On Wednesday 25th November, four pupils from Oundle School, James Duckitt (15), Gordon Lin (15), William Parker Jennings (14) and Alice Sze (14), took part in the Regional Heat (Northants, Beds, Herts and Cambs) of the annual Royal Society of Chemistry Top of Bench competition, held at Kimbolton School.
The 10 teams competing tackled two experiments on ion analysis and an iodine clock reaction followed by a chemistry quiz.
At the end, it was announced that the Oundle team had won the competition with a score of 47 marks out of 69, performing particularly well in the ion testing section.
Chemistry teacher, Robin Hammond commented, “This is the fourth time that Oundle have won this heat since 2009. The four pupils were excellent company and were very good ambassadors for the School.”
The team will now represent the region in the National final in March and will involve over thirty regional teams.
James commented, “In the first practical, we had to carry out various ion tests on unknown substances and then use a table to work out what those substances could be from the results that we had obtained. We also had a short general knowledge quiz with questions ranging from how did Antoine Lavoisier die (ANSWER: he was guillotined during the French revolution) to questions on electrolysis.”
Robin concluded, “The team will hope to reproduce the level of performance of the previous three Oundle School teams in the competition who have managed 13th, 6th and 2nd position in the final.”