Ripon Grammar School pupil wins awards from Universities of Oxford and Cambridge

Anna Bradley beat competition from all over the country to take first place in the Oxford German Languages Olympiad while also being selected as an essay winner in the prestigious Cambridge Kelvin Science Prize for her composition on the possibility of life on Mars.

The Year 12 student has been invited to Peterhouse College, the oldest college in Cambridge University, to receive her science award for her essay about the likelihood of terrestrial microbes colonising the Red Planet.

And she attended a glittering prize-giving ceremony at Oxford’s magnificent Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in Europe, to receive her round two first place languages prize, for her short story about life during Corona, and runner-up prize from round one, which involved planning a sustainable food conference.

Anna, 17, from Ripon, who plans to study biochemistry or biomedical sciences at university, said she wanted to challenge her abilities.

“For the science prize especially, it encouraged me to research and find out about aspects of biology and astrobiology I wouldn't have come across otherwise, such as bacteria which live in extremely salty environments and different aspects of space travel that normally prevent organism survival.”

Peterhouse’s Christine Nightingale said the standard of entries was extremely high this year: “But the judges felt Anna’s essay stood out for its level of research and originality of thought.”