Royal Society of Chemistry Olympiad Round One

In January, 150 Lower and Upper Eighth chemists took part in the first round of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Olympiad competition.

The results were released at the beginning of March and SPS pupils set two new records: they won more awards than ever before (147 in 2024, beating 145 in 2023) and more gold awards than ever before (46 in 2024 beating 38 in 2023, which represents a 21% increase on the old record, which itself represented a 52% increase on the previous record set in 2022).  It was also great to note that every member of the Upper Eighth who took part won an award and that nine of the Lower Eighth won gold awards in a competition designed to stretch those in their second year of A-level study.  To earn these results, pupils had to analyse the composition of the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup trophy, fuels produced by bacteria, MRI contrast agents and atmospheric sulfur.  Ben Atkinson (Upper Eighth) was invited to take part in selection trials for the UK team for the International Chemistry Olympiad – one of only 34 to be invited from 14,915 entrants.