LEFT BEHIND
Child on school trip was left at King’s Cross
A HEADTEACHER has apologised for a “failure” which saw a child left behind on a school trip to London.
The principal of the Discovery School, in Newcastle, has apologised directly to the child’s parents after they were left in King’s Cross station while the rest of the group boarded a train back to Tyneside.
It’s understood there were four staff who visited the capital with the group.
The teenager got home safely, meeting a teacher who had got off the train to wait at York. An “urgent review” of safeguarding procedures on school trips is now under way.
Principal Gareth Rowe said: “They were never in any danger as they had the presence of mind to immediately let station personnel know what had happened.
“They were put on the next train and looked after by the guards in first class until they could be reunited with their teacher in York.
“However, there is no excuse for what was a serious error on our behalf.
“Our first priority is always the safety of our pupils and obviously this incident highlights a failure in our processes which will now be reviewed and amended so this can never ever happen again.”
The incident was flagged up to Newcastle City Council.
A council spokesperson said: “The local authority has been notified of the incident by the school and has received assurances from the school that the pupil is safe, that this incident is being fully investigated and that the school is carrying out an urgent review of its safeguarding procedures for school trips to ensure that this does not happen again.”
The Discovery School, on Blandford Street in central Newcastle, is a specialist science and technology facility for pupils aged 13 to 19 which opened in 2014 at a cost of £9m to offer “alternative option to a traditional school”.
It was hit with a damning ‘inadequate’ grade by Ofsted last summer, but a monitoring inspection in November found leaders were working effectively to improve things.
A spokesperson for Ofsted said: “Ofsted takes the welfare and safety of pupils very seriously.
“While we do not have the power to investigate individual issues, safeguarding or otherwise, where we have grounds for concern, Ofsted can bring forward an inspection of a school.”