- Enable ReciteMe
Four Barnsley Sixth Form College students have displayed their exceptional ability in chemistry by achieving awards in a prestigious challenge.
Archie Jessop, Lily Graham and Riley Bullivant claimed Silver Awards in the Royal Society of Chemists UK Olympiad challenge while Regan Thomas received a Bronze Award.
The competition is designed to challenge students to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills, and to test their existing knowledge of chemistry in real-world situations.
The students undertook a 90-minute written exam, which is designed to test their A Level Chemistry knowledge and assess their application and understanding of the subject. There were 11,838 entries in total. 9.2% of students achieved the Gold Award, 23.4% achieved Silver and 39.5% achieved Bronze.
Lily said: “Achieving a Silver award in the Olympiad is a great mark of my understanding of chemistry and is a result of the outstanding teaching I have received while at College. The Olympiad questions cover a wide range of knowledge and techniques that I have learned at A Level to the more challenging and niche topics the Olympiad questions require, which is really interesting. Plus to get an award on top of it is just amazing!”
Archie added: “Taking part in the Olympiad was challenging and I was happy when I found out I got a Silver Award. It required me to think about chemistry from an unfamiliar perspective and introduced me to new ideas. I’m glad I took part as it has given me an idea about what studying chemistry may be like at university.”