Children at a Surbiton primary school made space-themed accessories and decorated their classroom in cosmic posters to celebrate science week.

Students at St Andrew’s and St Mark’s Church of England School also took part in a programme called Mission X, which encourages youngsters to “train like an astronaut”.

They took part in scientific reasoning, teamwork and participated in training tasks targeting strength, endurance, coordination and balance at the Maple Road site this week.

Sarah Smithurst, school secretary, said: “It was brilliant. The children had a great time and lots of them went home telling their parents they could now be rocket scientists.

“One girl went home and told her mum she would go to Mars one day. There were some very inspired future rocket scientists.”

The school also welcomed Doctor Simon Foster from University College London who spoke about space.

Year 5 teacher Matthew Gates, who is head of science at the school, went on a day course about Mission X and later instigated the eventful week.

He said: “The Mission programme is actually developed by NASA and there was a pack with lesson ideas and plans for PE and science. So we made gunpowder and explosions.

“We had an assembly after and said ‘how many hands up to be an astronaut when you grow up’ and all the hands went up.”