A shocking incident involving pupils has prompted a Norfolk school to write to parents warning of a deadly social media trend in which people attempt to asphyxiate themselves.

On Friday, parents of Framingham Earl High School pupils received a notice addressing the "blackout challenge" - a dangerous social media trend which gained widespread attention in 2021.

The notice warned of what the so-called challenge was - describing it as "concerning" - offering advice to parents on how to broach the issue with their children.

It came following an incident between pupils at the school in recent weeks, which leaders believe may be linked to this trend - which was particularly prevalent on social media platform TikTok.

This saw two pupils "consensually engaging" in the challenge during break time. While nobody was seriously hurt it sparked the school's warning.

A spokesman for Sapientia Education Trust, which runs the school, said: "It is clear this so called 'challenge' has been spread extensively on social media and we understand that there have been number of other incidents in schools and the wider communities - in Norfolk and elsewhere.

"We wanted to proactively highlight the issue with our wider community and share our concern that social media companies are not protecting young people sufficiently when this type of thing goes viral.

"We always openly share concerns with our community and hope by taking this proactive approach we contribute positively to reducing risk for young people."

The disturbing challenge has been linked to the deaths of several children worldwide, including a 10-year-old American girl called Nylah Anderson in 2021.

It was also speculated that 12-year-old Archie Battersbee from Southend, who died in August 2022,  may also have been participating in it - although a coroner said no evidence was heard at his inquest to support this.

The school's notice read: "We take incidents like this very seriously, and our priority is the safety and wellbeing of all students."