Guests at a luxury Ipswich hotel received a startling lesson in youth culture as schoolgirls from a top fee-paying school got tipsy at their annual ball.

Guests at a luxury Ipswich hotel received a startling lesson in youth culture as schoolgirls from a top fee-paying school got tipsy at their annual ball.

One girl boozily flashed her breast to red-faced witnesses at the five-star Belstead Brook Manor Hotel as others invaded empty conference rooms and scrawled messages on the flip-charts.

Sources who saw the incidents at the sixth-form ball for Ipswich High School for Girls said the rowdy behaviour got so out of hand that a senior teacher was called in to discipline the girls.

The headteacher at the £1,814-a-term school today played down the incident as "a storm in a teacup".

She did admit that some "displeasing" behaviour had taken place.

Some 130 people – including 20 teaching staff and their partners – attended the three-course dinner and dance at the hotel off Badger's Bank, Belstead, on Friday.

Headteacher Valerie MacCuish said one girl was showing friends her newly-pierced nipple – and that may have been witnessed by hotel guests.

She also confirmed that flip-charts were written on – but said the messages were taken down before staff could see what had been written.

Mrs MacCuish said: "One girl had a bit too much to drink and got a little out of hand. The head of sixth form was called in to calm the situation down.

"She had her nipple pierced – which isn't something I'd condone – and she was showing it off to her friends.

"Obviously it was inappropriate behaviour and we're not very pleased that the girl displeased the hotel guests, but it was all over in about ten minutes. It was a storm in a teacup, really."

Hotel manager James Jude said he regarded the girls' behaviour as "high spirits".

Ipswich High School for Girls was founded in 1878. It moved to its current 80-acre site at Grade-I-listed Woolverstone Hall on the river Orwell in 1992.