Monday 3 March 2014 It was double gold for The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) in round one of this year’s Biology Olympiad, a competition designed to recognise A-level students for their knowledge beyond the curriculum and inspire them to extend their study of the subject. Eight upper sixth students sat the two hour exam in school, and all earned either a medal or a certificate of commendation. Anam Malik and Ranji Venkateswaran won gold, only the second time a GSAL student has taken gold. Ranji achieved a record high score for GSAL of 58 points, enough to qualify her to compete for a place on the team to represent the UK at the International Biology Olympiad. She said: “I was really surprised to get a medal and excited at the possibility of making the national team. It’s been good to push ourselves using the extra reading we have done for university interviews and to measure our performance against students from other schools.” Silver medals went to Yasmin Khan, Trina Seal and Yash Singh, bronze to Jacob Fingret and certificates of commendation to Bradley Metcalfe and Ellen White. The Biology Olympiad is run by UK Biology Competitions, a Special Interest Group of the Society of Biology. Pictured: l-r Anam Malik and Ranji Venkateswaran General Sixth Form News
