British Biology Olympiad

Open to all post-16 students in the UK.

Challenging the most talented young biologists.

Selecting students to represent the UK in Singapore July 2012.

Aims

The British Biology Olympiad (BBO) challenges and stimulates 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, certificates 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.

In addition to encouraging and rewarding pupils in their studies the BBO provides a means of selecting a team to represent the UK at the International Biology Olympiad (IBO). The IBO seeks to challenge students by both theory and practical tests. Some of the top pre-university biology students from 60 countries will be taking part. The UK teams have had considerable success at IBO and we are very grateful to BBSRC for its continued support of the UK team's participation.

Timetable and rules.

The first round of the 2012 British Biology Olympiad will take place from Monday 6th to Friday 10th February.

This round will consist of a multiple choice paper taken online in schools. The paper will test the majority of UK specifications and contain a few questions on topics beyond. A number of questions will be basic recall and others will involve interpretation and deduction.

One hundred top scoring students will be chosen to take part in the second round between Monday 27th February and Friday 2nd March. This round will consist of a written paper taken in schools.

Sixteen students will be invited to take part in the finals at the University of Birmingham School of Biosciences, Sunday 1st April to Wednesday 4th April. The finals will consist of a third theory paper and several practical assessments.

The top four students will represent the UK at the International Biology Olympiad in Singapore, Sunday 8th July to Sunday 15th July.

The entry fee is £10 per student for the first ten students and £5 for each additional student.

The deadline for registration is 17th January 2012.

Rules

In addition to the general rules for IBO, rules for BBO are as follows:

1. Any post-16 pupil, taking any type of course, may enter the First Round.

2. Any Year 12 pupil who comes in the top 100 candidates overall will be asked to choose whether to proceed to subsequent rounds that year or to wait and try again in Year 13. Two successive attempts will not be possible.

3. Only candidates eligible for consideration for the UK team should take the Second Round paper. Subject to Rule 2, those candidates wishing to compete for a place in the UK team should be willing to undertake a dissection and must be available for all dates of the finals, the award ceremony, team training and the IBO. They should have been attending a school in the UK for at least two years at the time of the international competition. Under certain circumstances a student attending a British school oversees may be considered, please contact the organisers in this regard.

For more information and to register, please visit:

www.biology-olympiad.org.uk and click on the British Biology Olympiad link.

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