Pupils at a £25k-a-year private school sneaked out of their hotel on a trip in Tenerife to go boozing and using cocaine - with one rushed to hospital.

A number of students have been disciplined after the incident during which one is said to have bought coke from a local dealer on the island.

Letters have now been sent to all parents by headteacher Andrew Gordon-Brown at Truro School in Cornwall, outlining the "unfortunate incident" at the end of last term.

It is understood that twelve pupils broke the 10.30pm curfew to go to a local bar, where they were drinking and one bought drugs.

But they were said to have panicked when one of the group became unwell after having too much to drink.

They alerted staff back at the hotel who rushed to the scene and called an ambulance after discovering the ill pupil's pulse was abnormally high.

It is understood one pupil may have been excluded and another suspended, with others given "isolation".

Headteacher Andrew Gordon-Brown informed parents of the "sorry tale" in a letter to parents.

"The incident involved a number of students breaking curfew to go out to a local bar," he said "For a small number of students matters were made considerably worse when a small amount of drugs were bought from a local dealer.

"The teachers who oversaw the trip are to be commended for the excellent care that they provided the students and for investigating the misdemeanours quickly and thoroughly."