A team of Sixth Formers travelled during the Half Term to represent Benenden in the Cambridge Chemistry Race.
Despite Storm Eunice’s huge disruptions to public transport and the fact that the competition took place during the holidays, five Six One (Year 12) Chemists – Caitlin, Stella, Lily, Kitty and Annabel – successfully made their way to the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at Cambridge University on Saturday to compete in the event.This demanding competition pits teams of students against each other in a time-pressured pursuit of answers to increasingly challenging context-based questions.Annabel said: “It was a great opportunity to apply what we have learnt so far from A Level Chemistry, and we were excited to take part in such a big event. The race lasted for two hours, problems were marked by examiners in real-time and a live leaderboard was on display.”We felt really privileged to be in the Cambridge lecture halls and to be amongst the Chemistry PhD students. It was a great experience, and it strengthened and secured our enjoyment of the subject.”Our team – named the Atoms Family(!) – performed admirably, beating at least 10 other teams in the competition. Although some were ultimately placed higher, most of these were made up of students from a year above them and the students should be hugely proud of themselves for seizing upon this opportunity and for braving the elements to get there.