Biology Department

Biological Brilliance!

Biology Olympiad

In March, the British Biology Olympiad challenged and stimulated gifted students with an interest in Biology to expand and extend their talents. In offering a wider syllabus than A-level, it allows gifted students to demonstrate their knowledge and to be suitably rewarded and publicly recognised by the award of medals, certifi cates and other prizes. It is hoped that competing in the Olympiad will encourage students already interested in this valuable, wide-ranging and rewarding subject to continue their study beyond A-level. Saira Ahmad achieved a Silver award and Charlotte Cooper and Sana Valli a bronze award. Ellena Owen, Hannah Wylie, and Rashida Patel achieved a Highly Commended Certifi cate whilst Stephanie Dean and Eleanor Ferm achieved a Commended award.

Biology Challenge

In March, Year 10 students participated in the Biology Challenge organised by The Institute of Biology. Questions were set on the school curriculum but the on-line competition also rewards those students whose knowledge of the subject has been increased by reading books and magazines, watching natural history programmes and taking notice of the news and media for items of biological interest. This is a nationwide competition and so we did extremely well, achieving 2 gold awards, 4 silver awards and 20 bronze awards. 25 girls were awarded a highly commended certifi cate and 30 girls commended.

Adventures with Drosphila

This year in the department we bred drosphila, a small genus of fl ies, as part of the A2 genetics unit. The students learnt how to identify male and female drosphila and then select certain characteristics to carry out genetic crosses. It was a 4 week long project and a few of the fl ies escaped!

Year 9 using quadrats to observe the distribution of lichen outside the school.