Nine-year-old L’evea Aitchinson, who is a Year 5 pupil at New Moston Primary School in Manchester, managed to sneak onto a school trip and make it almost half way to north Wales before teachers noticed that she was there.
L’evea changed out of her uniform into her own clothes, which she had hidden in her school bag, and joined her classmates on the coach for the school’s two- night trip to Kingswood residential centre in Mold. It wasn’t until the party were on the M56 to Cheshire that the teachers back at the school realised that L’evea was missing.
It is believed that while a register was taken after the students got on the bus in New Moston, no headcount was taken and L’evea was left unnoticed.
Once L’evea had been discovered, the Head Teacher Rob Partington, who had been travelling separately from the group, met up with the coach at a service station and drove her back to school.
L’evea’s mother, Deletha Hughes, stated that: “I got a call at 2pm on Friday while I was at work saying L’evea was on the coach to Kingswood. I’m at work, I was panicking, I don’t drive, I didn’t even know where Kingswood is at that point. It’s an absolute disgrace. I am still fuming about it”.
Carl Heatley, chair of governors at New Moston Primary School, said: “We’ve since spoken to all staff to reinforce with them the correct procedures that must be followed without fail on all school trips”.
Mrs Hughes says that she is now preparing to make a formal complaint to the school.
