Balloon launched from Shrewsbury school reaches Germany

Class two and three pupils at Bicton Church of England Primary School, near Shrewsbury, had launched the balloons for a project organised by class teacher Olivia Moran.

To the surprise of the Miss Moran and her pupils, the school received a letter from Germany where two people had found the balloon on a farm.

The idea to launch the balloons had come as part of a project on the weather where pupils were reading a book called "A Balloon for Granddad".

Miss Moran said: "I thought it would be nice if each group went out and released a balloon to set the scene. They wrote a note and attached it to the balloons and off they went.

"We kind of forgot about it for a week and then we had this letter come back from Germany. These two women had found the balloon, it had been caught in a fence by their horse's field. They read the note and wanted to know about Bicton and where the balloon had come from.

"The letter included an address so we are going to write a letter back to them."

Miss Moran said the pupils, and staff, had been thrilled to receive a response.

She said: "They were absolutely shocked, and the staff were, because some of the staff thought I had done it! I was saying "look at the stamp, that is genuine," so I was really surprised.

"I had actually told the children that I did not think we would get anything back."

Miss Moran said the pupils had now been using the balloon's journey to learn about geography.

She said: "We have done lots of things, written newspaper articles with pictures of them releasing balloons. We looked at a map of Europe and have done lots of geography from it, plotting the route it might have gone, working out how far it has travelled."

She added: "We still can't really believe it to be honest, it's amazing."