Animals Spat On During School Trip To London Zoo

A trip to London Zoo turned into a very chaotic one, with students spitting on animals. However, that is not all that happened, one pupil also became unconscious on the trip.

The end of term trip, seen year 7 students spitting on birds in the Snowden Aviary section of the zoo. This area is home to peacocks, white ibis and more.  The trip also had to have a student treated at a hospital after their head was hit on a glass panel.

The staff at London zoo wrote a letter to the head teacher of St Andrews High School, in Croydon, Kerry Targett, outlined “concerns” about the student’s behaviour and “completely unacceptable behaviour” the students showed that day.

The email was seen by the Croydon Advertiser and London zoo said this in the email: “Upon their arrival the first aider was greeted by a very large group from the same school who appeared to be very loud, boisterous and had a lack of adult supervision.”

“Two ordinary day visitors came to the boys’ aid before any of the school staff or fellow students which of great concern.”

The head teacher of the school, Kerry Targett, says that the trip was “sufficiently staffed” and the pupils were not left unsupervised. She also says that maybe one or two students may have misbehaved, but not how many the zoo have been suggesting.

She also said: “For the majority this was a great opportunity to find out about the wonderful breeding programmes that are in place to save some of our most endangered species.

For one or two there was a level of excitement which meant they were unable to uphold our high expectations of behaviour.

Suitable sanctions were put in place in line with our behaviour policy and in partnership with their parents.

There were registers taken regularly and all students were accounted for.

A small number of students disappointed me with their behaviour but those students who were not following school procedures have been suitably sanctioned and parents informed.”

Senior Learning manager, Rachel Haydon, at London zoo had this to say:  “Our trained staff responded immediately to the events during the St Andrew’s school visit, and we followed up with the school to make sure the young boy who was injured was OK, and to outline some of our concerns with their visit.

We were pleased that the headteacher at St Andrew’s took our feedback seriously and let us know of the immediate actions the school took.”