On Monday 2 February, our Year 7 Prep School pupils came to visit the Senior School for a day with a difference: we would be spending most of it on construction of bridges which would then be destroyed by unsustainable pressure!  

The visitors had a game to learn the value of trust as an ice-breaker then it was straight into the design phase.  Guided by staff and aided by a brilliant set of Lower Fifth pupils they came up with the best designs they could manage, taking inspiration from real life bridge designs.  

Once approved, pupils began work on their 3-D structures using only spaghetti and a bit of glue.  The brief was to construct the strongest bridge possible to cross a 40cm gap.  Teamwork and time management was essential, and with only limited resources, especially glue, pupils had to be careful in order to achieve the best design within the constraints.  

Pupils also explored centre of mass, problem solving and physics in sports during some workshops provided by the Senior School staff.  

A final destruction test was then begun in the recital room.  Each bridge was suspended across a 40cm gap, and then had gradually increasing masses added until the point of destruction.  

Competition was fairly fierce and with the limited resources they had there were some amazing results, with our winners’ bridges holding up total masses of 0.8kg.  Given the building material they were working with, a lot of this is due to their excellent designs.  

Well done to all pupils who were involved but a special well done to our two winning teams: “Not Yet” consisting of Phoenix, Luca, Esther and Amelie, and “We had to Restart” consisting of Sean, Ava, Theia, Ishaan and Eliza.  

We hope all the Year 7s enjoyed their adventure, learned something, and discovered that Senior School was a non-scary place with kind students in the higher years, though I have to admit that the usual maths we do here involves very little glue and spaghetti!  

A big thanks also goes to our supporting and visiting parents, Prep School and Senior staff, Holroyd Howe, our Marketing department (and the maths department who can now have their rooms back).