PUPILS were today praised by their headteacher and the police for the way they reacted after their school bus was involved in a crash with a van.

About 45 students on their way to St John's School in Marlbor-ough escaped injury on Tuesday when the single deck bus collided with a builder's van being driven in the opposite direction.

Although some of them in the seats towards the front of the bus were showered with splinters of glass from the shattered windscreen, none of them was cut.

St John's headteacher Patrick Hazlewood said he was proud of the sensible way the pupils had reacted in the aftermath to the crash.

Both he and the police had particular praise for 15-year-old Kath-arine Martin who remained chatting to the trapped van driver until the emergency services arrived.

The accident happened at about 8.15am outside Burney Farm on the narrow unclassified road between Axford and Aldbourne.

A Barnes coach from Aldbourne carrying pupils to St John's upper school was in collision with the white Transit van being driven by a 57-year-old man from Fording-bridge in Hampshire.

Dr Hazlewood said: "They were so sensible and alert to what needed to be done. When they arrived at school we gave them a bit of a debriefing and counselling."

Year 11 student Katharine, who lives in Aldbourne, said that she had no formal first-aid training other than what she remembered from when she was in the village Guide pack.

Katharine said: "I just went over to talk to the driver and we kept talking until the fire brigade and ambulance came.

"We were talking about where he was from and what he was doing. He said he was going to Aldbourne to lay a floor in a nursing home."