Just 12 people have experienced the thrill of stepping foot on the moon since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history on July 21, 1969, but youngsters have been given a tantalising glimpse of its surface thanks to a week of very special science lessons.

Months of behind-the-scenes work allowed Dartford Grammar School (DGS) to secure a shipment of moon rock sourced from Apollo 17’s mission in 1972.

Nasa donated the samples to the Natural History Museum, which are loaned out to the Science and Technology Facilities Council to be sent to schools across the country throughout each year as part of its Borrow the Moon scheme.

It certainly provided DGS students counting down the days until half-term with a much- needed jolt of excitement during their science lessons last week, with all year groups having a chance to check out the priceless minerals, which are so valuable that nobody outside the school was allowed to know they were on-site until they were taken away on Friday.

The Messenger was invited along to a Year 10 physics lesson with Dr Fiona McGovern, where her 14 and 15-year-old pupils were examining the samples and comparing them to everyday minerals from Earth.

Dr McGovern said: “There’s no value on this at all, it really is absolutely priceless.

“It is a one-off activity rather than part of the curriculum but the students find it so interesting that it’s worth spending the time to explore.

“All years have access to the rock during the week and I am starting an after-school astronomy club, which will give them another chance to look at it.

“The way they’re studying it can feed back into some of what they’re doing in geography as well, so it’s cross-curricular.”

Six samples featured in the lesson, each taken from different parts of the moon.

They were basalt, which is solidified lava, breccia, which is made of fragments of other rocks, highland soil, the white rock anorthosite, mare soil, and orange soil, which is made of volcanic ash from a lunar eruption 3.5 billion years ago.

Callum Rawlins, 15, said the novelty of checking out the rocks was a welcome reprieve from preparing for the summer exam season.

“I don’t think they cover astronomy in GCSE courses as much as they used to but I find it so interesting," he said.

“There’s so much unknown about space that needs to be discovered so it sort of makes you think you could be the one to do it one day.”

His classmate George Beckley, also 15, added: “Doing activities like this refreshes your interest when you’ve got exams and things like that coming up.”

Plenty of students seemed to leave the classroom suitably inspired by the opportunity to enjoy up-close examination of one of the rewards of space travel.

Once the small matter of GCSE exams, sixth form, and possibly a university degree are out of the way, Dartford will have some astronauts to call its own.