Fareham school celebrates Tim Peake launch with Stem day

At the front, Isla Ransom, nine, and Terry Gapa, 10, during a science lesson, in which old 35mm film cases were filled with water and Alka-Seltzer until they popped and jumped in the air

Picture: Paul Jacobs (160009-3) — At the front, Isla Ransom, nine, and Terry Gapa, 10, during a science lesson, in which old 35mm film cases were filled with water and Alka-Seltzer until they popped and jumped in the air Picture: Paul Jacobs (160009-3)

Boundary Oak School let pupils design and build their own rockets as youngsters from all years enjoyed getting hands on with the subject.

The Stem day was designed to encourage pupils to embrace the topics science, technology, engineering and mathematics – which were thrown into sharp focus when the British astronaut made his spacewalk a week ago.

Pupil Florence Ransom, 12, said: ‘I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it as my passion is music, but we had great fun and learnt a lot – I found it fascinating.’

Luke Plumpton agreed. The 12-year-old said: ‘It was interesting because I want to do something with science when I’m older and so I found it really helpful.’

Caitlin Pestell, 10, liked the experiments and said: ‘I love science so it was great to have a whole day of activities and getting to do new experiments. We worked in groups and also had practical lessons in engineering, maths and technology.’

Deputy headteacher James Polansky said: ‘The day was all about making the children aware of science and the jobs that can be had within the subject. Many children do not get to see what careers there are unless their family and friends are involved within it, so it was really important we did this.

‘The children were fascinated by the prosthetic limbs provided by researcher Jenna Stevens-Smith from Imperial College in London.’

Children from Year 3 to Year 8 enjoyed building their own steam engines, aeroplanes, helicopters and rockets.

The day included a lecture from Jenna who spoke about the possibilities offered by a job in science.

Mr Polansky added: ‘One of the other main things about this day is to teach the children about perseverance.

‘The curriculum isn’t designed to show children that 19 times out of 20 an experiment will not work, it’s designed to make children just pick up the right marks for a particular question.

‘We want to show our children that you have to keep trying and try to show them that you have to fail sometimes in order to become better at whatever you do.’