SCHOOL NEWS: Out of this world stargazing night

PUPILS at Neroche Primary School near Ilminster have been looking beyond the stars as they have enjoyed an exciting Space Week.

The school at Broadway was selected to take part in this year’s Tim Peake Space project. Throughout the Autumn Term, the staff of Neroche received expert training about Space, in order for them to deliver an in depth study of space, creating awe and wonder for the children and community.

During all of last week the children took part in their Space Week. Experiments included measuring the impact craters of meteors that hit the Earth, Astronaut Training Programmes, building rockets to launch, exploring the stars and constellations, taking care of the health of astronauts – which included monitoring the shades of urine to keep a check upon astronaut health!

The week climaxed on Friday (January 6, 2017) evening for an evening’s Stargazing Event at the school for children and the wider community.

The children explored the international space station, using Virtual Reality head-sets, a Planetarium was set up in the school hall for groups of 60 at a time for a 30-minute exploration of the stars and the solar system, a workshop to create models of the star constellations was held, a “Mission Control” computer room was set up and the Crewkerne Astronomy Society attended the event to show their equipment and present the views their telescopes had captured from the cosmos.

Headteacher Connel Boyle said: “In my 20 years of school experience this was by far the most amazing event I have ever witnessed in a primary school.

“Over 500 people came into our school and the majority stayed for the entire evening. The excitement from the children, their families and members of the community was staggering.”

PHOTOS: Submitted by Neroche Primary School.

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