Corn snake
A group of teenagers got a shock when a 2ft-long snake slithered its way into their classroom during a s3x education lesson.
The students were about to begin the class at a learning centre in Leicester when they were confronted by the serpent intruder.
It had crawled along a ventilation duct before wrapping around a painting on the wall, where an eagle-eyed student spotted it.
Jack Martins, 18, at first assumed it was a toybut gota nasty surprise when he tooka closer look.
He said: "I went to grab it and it jolted its head back which threw me backwards and I hit one of the tutors."
"I’ve had four snakes as pets before so I wasn’t scared but it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end."
Fellow classmate Lauren Postles, 19, said: "I didn’t even see it, I just heard the word ‘snake’ and I freaked."
"I was a whole classroom away but that felt too close. I had to go upstairs to the office with a friend and I just cried."
RSPCA officials were called to the Twenty Twenty education centre and identified it as a non-venomous corn snake.
Centre manager Sarah Ford said: "It certainly livened up the day."
"We had no idea if it was poisonous or not so it was quite scary, but some of the class seemed to love itand obviously others didn't."
"I was just thinking health and safety and worrying about someone being bitten. I was hoping nothing would go wrong."
A spokeswoman for the RSPCA said: "The snake is currently being cared for at a specialist facility."