Head of Science made Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society

Teacher Ms Young has been made a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Ms Young said she was privileged to be awarded the honour after being nominated by Dr Stacey Habergham-Mawson, Project Manager for the National Schools Observatory at Liverpool John Moores University.

“It’s a huge privilege to be a member of a society so steeped in the history of astronomy,” said Ms Young.

“I am excited with my membership card and I will be able to go to the library and archives at Burnlington House in London which will be amazing.”

Ms Young has been a keen promoter of astronomy, as Priory is one of the few schools in the area which offers an Astronomy GCSE.  Priory has strong links with PADAS – Preston and District Astronomical Society, of which Ms Young is a member – and the astronomy students were the first to examine some five-billion-year-old meteorite which was found in the Western Sahara Desert.

The astronomy students have also visited the Moor Park Observatory to see Preston's refurbished historical telescope and attended a talk on the 1927 solar eclipse.  Ms Young also took four students, invitation only, to attend the interment of Professor Stephen Hawking’s ashes next to Sir Isaac Newton at Westminster Abbey.