Online pupils escape their computer screens

Students at Minerva’s Virtual Academy will be heading to London at the end of October to learn about the UK legal system with a visit to the Royal Courts of Justice.

But it won’t be all work for pupils on the trip, as they will also be taking part in an escape room in King’s Cross.

Minerva’s Virtual Academy, which has pupils from across London, is a unique online independent school for pupils aged between 12-18. It has won multiple awards for its teaching and innovation.

Lawrence Tubb, Headmaster, said: “There is still the impression that students at online schools spend all their time stuck in front of a computer screen, but that is certainly not the case at Minerva.

“A very big part of our teaching is getting our pupils interacting with the world around them, but also building relationships with their classmates. We have a number of initiatives to support this and we are developing new ones all the time, and our school trips are an important part of this.”

The next school trip will take place during Minerva’s ‘Enrichment Week’, which has an overarching theme of ‘Justice & Law’. Students will take part in a legal-themed group project over the course of the week and will benefit from a guest speaker lecture. There will also be a range of voluntary stand-alone sessions linking the pupils’ curriculum subjects to aspects of law and justice.

Previous trips have seen pupils from as far away as Italy, Estonia, Ghana, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the USA travel to the UK to take part. For some students, it was their first ever school trip.

“Our trips combine education and fun, but even the fun part serves a greater purpose,” said Lawrence. On our next trip, the escape rooms will provide an array of unique and intuitive logic-based tasks which will require our students to make use of crucial soft skills such as communication, teamwork, problem-solving, attitude and leadership.”