Strode College student Annabel Gilmour has won a gold award in this year's Cambridge Chemistry Challenge.

The Cambridge Chemistry Challenge is a competition that aims to stretch and challenge year 12 chemistry students, providing an excellent experience for anyone considering taking their studies further. Set by a professional team of teachers and University chemists. It takes students significantly beyond the syllabus and encourages them to think about science in the way they would at university.

This year's paper had students examining the structure of digitalis, (a heart medication derived from the foxglove flower) and determining the formula of a chemical found in a distant galaxy.

"It was a hard paper so I was really surprised to find out I had achieved a gold award. I'm hoping to apply for chemistry at University next year so doing the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge has been a great opportunity and I'm really grateful to my chemistry teacher, Clare Hazlewood, for arranging for me to sit the paper," said Annabel.

Annabel is an exceptionally hard-working student, who has completed fast track Maths A-Level in one year alongside her first-year studies in Physics and Chemistry. She squeezed in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge as a bit of light relief after completing her Maths A-Level papers! Annabel will be attending a STEM SMART summer school at Cambridge University in August and has been reading about applications of chiral (mirror-image) molecules in areas from medicine to archaeology.

Chemistry teachers at Strode College regularly use challenging questions from schemes such as the C3L6 Cambridge Chemical Challenge and the Chemistry Olympiad to stretch and stimulate our most able students, and many of this year's students participated in a spectroscopy workshop at the University of Bath and in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Schools Analyst competition.