Two Perse Pupils will represent the UK at International Olympiads

Jiaqi Chen

Thomas Read

Two Upper Sixth students will represent the UK in International Olympiad competitions.

Thomas Read, 18, has been selected as one of only four students who will represent the UK at the International Olympiad in Informatics later this year.

Thomas will be traveling to Tehran, Iran, from 28 July – 4 August to compete in the 29th annual competition. During the Olympiad, students compete individually and try to maximize their score by solving a set of informatics problems during two competition days. Cultural and recreational events are organized on the remaining days.

The competition tasks are of algorithmic nature but the students also have to demonstrate their IT skills through problem analysis, design of algorithms and data structures, programming and testing. The winners of the IOI belong to the best young computer scientists in the world.

Jiaqi Chen, 18, will be representing the UK at the world’s largest biology competition, known as the International Biology Olympiad.

Jiaqi  competed against over 7,500 other students from 675 schools at the British Biology Olympiad to gain a place on the team for the international final.

The UK team will compete against students from over 60 other countries, taking part in theoretical and practical tasks and challenges designed to test their biosciences knowledge.

Dr Andrew Treharne, chair of UK Biology Competitions, who runs the events, commented: “We’re very excited to have Jiaqi, James, Rebecca and William representing the UK at this year’s International Biology Olympiad, taking place for the first time ever here in the UK.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming our guests from all over the world, bringing together the brightest biology pupils to encourage and share their enthusiasm for the subject.”