FOUR boys have been excluded from Lavington School for the rest of the week after another boy was injured in an incident on Tuesday afternoon.

Headmaster Martin Watson described the incident as silliness that got out of hand and he was quick to nip the bad behaviour in the bud.

He said: "There was no malicious attack. It was simply high jinks and they got carried away. I have spoken to the parents of the boys concerned and the students themselves now realise how stupid they have been."

The four Year 10 pupils, aged 15 and 16, will be excluded for the rest of the week and the matter will be at an end as far as the school is concerned.

But some parents, who do not want to be named, are saying this is symptomatic of bad behaviour at the school. They said their children had told them the boy was beaten up because he had red hair.

The process is called "bundling", when an individual is picked on and physically jumped on.

The parents say Lavington is no worse than any other school in this respect. There have been particular high jinks this week as the Year 11 GCSE students prepare to leave. Red dye was poured into the swimming pool and humorous posters were pinned up around the school.

Two weeks ago, a schoolgirl was airlifted to hospital following an incident when a chair was allegedly whipped out from under her and she fell heavily on the floor. It was feared she had suffered a spinal injury, but she was not badly hurt.