Pupils Take On Codebreaking Challenge At Bletchley Park
16 May
On Thursday 15 May, we took some of our high-performance learners on a fantastic trip to Bletchley Park. The pupils took part in an exciting, engaging, hands-on session that encouraged learning about WW2, teamwork, codebreaking and much more.
They began the day exploring the interactive map room and plotting the position of enemy ships. They then moved on to a guided tour of the grounds taking on the role of newly recruited code breakers. They watched a short film about the impact that Bletchley Park had on the planning and executing of the D-Day landing before finishing the day in a code-breaking workshop.
The code-breaking session developed team working, problem-solving and mathematical thinking skills and applied them to a practical codebreaking task. Pupils enjoyed the rare opportunity to use a genuine Enigma machine as well as encountering a range of historical codes and cyphers as they worked together to decipher messages to solve a puzzle. The students increased their knowledge of codes and cyphers and their uses throughout history as well as developing their understanding of the role that cyphers played during WW2, with specific reference to the Enigma machine and the wider operations of Bletchley Park.
It was a fascinating trip for them all.