A level Chemistry students from King Edward VI College have received awards in the UK Chemistry Olympiad 2014. Four second year Chemistry students received awards in this national competition, open to A level students, run by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The aim of the competition is to raise awareness of what the subject is about and provides students with the opportunity to develop the skills needed to study at University.
Nicola Bowen, a second year student from Nuneaton, was awarded a Gold award. This puts her in the top 7% of all 5682 candidates!
Nicola said “I really enjoyed the challenge of the Olympiad and being able to tackle problems related to real life which are beyond the syllabus; it definitely confirmed my decision to study chemistry at university and I am so pleased to have gained a gold.
Luke Williams and Oliver Longfield both received Silver awards and William Swift, from Coventry achieved a Bronze award. William also received a Gold award in the Biology Olympiad. Oliver Longfield said “I was actually shocked at my result, because I had looked at previous papers and it appeared to be one very complicated challenge. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do well at all, but I somehow obtained Silver! Moral of the story: even if a challenge looks impossible, give it your best shot and you may be surprised.” Denise Knight, teacher of chemistry at the college said “We are incredibly proud of our students. This is an impressive performance on an awesomely difficult challenge. They have collectively achieved one of our best sets of results. In particular, the gold award is a rare achievement, and well deserved by Nicola.”