Chemistry Challenge 2023 results announced

The results of the RSC Belgium Chemistry Challenge 2023 were announced at our event on 28 September with Dr John O’Donoghue at the British School of Brussels (BSB) in Tervuren. This year the Challenge resumed its usual ‘in-schools’ format after two years as a virtual event due to the COVID pandemic and BSB students claimed the majority of the prizes!

For the 2023 Challenge, seven schools took part (four European Schools and three International Schools) with a total of 74 students participating. This was a most encouraging number, but still under pre-COVID levels. We look forward to increased numbers for the 2024 edition of the Challenge.

As ever, the Challenge was designed to test students’ chemical knowledge and initiative. This year most students found Section A questions particularly taxing apart from some True/False questions.

The RSC Belgium Chemical Challenge has three sections:

- A chemistry multiple choice paper (Section A)

- A structured questions on chemistry (Section B), and

- A 'Thinking Matters' paper that is not chemistry based (Section C)

The top results were as follows:

Section A - Multiple choice

First prize for this section was won by Andrei Vascan from BSB who received a €50 award.

In joint second place were Hanseo Lee (far left below) and Annette Liflander (right below) also from BSB who each won €25 and, making a clean sweep for BSB, the third prize of €10 went to Kerem Teker (left below) from BSB.

Section B - Structured questions

In this section the first prize of €50 was awarded also won by Andrei Vascan of BSB with Laura Bartelloni (pictured right below) and Marianne Moody from BSB both picking up second prizes of €25. A third prize of €10 were awarded to Fanziska Vogel (left below) also of BSB.

Section C - Thinking Matters

Breaking the trend in this section, the top prize of €50 went to Melinda Koch of European School 1 in Luxembourg (ESL1) with Marianne Moody also claiming a €50 prize for BSB.

In second place was Alec Muller (pictured left above) of BSB winning him €25 and two third prizes worth €10 each were awarded to Annette Liflander and Aimee Willey (right above) both from BSB.

The Keith Price Prize

With a first prize in both Section A and Section B, this year's Keith Price Prize was claimed by Andrei Vascan (pictured below with RSC Belgium chair Prof Bob Crichton), who received an additional €100.

Well done to everyone who took part in this year's Chemistry Challenge! Every student that entered the competition receives a certificate of participation. And, of course, we will be running the Challenge again in 2024 and look forward to further widening participation!

BSB at Top of the Bench Final

Our 2022 Belgium Top of the Bench champs – Team Sodium from the British School of Brussels (BSB) – competed in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2023 Top of the Bench national final on 25 March at the University of East London (UEL). The BSB team were the only non-UK team in the 31 competitors. The competition tests the chemistry knowledge of 14–16 year-old students through written and practical exercises.

Students had to complete a 40-minute chemistry knowledge exam in pairs, followed by a 90 minute hour practical team exercise in UEL’s labs. The theme of the final was sustainability with a practical challenge on sustainable energy that included a calorimetry task, density determination and finally an analysis of some possible “future fuels”. 

The teams also had a talk from Tony Raynham, the course leader for the University of East London Chemistry department, about the course (a new course only just set-up), his life history and journey about how he got to where he is now and then a talk on apprenticeships from an RSC speaker. 

Tony Raynham said that UEL was delighted to host the talented young chemists in the Bioscience department.

Unfortunately, BSB did not win; Winchester College (winning team pictured above) took top place. The winning team received a trophy and Amazon gift vouchers, and will be sent £500 for their school to spend on science equipment. The first runners-up, four students from Colchester County High School for Girls, received Amazon vouchers. Hannah Addiscott from The Grange School was awarded the Jacqui Clee Award for the most outstanding individual contribution.

BSB chemistry teacher and RSC Belgium committee member Jonathan Norris escorted the BSB party and commented: “The students really enjoyed themselves, despite a long day.” The BSB team made the trip to and from London in a day.

Despite not winning all the students came away with a free t-shirt and a periodic table and the accompanying teachers got a thermochromic mug, a RSC lanyard, and a fetching RSC tote bag.

Next year’s final will be in Edinburgh and RSC Belgium will be planning to send a team as usual.