PUPILS from Neroche Primary School were feeling out of this world after taking part in a space project.

The school, on Broadway in Ilminster, was selected to take part in this year's Tim Peake Space project meaning pupils at the school got to take part in scientific experiments and studies.

Throughout the autumn term at the end of last year, Neroche's teachers received expert training about space and the solar system, allowing them to deliver an in-depth study for the children.

Last week, the children took part in their Space Week, which allowed them to conduct a whole host of experiments including measuring the impact craters of meteors that hit Earth, specialist Astronaut Training Programmes, building rockets to launch and exploring the stars and constellations.

One of the most interesting tasks was students also helped to take care of the health of the astronauts, which included monitoring the shades of urine to make sure they were healthy.

The week finished on Friday with a special stargazing event, in which the school also invited members of the community to attend.

Pupils explored the international space station, using Virtual Reality head-sets, and 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 was also organised to create models of the star constellations was held, a “Mission Control” computer room was set up and the Crewkerne Astronomy Society attended to show its equipment and present the views the telescopes had captured from the cosmos.

Connel Boyle, headteacher at the school, said he was delighted with how the project had gone.

Mr 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.

"More than 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.

“When parents are coming to their teachers informing us that their five-year-olds are discussing the planets in their correct order in the solar system and discussing their relative sizes, distances from each other and composition, you know as educators you have inspired young minds.

"My earnest thanks go to my school staff, the Tim Peake Project and the Crewkerne Astronomy Society for making this event so memorable.”

The project was inspired by Tim Peake, Great Britain's first ever astronaut on board the International Space Station, who spent six months on board the station from December 2015 until June 2016, completing a staggering 3,000 orbits of the Earth and covering a mind-blowing distance of 125 million kilometres.