Primary school EVACUATED & crying kids picked up by ‘shaking’ parents after child brought explosive into show and tell
A PRIMARY school was evacuated with parents rushing to collect their shaken children after one youngster brought an explosive into show and tell.
Cops were called out to the school in Hampshire with a disposal team sent in to extract the “historic incendiary device”.
Police arrived around 1.30pm to Orchard Junior School in Dibden Purlieu, a village near the New Forest.
School mum Laura Holloway received a text saying “schools are being closed & evacuated – please collect your child from Noadswood field ASAP.”
She told The Daily Echo: “It was so worrying”, and described “shaking” during the nerve-wracking drive to pick up her child.
Laura added: “Another parent had called saying there were police everywhere. I knew my youngest would have been so scared.
“Both schools seemed to deal with it all very well and had the kids lined up and checked off – it must have been very upsetting for everyone involved.”
Kerri Watt, 40, who lives nearby said friends with kids at the school visited her after the evacuation and said pupils were “crying and so scared”.
She said: “It’s not the usual fire drill, not like taking your time to get to the door; it was a bit of an actual panic to get out of the building.”
Kerri told how parents were told to come early and pick up their kids from the nearby secondary school – Noadswood.
“It was all quite rushed,” she said.
“A lot of the older children walk home by themselves, but they were told that they weren’t allowed to today after this, so that caused trouble for a lot of parents who weren’t ready for that.”
A school spokesperson said in a statement: “The police attended the school today after a possible unexploded ordnance was brought into school for the purposes of show and tell.
“All necessary processes were followed by the school in relation to this matter, and the safety of all pupils and staff was maintained throughout.
“The device has since been removed from the school site.”
They described it as a “historic incendiary device” in an email sent out to parents.
It thanked “the children, staff and families for their quick response this afternoon with our evacuation of the school”.
A police statement read: “We were called at about 1.30pm to a report that a child had brought what may have been a potentially unexploded ordnance to Orchard Junior School.
“The school was calmly evacuated and a disposal team attended to take the item away to be destroyed as a precaution.”