Day 8 (and beyond) - Sunday 12th July (Closing Ceremony and Final Thoughts...)

The 2015 IPhO culminated with the official closing ceremony, held at the Indian Institute for Technology (IIT) in Mumbai. The UK students did superbly in the competition, with two students gaining Silver medals (putting them in the top 25% of competitors) and three gained Bronze medals (putting them in the top 50% of competitors).

Final 46^th IPhO results for UK students:

UK Student	2015 IPhO Medal	UK School
Jared Jeyaretnam	Silver	Westminster School
Jamie Bamber	Silver	The Perse School
Robert Swan	Bronze	Queen Elizabeth’s School
Deaglan Bartlett	Bronze	St Paul’s Catholic College
Bianca Andrei	Bronze	Chigwell School

The UK students discover their results just before the closing ceremony.

The UK team at the 46th IPhO closing ceremony

Additional to this success, Bianca Andrei was the 4^th highest scoring female in the competition, second highest female from Europe, and is also eligible to compete in next year’s 47^th IPhO as she represented the UK this year whilst in the lower sixth. Bianca hopes to successfully gain a place to study Natural Sciences at Cambridge University after completing her A Levels next year, and also has the aim to represent the UK next year at the 2016 IPhO, hoping to achieve the accolade of highest scoring female. Jared, Jamie, Robert and Deaglan all completed their A Levels this summer before competing in the 2015 IPhO, and all have been offered places to study Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, which we are very confident in them achieving. Also, a special mention should go to Taehyoung Kim of the Republic of Korea, who was the highest scoring competitor of the 2015 IPhO.

Following the closing ceremony there was a celebratory dinner at a local hotel, and the UK team returned home the following day with many fond memories of such an unforgettable experience, from the honour of representing their country in such a prestigious competition, to the enjoyment gained from spending time with competitors from so many other counties.

The success of the UK would not be achieved without the considerable intelligence and hard work put in by our students, as well as the substantial support programme put in place by all of the BPhO team, led by Robin Hughes of King’s College School.

Finally, I must end on extending a huge thank you India for hosting such a memorable 46^th International Physics Olympiad – the organisation and attention to our stay in Mumbai was superb.

We look forward to the 47^th IPhO in Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2016.