RSC Chemistry Competitions 2024

It has been an eventful start to the year for the Challoner’s Chemistry Department, with the RSC Chemistry Olympiad and Schools’ Analyst Competition taking place for students in the Sixth Form. The former took place in January with 31 students taking part in the national competition, all vying for the chance to represent the UK in the International Chemistry Olympiad in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The turnout this year was particularly impressive, with a record number of Sixth Formers choosing to get involved. Since the competition was one that undergraduates participated in, even the easiest questions on the paper involved difficult A-Level Chemistry knowledge. Despite the challenge, many students returned with Bronze or Silver awards and Yotam in Year 13 achieving Gold. The Olympiad pushed our knowledge to greater depths and we all came out of the experience as more well-rounded chemists and we look forward to participating in the competition again at the same time next year, hopefully achieving even more incredible results.

The second major event was the RSC Schools’ Analyst Competition, which was particularly exciting as it was the first time Dr Challoner’s Grammar School would be competing. In teams of three, 30 Year 12 Chemistry students donned their lab coats and safety goggles to carry out a series of chemical experiments in the past couple of weeks. With investigations that involved studying the vitamin c concentration of different vitamin tablets, determining the type of dyes in coloured sweets and analysing the baking soda in cake mixture, they certainly were not simple experiments and required a great deal of attention and skill. These skills were demonstrated particularly well by Sai, Sanvi and Sara, understandably labelled as ‘Team S’, who produced the most precise and accurate results from their practicals. Gian and Eleni took second place, while Mugdha, Victoria and Ananya’s team placed third. With the guidance of all the teachers in the Chemistry Department, especially Dr Porter and Dr Thompson, the students were able to make the most of this incredible opportunity to apply their hands-on skills to experiments that are actually carried out in industry today.