Sixth-Former reaches national final of Biology competition as QE entrants excel

A QE Sixth-Former reached the last 16 of the British Biology Olympiad, a competition which attracted almost 4,000 entries from across the UK. Shivam Patel achieved his place in the final after qualifying through the first two rounds of the competition.

“Although he was not selected as one of the four students who will go on to represent Great Britain at the International Biology Olympiad, Shivam did exceptionally well to be placed in the top 16 of such a prestigious competition,” said Biology teacher Mev Armon. “It’s also very satisfying that the School recorded a significant improvement on last year’s performance, with five participants achieving the gold standard in the first round, six achieving silver and nine bronze, together with four commended scores.”

As well as Shivam, the QE gold winners were Ben Coumbe, Akash Gandhi, Akash Pattni and Parth Patel (pictured below, L-R). By winning gold, all five were eligible to enter the second round.

Round 1 of the competition took the form of a multiple-choice question paper, whilst the second round consisted of a written paper; both these tests were taken at the pupils’ own schools. The final took place at the University of Birmingham School of Biosciences and included a third theory test paper, alongside several practical assessments.

All those who achieved gold medals are invited to an awards ceremony at The Royal Society in London at the end of June. The guest speaker will be the experimental psychologist and Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre, Professor Bruce Hood.