Pupils at Barnard Castle Prep School were delighted to welcome Tony Parraman from the Bloodhound SSC Project which is attempting to beat the world land speed record of 763 mph, set nearly 20 years ago.
Their aim is to become the first car to break the 1000mph barrier. The involvement with the project has been really beneficial and enhanced a variety of both Science and Technology projects that the School have been working on in their recently completed facilities within the School.
With funding from Prep School parent, Harry Swan of Thomas and Swan, a chemical engineering firm in Consett, Tony delivered an informative Assembly to the whole school before embarking on a series of practical sessions with every child, building balloon powered cars that were raced across the Hall. Year 6 pupil Jack Wells, a boarder at the school, managed to power his car an impressive 12.5m to earn his name being placed on the tailfin of the Bloodhound car when it races in South Africa next year.
The day culminated in the school watching Tony launch a model car across the playground using actual rocket fuel.
Tony, a former Design Technology teacher hopes to encourage more children to consider studying Science based subjects. With half of secondary schools in the country having no girls studying Physics A’ Level, Barnard Castle School certainly bucks the trend with a number of girls in the Sixth form currently studying Physics Pre-U.
Headmistress, Mrs Laura Turner said: “All the children have been given the opportunity to take part in an engineering project which has allowed them to not only develop and further their understanding, but has taught the children the importance of modifications and failure to projects if at first they don’t succeed to try and try again. We are so focussed on giving children opportunities to experience things first hand and Tony has been a fantastic role-model for all the children today.”
With the recent opening of the Prep School’s state of the art science block pupils at Barney Prep School are already fortunate to carry out experiments usually only performed at senior school age.