History
How It All Started
In 1979, Bill Jarvis was the editor of “Queries in
Physics” (QIP), a broadsheet of questions and answers, mainly from teachers.
QIP was founded by the late John Jenkins when he was Head of Physics at Gordonstoun School.
Excerpts from the broadsheet came to be published in
Physics Education.
Bill Jarvis around the time
BPhO
was first established
One contributor, Willie Yong, came over from Singapore and
stayed a while with the Jarvises in Lancashire. Willie was a physicist,
educator, and entrepreneur.
The late Gordon Cawthorne (Physics lecturer) used to do
sketches to brighten up “QIP”; and with Bill he started to ask around. Many
UK Physics teachers became interested in selecting and coaching a team to
attend an IPhO.
Gordon rustled up support through 1982/3; and when his
health began to let him down, he was glad to hand over to Cyril Isenberg,
who worked tirelessly as Hon. Secretary until very recently. Many volunteer
science teachers have given their time and expertise since 1982.
Cyril Isenberg performing his bubble show
In particular, the late Colin Siddons (teacher and lecturer) attended the IPhO in 1983, in Bucharest, as an Observer, and reported back that it was definitely something we should compete in. Colin was fluent in written and spoken Russian, which was a great advantage but during a “rest day”, Colin made the complicated journey to see Castle Dracula. When he got there, it was closed.
There was enough interest to select, by examination, a UK
team and in 1984 our team attended the IPhO for the first time, at Sigtuna near Stockholm in Sweden. They did very well, all coming
near the top of the list of awards.
Cyril wrote in more detail about the 1984 BPhO and IPhO,
in Phys Educ Vol 19, 1984, p 253 (see below).
In 1986, the UK were invited at short notice to host the
IPhO; and Guy Bagnall, Head of Physics at Harrow School, headed a team which
managed to get everything in place with little time to spare. The meeting
was a great success. Once again the UK
team won awards near the top of the table.
Anson Cheung (participant) at the IPhO 2006 held in Singapore.
Anson and Robin are now members of the BPhO management committee.
Physics Education 1984
Below are extracts from a paper submitted to Physics Education in 1984 by Cyril Isenberg describing how the competition began that year.
"Since 1967 a number of European countries have sent a team of five pre-university physics students to the International Physics Olympiad which is held each year in Europe...
This year, for the first time, Britain sent a team to the International Olympiad. The initiative for this came from Bill Jarvis, a teacher and entrepreneur. He persuaded me to set up a British Physics Olympiad Committee to select a team for the 1984 Olympiad, which was held near Stockholm, in Sweden, on 23-31 July. Thus we set what most school teachers would call an exceedingly challenging paper for a good sixth-form student. It was thought that this would enable us to pick out the very best students in Britain. These students would probably be going up to university in the Autumn of 1984. This indeed turned out to be the case...
On Friday 9 March sixth-formers throughout Britain tackled the first British Physics Olympiad examination paper, which consisted of four substantial questions. It was thought by the Committee that a prospective British team member would be able to complete one question and attempt parts of the remaining three questions. This proved to be the case. The students who produced the best five scripts were selected for the team to visit Sweden later in the year"
Cyril Isenberg (far left) in the signing of the agreement for Oxford to host
the BPhO, which took place at the 4th Ogden Trust Science Forum.
on 12th June 2008.
