NOT many people would be happy to hear their holiday destination had been hit by a volcanic eruption – but the pupils at a York school certainly were.

Youngsters from Bootham School jetted out to Iceland on Saturday for a geography trip to the country’s volcanic landscape. But their trip suddenly became more topical when the volcano Eyjafjöll erupted for the first time in nearly 200 years.

Dr Liz Brown, head of geography at the school, said: “The news of the eruption reached me on Sunday. Since then I’ve been in touch with the travel company and we were advised that we would be okay to go ahead.” The party are hoping to be close enough to see the continuing eruption when they visit the site this week.

Graham Ralph, Bootham’s deputy head, said: “This is the first eruption of this kind to happen for more than 200 years. We are hoping to get the chance to see it.”

Dr Brown said: “The eruption may signal that there’s more activity on the way – we’re particularly interested in Katla, which last erupted in the 1820s affecting not only Iceland but other parts of the world, bringing freak weather conditions including huge snow falls in New England.”

Mr Ralph said: “We are very pleased that this has happened. Seeing things happening first-hand will remain in the pupils’ minds, hopefully for their exams and until they are 70. We are all very excited.

“We planned to go to Iceland over a year ago precisely because of its volcanicity.

“We knew that all this could have happened before it was planned.”

The trip has been arranged by the geography department and involves pupils from years 10 to 13, who are taking GCSEs and A-levels.

Mr Ralph said that the trips were so popular, however, that lots of other departments in the school got involved.

The party of 26 pupils and staff flew out from Heathrow.