THE headmaster of an Evesham school has apologised to children and parents over a staged shooting in the playground.

Only some pupils where in on the mock shooting at Blackminster Middle School when a hooded man ran across the playground on Tuesday afternoon.

One of the teachers ran after him shouting, then the hooded figure turned and ‘shot’ the teacher.

One mother said the screams coming from the playground were “horrific” and when her daughter got home she was shaking, and a grandmother said her grand-daughter couldn’t sleep.

She said that quite a few children didn’t go to school the next day because they had been traumatised.

Mum Victoria Plummer said: “I found my son agitated and distressed when I picked him up from school.

The children were told a gun had been found in the school and this gun was subsequently lost.

“After a time some gunshots were heard by the children and a member of staff acted out being shot and collapsed. This was done in front of all the children.

It appeared to my son that the teacher had been shot dead. I found it hard to believe that not one teacher thought this was a bad idea.”

Headteacher Terry Holland said the ‘exercise’ was the idea of the science department. “It was all part of a role play crime but unfortunately some of the youngsters didn’t get the information quickly enough that it wasn’t real. It was not our intention to upset the children and I have apologised to them and am sending a letter of apology out to the parents.”