Staged UFO landing terrifies students

London: It was supposed to inspire pupils to write more creatively. But the arrival of a UFO at Southway Junior School also inspired something rather different - terror.

Some of the seven to 11-year-olds were left in tears after a spaceship apparently crash-landed and a teacher was abducted by aliens.

To make it look realistic, the school obtained sirens and flashing lights from the police and littered the grounds with debris from the 'spaceship'.

Parents have condemned the school for 'terrifying' their children and claimed that teachers had gone over the top in trying to "fire their imagination".

The 'Everyone Writes Day' - for all 370 pupils at the school in Burgess Hill, West Sussex - was designed to develop youngsters' writing skills.

It is based on an idea from the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the National Literacy Trust. The aim is to find ways to take writing beyond the classroom and to provide 'exciting stimuli' for storytelling.

At the start of the day, head Diana Goss informed pupils that an alien craft had crashed near the school and pupils were encouraged to 'follow a trail of debris' before stumbling across the UFO.

Sussex Police set up a crime scene around the crashed craft and supplied a police constable and a community support officer for two hours to help the children produce witness statements.

Pupils were told that Joy Law, the school's learning support teacher, who is responsible for special needs pupils, had been abducted.

The youngsters also examined the evidence around the crash site.

A the end of the day-long event last Friday, Law joined the children at an assembly to reassure those who feared she truly had been abducted. Linda Molds, whose son Harry, nine, is autistic, said: "He was genuinely worried that [Mrs] Law had been abducted.

"Because she deals with the learning support kids, they're all very close to her - and I know many of them were terrified by the whole experience.

Last night, in a statement the school said: "A few parents expressed concerns that some of the children had been upset by the apparent realism, and the head has spoken with them personally.

"The school would never knowingly do anything to upset or alarm children."