About
What is the Junior Chemistry Challenge?
Welcome to the Junior Chemistry Challenge (JCC)! This challenge is tailor-made for UK pupils in Years 9 to 11, aiming to ignite curiosity and foster a deeper understanding of chemistry.
It was initally run internally at The Perse School, Cambridge in 2023. With the help of the Royal Society of Chemistry Mid-Anglia Division, the 2024 Challenge was taken by over 400 pupils across the region. Now, from 2025 the competition is open to schools across the UK. The paper is written and the competition is administered by chemistry teachers in the UK.
If you’re a teacher and would like your school to take part in the Junior Chemistry Challenge you can fill out the form on the Register page.
If you’re a pupil, ask your teacher to register!
When does the Junior Chemistry Challenge take place?
In 2025, schools organise their pupils to sit the paper at some point during the first two weeks of February. The JCC is a 45 minute paper which pupils sit individually under exam conditions. After that time the mark scheme will be distributed and teachers asked to submit the marks of the their pupils.
What prizes are available?
Information about the prizes each year will be sent out to all these who have registered and published here when they are confirmed. In 2024, the winner in each year group received a £10 book token and the overall winner received an additional £10 book token.
To recognise each participant’s achievements, Gold, Silver, and Copper certificates are also awarded. The boundaries for these change each year and are published on the Past Papers page.
Is there a syllabus?
The Junior Chemistry Challenge is all about applying GCSE knowledge to intriguing and novel problems. There’s no formal syllabus, but you can expect multiple-choice questions on GCSE topics and longer written questions introducing fresh concepts, all presented in an accessible way.
And good news – no mole calculations here! These are inaccessible unless pupil’s have been introduced to the concept and we appreciate that not everyone would know about moles.
Here’s what we’ll assume pupils know:
- How to deduce the formula of simple compounds.
- Balancing chemical equations.
- The structure of the atom including the relative mass and charge of subatomic particles.
- Calculations involving proton number, mass number, relative atomic mass, and relative formula mass.
- Identifying oxidation and reduction by transfer of electrons.
- Lab safety.
- Separation techniques.
- Basics ionic, covalent, and metallic bonding.