Rahul Ravindran, 17, and Andrew Robertson, 16, were up till 2 am last night sitting in a common room at Corpus Christi College — not partying but tackling some tricky physics questions, together with two other sixth-formers.

Along with 62 other students from schools around the country, Rahul and Andrew, who both live in Edinburgh but go to different schools, spent four days at Cambridge this week taking part in Senior Physics Challenge, a residential summer school now in its third year.

An initiative organised by physicists Drs Anson Cheung and Lisa Jardine-Wright, and Professor Mark Warner, and funded by the Ogden Trust with support from several Colleges, Senior Physics Challenge aims to bridge the widening gap between maths and physics as taught at school and physics taught at Cambridge, and to inspire more sixth-formers to consider studying physics at degree level.

Dr Anson Cheung said: “The A-level physics curriculum is increasingly out of step with university physics which is rather more mathematical. We have developed lots of activities - such as estimation of physical quantities and problems and practical classes - that stretch pupils and give them a taste of real physics. Almost all of them rise to the challenge and find that they can think at a higher level than they had imagined.”

With participants engaged in academic activities from 9 am to 4 pm and for an additional two hours each evening, the programme is tough but enjoyable. Much of the work is done in small groups with pupils encouraged to interact with each other and with undergraduate assistants.

Professor Warner said: “Participants are nominated by teachers at schools around the country, both independent and maintained, and we take no more than two from each school. So the course is a great way for pupils to meet other like-minded young people. At school, pupils with great enthusiasm for subjects like maths and physics can feel isolated.”

He went on: “We are thrilled with the way that every year, each group has bonded and quickly got stuck into the work. This year's group are wonderfully motivated and include students with exceptional potential. We hope many of them will apply to Cambridge.”

Each year participants are hosted by different colleges. This summer's students stayed at Corpus Christi, Fitzwilliam, Queens', Robinson, Sidney Sussex and Trinity. Several Colleges have participated more than once.

“The experience of staying in a Cambridge college is an important dimension of the summer school, giving them a taste of the intellectual excitement of being a student at Cambridge,” says Professor Warner.

“Each year we have had the invaluable assistance of highly experienced and able teachers from various schools. One of them, Margaret Hall, returned to her room at Queens' and looked out of her window to see ten of our pupils sitting on the lawn talking about physics until well after dark. Little incidents like that tell us we must be doing something right.”

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