Join the problem-solving set

Meet Helen Alonzi and Ryan Beattie, heads of science at secondary schools in the UK who’ve both entered students into the UK Chemistry Olympiad and been rewarded with success. In this article they share their top tips on how to set up and run extracurricular Olympiad clubs and their favourite resources.

Helen’s top tips

‘There’s been an increase in students wanting to do the Olympiad and applying for chemistry at university, so we set up a problem-solving club,’ explains Helen Alonzi, who introduced her school’s club in 2012. ‘The focus is from September to December, but it runs all year in a classroom after school, with about a dozen 16 to 18 year-old learners. Some come throughout; others drop off after Round one.’

1. Spread the word

We promote the club via a poster for classroom doors, a list of all co-curricular clubs on the school website for students and parents, and as one of the general notices that go to all year 12 students (via our homework setting app) at the start of the year.

2. Mix it up

It’s a mixed group. Sometimes the older year peer-teach the younger, sometimes I give the same question to all, knowing the more confident will work at their own speed while I use whiteboards to help the others. This year we had some particularly strong year 13 chemists, who worked through a bank of past Olympiad papers to produce model answers that a teacher could use in future.

3. Manage group work

Pupils naturally fall into their own groups; it’s best to let them get started and intervene if they need prompts. I go through solutions with individual groups once they’ve completed small sections. The more confident like to have access to a mark scheme so they can check themselves. In the early days, less confident students may not get through much of a question, and that’s fine – it promotes resilience to just keep trying each week.

4. Use the explainers

Ryan’s top tips

‘Our club begins in October and ends in December, with five timetabled, fortnightly hour-long workshops,’ says Ryan Beattie, who oversees about 15 chemistry students a year entering the Olympiad. ‘It includes explicit idea instruction, followed by modelling of answers, content chunking and whiteboards to check understanding.’

1. Get started

Promotion is on an online learning platform, like Moodle or Google Classroom, with an overview of the UK Chemistry Olympiad, date and time of the first session.

I use flipped learning before sessions – a YouTube video, RSC resource or accessible question from Round one papers – plus signposted questions relating to the area we’ve covered at the end.

3. Find the right level

Pitching the level can be tricky, so I deliver content in small chunks and check understanding after each. Students write responses on mini whiteboards and reveal them at the end of a countdown, allowing me to identify anyone struggling. A quick reteach is often all that’s needed. I set pupils independent practice and get them to collaborate in groups of two or three. High achieving students use the mark scheme to check their answers after they’ve completed a number of questions, leaving me free to support others. At the end, I go through solutions using a visualiser.