SCI Members' News

Best Sixth Form Chemist 2007 - Oxfordshire Schools

For the past ten years, Thames & Kennet Group has awarded prizes to the best sixth form chemists nominated by schools in the region. These events have taken place twice a year and usually hosted by BP Technology Centre, Pangbourne, and Rutherford Appleton Central Laboratory at Chilton.

This year the Oxford ‘SFC’ was a joint effort with the collaboration of OISSP (the Oxfordshire Independent and State Schools Partnership) and the Oxford University Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, which kindly provided the venue and hospitality.

Over 100 people attended, with the core of thirty student prizewinners being accompanied by proud parents and teachers.

We were also honoured by the presence of the Chairman of SCI Trustees, Dr Sandy Gray, and Andrew Ladds, Chief Executive of SCI.

Prize certificates and book tokens were presented by Hugo Brunner, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire (pictured with winners), himself a descendant of a famous line of chemists.

Sandy Gray welcomed the OISSP support for SCI in acknowledging the achievement of the prizewinners and giving encouragement to the pursuit of excellence in the sciences.

He also reflected on his own experience of being a student in the very same lecture theatre some 40 years ago, an experience vividly recreated by Dr Hugh Cartwright, who gave the whole audience a taste of ‘Chemical Magic’. An an escalating series of bangs culminating in one exploding balloon filled with a potent gas, which yielded a resounding report sufficient to trigger the emergency alarm!  This, however, was quickly and safely fixed by the department’s health and safety officer – one Dr Cartwright