The Liverpool@CERN Particle School takes place each year in August, at CERN. It is organised via a partnership between Sevenoaks School and the University of Liverpool and includes 24 students from state and independent schools in Kent, London, Birmingham and Liverpool. It was featured as a case study for the Schools Partnership Alliance in 2023.
Students earn a place on the summer school by writing essays on particle physics which are marked by CERN researchers. In August 2024, the 24 successful students from 11 schools, including Sevenoaks, met at Gatwick and spent a packed week at CERN, Geneva, visiting experiments, undertaking a program of lectures, tours, workshops and projects with Professors, Postdocs and PhD students from ATLAS, CMS, LHC-b and the Antimatter ALPHA-g experiments. They built their own Cloud Chambers and worked in teams to design experiments to explore Physics beyond the standard model. Students also took part in evening group activities such as swimming in Lake Geneva, an escape room and the Particle School dinner.
The essay competition for August 2025 will be launched later this term via Parent Post.
Feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive, find some of their reflections below:
On the lectures and tours:
“I particularly remember that Cherenkov detectors use photo-multiplying tubes to sense the photons emitted when particles break the speed of light in water as a type of ‘sonic boom of light’. “
“The ALPHA-g experiment drops atoms of antihydrogen to test the effects of gravity on antimatter, which could explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry problem of particle physics, where we could be inside a pocket of matter where antimatter pockets could also exist.”
“I really loved going down underground at CMS – even just seeing the electronics cavern without seeing the collider was super exciting.”
“We were standing in CMS’s magnetic field which bent a string of paper clips as we held them up.”
“I also loved going to the antimatter factory and being able to see all the parts that were talked about in the lecture right in front of me.”
“It was amazing to physically see the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and subatomic particles in the cloud chambers.”
“I liked how we could ask questions at any time…”
“It struck me how CERN has gone out of their way to present their experiments to the public in cool ways – the Synchro-Cyclotron projection presentation is one such example. It was so interesting to see how acceleration technology has improved and changed since the 1950s.”
“It was incredible the way they assembled the CMS experiment by lowering the slices of the detector down the large shaft, with very minimal tolerances, with such a huge scale of everything there.”
On the detector design project:
“It was fun to explore and share creative ideas…”
“I liked being able to independently use the information we had been taught during the lectures for our own designs.”
“I enjoyed researching the axions because I remember writing briefly about them in my essay, but this gave me a chance to work in a group and find out more.”
“Feeling like we were in some way understanding how particle detectors work and why they are designed to a workable level with Postdocs Cristiano and Jordy was an amazing feeling, especially after learning how all of it works through the lectures.”
The group discussions that happened during the planning and presentations provided a real example of the collaboration required for such experiments, and seeing how the group used their particle physics knowledge to develop their own ideas was great. The feedback from Jordy on the presentations was also constructive and useful.”
“It was such a great trip with so many incredible and unique experiences. It allowed me to make friends with new people with similar interests. A reunion with the group in some way could be very cool, maybe something particle physics related again.”
