Starchaser rocket visit at the Pre-Prep and Nursery

Year 2 have been studying the topic Explorers this term and as a result, space has become the subject of many lessons. On Friday 18 March, special guest Steve Bennett from Starchaser came to visit the Pre-Prep and Nursery School. Starchaser are a British company, partly funded by the RAF.

The children’s day started off with an assembly, which was space themed. There was lots of dramatic video footage to watch, which was exciting and amusing for the pupils. Starchaser then ran a rocket building workshop which enabled students to experiment with Newton’s Laws of motion by building, decorating and later flying their own compressed air powered model rocket!

Next pupils listened to a talk called ‘It Came from Outer Space’ which was an exciting show and tell activity designed for Key Stage 1. It contained a number of space related artefacts such as meteorites, tektites, astronaut food, a space shuttle heat proof tile, rocket fuel, rocket construction materials etc, which the pupils could inspect and investigate.

The whole school was excited to see that Steve had bought a real-life nine-metre tall rocket with him. The rocket had previously been launched 2km in to the air, although it is capable of travelling much further – up to 100 km! Parked by the field, this spectacle was the highlight of the day for many students and staff.

The finale and perhaps the most exciting part of the day was the launch of two model rockets that the children helped Steve to design. They were powered by real rocket fuel and flew hundreds of feet into the air before returning safely via parachute. This demonstration was carried out on the school field and many spectators from the Prep School and Sixth form came to countdown the launch.

Thank you very much to Steve from Starchaser for making the day not only educational, but also fun and engaging for all involved. We hope our younger pupils can now imagine their future with the sky as the limit!