At the beginning of February, pupils at the Prep School enjoyed five days of interactive activities, explosive experiments, imaginative inventions and more during the school’s annual Science Week extravaganza! 

The Saint Martin’s campus was buzzing with super science, as pupils were first tasked with crafting rockets, spaceships, and replicas of the International Space Station. The homemade creations came in all shapes and sizes from Lego builds with lights ready for lift off to papier mâché and cake constructions!

The competition entries were judged by Senior School Science teachers who visited the Prep School to view the finalists’ inventions before announcing the overall winner in assembly - J4 pupil Megan with her creative hanging hoop design.

Nursery, Reception and Infant children were treated to a visit from ‘Mo the Zookeeper’ who bought his rescued exotic animals in to Alice House for a show, tell and touch session. Pupils (and teachers) put on a brave face as they learnt about the creatures’ special characteristics, before being invited to handle animals including a pink toed tarantula, a giant millipede, an African bullfrog ‘Tiny’ the lesser tenrec, ‘Oreo’ the skunk and ‘Sunshine’ a huge albino Burmese python. 

The last day of the week was action packed, with all pupils enjoying teacher-led experiments, ‘States of Matter’ presentations and performances and an interactive Space in the Dome experience.  Sixth Form students ran workshops for the younger children to explore solar eclipses and distances between planets, and a specialist careers afternoon with a panel of parent experts gave J4 pupils the opportunity to learn about science-based careers including veterinary and manufacturing engineering.

Mrs Middleton, Head of Science at the Prep School said: “Science Week is a highlight in our academic calendar where our whole school community works together to develop and co-ordinate an engaging programme of learning. To see the children totally ‘wowed’ by all the amazing experiments and activities is really wonderful. The pupils are now looking forward to our Creative Week in March.”