Students from Barking and Dagenham College were left without a paddle after their teacher got on a plane to Seville for a school trip without them.

The engineering students were due to board a plane for take-off at 7.30 am on May 23, but a mix-up with boarding passes left them unable to get through security.

While the teacher and two students, who had printed off their own passes, went through the gates, the nine who remained were left scrambling for Wi-Fi to get through.

The mother of one of the students, most of whom were 17, was not happy with the incident. She asked not to be named.

"You can imagine them running around the airport," she said.

"He [my son] said to me, 'Mum it was chaos, running around the airport, trying to find Wi-Fi because none of us could get Wi-Fi to download the app to try and get the boarding passes on our phones.'

"You can imagine them, nine of them, not having a clue what they're doing. I think it's an absolute disgrace."

She said the remaining students were also charge £55 by Ryanair to print off their passes, even though by the time they had been printed, the gate was closed.

"Ryanair took the money off the kids knowing full well that they wouldn't even make the flight."

"All the students are £55 down, which I think is absolutely disgusting."

Ryanair did not respond to a request for comment.

While the college paid for the flights, the mum said she had shelled-out hundreds of pounds for things like clothes, equipment and boots.

A college spokesman said: "There was some confusion regarding a group of 12 students, whereby a number of them hadn't checked in online. Delays in the airport check-in queue resulted in the ones who hadn't checked in online missing their flight.

"A member of the management team went immediately to the meet the students at airport, arriving within the hour.

"The college arranged new flights to Seville for all of them."

The students are in the first year of a two-year BTEC diploma.