On Wednesday 17th January, Miss McMurray’s Key Stage 3 class went on a trip to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester..
As part of their ICT lessons, the pupils have been learning about programming so they went to see The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), nicknamed Baby, which was the world’s first stored-program computer. The group couldn’t believe that this massive machine was in fact a computer. Pupils listened to a talk on ‘Baby’ and realised that they in fact could remember more words than the gigantic machine could, as ‘Baby’ could only remember 23 words..
The group then took part in a role play on the Revolution of Manchester, where they undertook different roles ranging from a lord and a lady to politicians and workers from the Industrial Revolution. One managed to get run over by a train and lose a leg, another had potatoes thrown at him while the lord and lady fainted with the speed of the train (15mph!)..
The group were able to correctly guess that all these events happened on the very first day of the launch of the train!
The students were able to really contextualise some of their learning from their History lessons finding out how steam drove the Industrial Revolution. They were able to spin their own cotton and discovered it was the spinning that really strengthened the material. There were many ‘proud teacher’ moments on the trip!
We explored the museum further and were able to see the machines in action. Surrounded by other visitors at the museum, one of our students, Cameron, was eager to answer the questions asked by the staff from the museum about the machinery. Every question was answered with a great amount of detail that they had picked up from their role play and experiments earlier in the day. We were complimented by a member of the public on how knowledgeable the students were..
We continued our journey through the museum and the students created their own brass rubbings, Miss Sharples was even more keen than the students. We are sure her work is now proudly displayed on a fridge at home!
We then visited the Power Hall where we experienced the sights, sounds and smells of real working steam engines that powered mills all over the North West and began to gain an understanding of the impact they have had on helping to shape our world..
This was followed by a flying visit to the Air and Space Hall where the pupils enjoyed their lunch..
After a quick bite to eat we explored the hall and even found a new car for Miss McMurray, the Sinclair C5, although she definitely had her eye on the Rolls Royce..
The students were excited to find out that there was a Red Arrows Flight Simulator there, and those that were brave enough quickly decided to book themselves on it. Of course, as the adults in charge the teachers had to accompany the students to make sure everything was okay. The students absolutely loved the simulator and there were plenty of jokes and laughter as the simulator whizzed us around the British skies..
We then took a whistle stop tour of the Connecting Manchester Exhibition, finding out about the Printing Press as well as looking at some classic designs of televisions and telephones, before quickly stopping off at the souvenir shop and getting back on the bus to school.
What a fantastic day, we can’t wait to see what new adventures await!
