Bletchley Park Visit – Aim Higher
Just before the end of the summer term, on the 19th July, 31 students from Year 9 and 10 had the opportunity through Aimhigher to visit Bletchley Park for the day. Despite an early start, the students were full of energy, really engaged with all the activities and were a credit to the school. Bletchley Park was Britain’s main code breaking facility during World War 2 and played a major role in helping to win the war. Ciphers and codes from several countries were decrypted, in particular the German Enigma and Lorenz machines, which were thought to be unbreakable!
Students visited the museum before taking part in a coding workshop and loved using their problem solving skills to crack some codes of their own. The highlight was having the very rare opportunity to see an Enigma machine, understand how it works and get to press the buttons! Exploring the grounds was very interesting, set up as it was in during the war, with interactive displays and activities to complete. At the end of the day, we had an interactive guided tour, and students were able to imagine what it would be like to work at Bletchley and the challenges involved. 100% of students, who gave feedback, said that the tour was their favourite part of the day and 100% of students said they enjoyed the workshop.
The park provided a variety of knowledge in history, maths, coding and technology. When asked what the students had learnt, students were able to talk about Alan Turing and his life, Enigma codes and how people solved them, how the code breakers lived and the secrecy involved in their work, and how codes can be used to communicate, particularly in today’s world of technology.
What did our students say?
“I thought the mansion was very informative and liked seeing visually what things were there. The huts were really good.”
“It made me want to learn more”
“I liked cracking the codes and did some of them relatively quickly. I liked the teleprint code.”
“(The day was) much better than expected”
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Alan Turing – Bletchley Park
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Code-Breaking Machine – Bletchley Park
