A group of pupils from a Sutton secondary school have 'sent an iPhone X into space' before it dropped back to Earth.

The students from Sutton High School chased it around a countryside in Oxford for three hours before it descended, having reached a peak ascent of 35,800 metres.

Now the school has partnered with startup Mous in a bid to promote women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Lucy Hutchinson, Mous’ co-founder, said: “We're used to dreaming big, but the girls really outdid us.

"We often visited the school or would have Skype calls with the girls, but we really just wanted to empower them to organise, design and build everything themselves.

"More often than not when we asked them to do something, they'd just give us this look and tell us very slowly, 'That's not how physics works'."

The iPhone X was protected in a phone case, which was tested by being immersed liquid nitrogen beforehand, before dropping back down.

Despite “complications” arising, such as strong winds pushing back the day, the live-streamed event went ahead.

Two of the GoPro cameras attached drained their batteries with the exception of one, while the other captured images of its journey.

Bruce Grey, who filmed the project from start to finish, said: “Most past phone or iPad drops have been from 30km or so – so this might very well be a world record.

“It really gives the iPhone X’s space grey colour a whole new meaning!”

One of the pupils saw one of their viral drop videos and proposed their own which involved the Apple smartphone.

The event was held on June 26.