Beamline for Schools (BL4S) is a global physics competition initiated by CERN for secondary school students. Winners conduct their proposed experiments at a particle accelerator—either at CERN or at partner institutes like DESY (Hamburg, Germany) or ELSA (Bonn, Germany). In 2025, a record five teams were selected, based on both scientific merit and the quality of their submission videos.

The Spallateam, from Collège Cardinal Mercier in Belgium, traveled to CERN from 10 to 20 September 2025 to perform their experiment.

Their proposal compared neutron emissions from two spallation targets: a homogeneous tungsten target and a composite target of tungsten and aluminum. “We hypothesize that the composite target will emit more neutrons,” the team explained before their visit. “We can’t wait to conduct our experiment at CERN!”

On 18 September 2025, the team presented their experiment and results to a group of VIP visitors, including H.E. Mr. Christophe Payot, Belgium’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva.