PUPILS at Monmouth School have created a true scale virtual versions of the school’s historic buildings using Minecraft.

The boys from 10 to 18 have recreated the school’s chapel, library, science blocks, boarding houses and main William Jones Building. The 35-strong team hope that, when it’s finished, their Minecraft representation can be used for virtual open day tours.

The project began in September and uses Minecraft, which is a video game that allows players to construct blocks to create 3D worlds. It has grown in popularity, with more than 18 million subscribers to date, and entire countries have been built on the game.

The pupils also hope to one day build an accurate version of Monmouth to complete their masterpiece, which has united pupils from across the year groups.

Lyndsay Hope, head of computing at Monmouth School, said: “There is one student in charge of texturizing blocks to make them a match for school carpets, stone, books and lockers. I love the fact we have 14-year-olds administering web servers, using real world skills.

“Within the environment of a game, they have developed remarkable real world skills they will be able to apply later in life.”

The project’s admin team include Sam Sully, Matthew Crane, Harry Wong, all 15-year-olds, and James Clifton who is16-years-old.

Sam said: “Creating the school has been a humongous task. It’s really fun and a good way to get lots of people from across the school involved. We have a folder filled with real life pictures of the school to work from and we use Google to get measurements and make sure everything is to scale – we have to get it right.”

All 76 names of former pupils who lost their lives in the First World War have been written out on the Minecraft recreation of the school’s war memorial.

Sam added: “When we have the ability to show the school off in its full detail, it will be amazing to say ‘I built that, there’s my name’.

“To know that will be there forever is really something special.”