PUPILS from the region made their first contact with outer space today (February 2) during a live question-and-answer session with British astronaut Tim Peake.

Year 7 pupils from St John’s School & Sixth Form College, Bishop Auckland, were just some of the 300,000 children across the UK who saw their usual lessons turned into a "cosmic classroom" as Major Peake played space ping pong as he travelled at 17,000mph on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The 43-year-old was quizzed by students back on planet earth during a 20-minute video call home, streamed to cameras at the World Museum in Liverpool, where 300 students from schools across the country came together while their counterparts watched from classrooms across the world.

Major Peake, from Chichester, West Sussex - the first British astronaut to carry out a spacewalk - is more than a month into a six-month mission on board the ISS, carrying out experiments and research.

In a busy first month aboard the ISS, he became the first Briton to complete an Extra-Vehicular Activity or spacewalk, and also backed a Royal Horticultural Society and UK Space Agency project, Rocket Science.

Head of Year 7 at St John’s, Anne-Marie Stephenson, was one of more than 10,000 teachers that signed up for their class to participate in the Cosmic Classroom showing the pupils how exciting science could be in learning about gravity and free floating.

Mrs Stephenson said the 28 students were really excited about the session as they had been studying Major Peake as part of their earth and space module.

“I think it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and it’s engaging them in something that can now affect their future with the way we are looking at the colonisation of Mars,” she said.

As part of the event, the St John’s pupils also had the chance to taste ‘space food’ including ice-cream, bananas and strawberries.

And although their specific questions were not picked; the pupils did get the chance to see Major Peake play a zero gravity game of "Follow the Leader".

Kasper Bloniarz, 12, said: “I think it’s pretty amazing that we are lucky enough to be shoes in the school to participate in this.”

Amelia Stansfield, 11, added: “We got to eat some of the food they do and the ice cream was quite nice.”

Speaking after the event, Mrs Stephenson, said: “I think the students were much in awe of the whole thing and it was great to see how well he was able to interact with the students – it’s brining science to life.”