Industry news
Infants 'left alone in classroom'
Posted Mon, 23 Jan 2012
Young children were left alone in a classroom amid confusion over whether a supply teacher had turned up to work, it has emerged.
The director of children's services at North Yorkshire County Council said that Eppleby Forcett C of E Primary School, near Richmond, failed to realise that the teacher had not shown up. Parents of the children - aged four to six - have been told that they were left alone on Friday for more than an hour. The children notified staff that they had no teacher, but not before some of them had headed outside.
The village school only has around 40 pupils, and officials said investigations were underway to establish how the incident happened. Cynthia Welbourn, the corporate director of Children and Young People's Service at North Yorkshire County Council, said that headteacher Stephen Kirby was assisting council staff in the investigations into what happened.
She told BBC Radio 5Live: "Whatever your systems are, the most important thing is human vigilance and the sheer shock that this has given to everybody will make sure that those levels of vigilance are redoubled."
Mr Kirby said measures were being taken to prevent a repeat of the incident in the future.
Copyright Press Association 2012