A school released more than 200 balloons to mark the start of a project and one was found by a former pupil now living more than 90 miles away.

The balloon release at St Margaret’s at Troy Town School in Rochester was a celebration for its Around the World in 80 Days theme for this term.

Each one of the bright blue balloons had a tag bearing the name of one of the pupils and the idea was to see how far they travelled.

By a massive coincidence, one of the balloons was found by Richard Attwood, a former pupil of the school, who now lives in Cantley near Norwich, and he was quick to get in touch and tell them about his discovery.

Head teacher Matt Newman dressed up as a pilot to launch the balloons from the playground at the King Street school.

He said: “The children have been set the challenge to take their learning across all seven continents over the next 80 days, culminating on the 80th day with all parents and family being invited in to school to share in their child’s learning journey.

We had a balloon release and we will see how far around the world some of them might get. We have already had some back from Norwich and Ipswich.

“One of the balloons was found in Norwich by a man who used to attend our school in the 1960s and lived in Rochester Avenue.

“The children were amazed to hear about this coincidence.”