evening started with a buffet and a demonstration of experiments in the undergraduate laboratories, before the winners were presented with awards and certificates in the main lecture theatre. To close the event, Birmingham University Particle Physicist Professor David Evans who is also a lead researcher at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, gave a presentation on the work of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN which gave an insight into the most cutting edge research in the world of physics.

The event, which was also attended by schools from across Birmingham and Solihull, forms part of the calendar of events supported by The Ogden Trust, a charitable foundation aimed at supporting the teaching and learning of physics amongst young people. Mr Graham Lowrie, Head of Physics at The Bewdley School and Sixth Form, said "It was great to see all the ContinU Trust students receive their awards - especially good that the girls from Bewdley and Stourport accounted for half of the total female winners in the region!".

The ContinU Trust has negotiated entry of its member schools into a formal partnership with Birmingham University Physics Department, supported by The Ogden Trust.

Michael Conroy Harris, collaboration coordinator for ContinU said "this is a wonderful way to jointly kick off our physics partnership with Birmingham University and The Ogden Trust. It was a lovely evening celebrating the evident talent and potential of our young people."