Driver, 40, arrested after a car smashes into a special needs school during pupil drop-off time forcing evacuation of the building

A driver has been arrested after a car smashed into a school during pupil drop-off.

The motor crashed into Alderman Knight School in Ashchurch, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, at 8.25am today.

Police say a woman in her 40s has been arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving.

Tewkesbury Police said the building was being evacuated so that any structural damage can be assessed.

However, officers confirmed no injuries have been reported.  

Alderman Knight School is a special needs facility which shares the same site with Tewkesbury Academy - which was last year thrown into lockdown after a teacher was stabbed by a 15-year-old boy. 

The special needs institution was built 10 years ago for 120 pupils, and there are now 235 pupils on its roll. 

Laurence Robertson, previously the MP for Tewkesbury, praised the school in Parliament in January this year, along with the Milestone School.

He said the school provided 'amazing care and education' but warned a lack of school places for children with special educational needs was putting a 'big strain' on the site. 

'The problem with that for special schools is that as the class sizes get bigger, they tend to lose what makes them special, which is something they are very concerned about,' he told MPs.

The special needs site was dramatically placed into lockdown after a masked 15-year-old stabbed teacher Jamie Samsom with a six-inch knife at the neighbouring academy in July. 

The youngster, wearing a snood and a hooded top, knocked on the door of the classroom where Mr Sansom was teaching and said 'come here' - before he plunged the knife into the educator. 

The mayhem sparked a four-hour lockdown, with teacher barricading terrified pupils in classrooms by putting wardrobes across doors, while some children cowered in cupboards.

The attacker, who legally cannot be identified, was jailed for 14 months in September. 

Desperate parents rushed to the school while armed police with trained dogs made their way through the building, although it later emerged the suspect had fled.

When the boy’s mother managed to contact him and asked him to give himself up, he told her: ‘Goodbye forever but remember I always loved you guys.’

He was arrested two hours after the stabbing by firearms officers in Stoke Orchard, six miles away.

Mr Sansom, 27,  suffered a puncture wound to the stomach and was taken to an office where an ambulance was called. He was treated at hospital but released later the same day.

The boy, who has never given a motive for the attack, admitted attempting to unlawfully and maliciously wound and possessing a bladed article.

Imposing a 14-month detention and training order yesterday, District Judge Lynne Matthews told him: ‘You were not acting impulsively. You took the face covering to school, you took the knife to school.'

Half the sentence will be served at a youth detention centre, with the rest at home where he will be monitored by a youth offending team, Bristol Magistrates Court was told.

Two nearby schools were also locked down during the attack just after 9am on July 10, amid initial concerns it was terror-related.

Emotional parents described how their children had been ‘really, really terrified’ and had been left traumatised by the experience.

Sarah Penny, who has a child at the school, said at the time: ‘They had to put a small cabinet across the door to keep them safe.

‘One of my son’s friends sent a message to his dad saying they were in lockdown and to come and get him because he didn’t want to die.’

A text message sent from another pupil to a parent said: ‘We are stuck in a classroom. Mum I’m really scared. They had guns, they had armed police and dogs were out.'

Hundreds of parents gathered at the school took their children home when they were allowed out from 1.30pm.

Cardiff University graduate Mr Sansom, a maths teacher who was due to leave for another job at the end of the academic year, was described as ‘wonderful’ and ‘one of the best teachers’ at the 1,600-pupil mixed secondary, which was rated as ‘requires improvement’ at its last Ofsted inspection.

In a victim impact statement read in court, he said: ‘I never expected this to happen in a school, let alone to me. I thought I might have been in some sort of soap opera. I didn’t have time to react.’

He added he holds ‘no ill will towards [the student] for what happened’, adding: ‘I hope he gets the support he needs.’

James McKella, defending the teenager whose parents were in court, said he had poor mental health at the time and was experiencing suicidal thoughts

More to follow.