Head teacher apology after child left in London on school trip

A head teacher 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 cohort.

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.

The incident was flagged up to Newcastle City Council.

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.