Penryn College has sought to soothe parents' fears over a school trip to London following the recent Paris terror attacks, but said it will not guarantee a refund to those pulling out.

The school has said it will be taking extra measures to keep parents informed about the welfare of pupils on the trip, which leaves on Wednesday afternoon to take children to experience the theatre, museums and the Harry Potter studio tour, before returning on Saturday.

However several pupils have said that, following the recent attacks in France which killed more than 130 people, they do not feel safe travelling to London as they feel there is an increased terrorism risk.

Families were angered when the school originally told them that it could not give refunds if a child chose to withdraw from the trip due to these reasons, unless someone else chose to take up the vacant space.

The mother of one 16 year old girl who is now scared to go on the trip said: "She has got herself in quite a state. If she persisted and said she wanted to go, I would say 'if that's what you want to do, that's what you want to do.' But she gets quite stressed and anxious.

She added: "It's a lot of money to lose through no fault of our own.

"She has got a friend who has backed out as well, there's quite a few of them. You can't guarantee their safety.

"You can tell them anything you want, but at the end of the day if they're not comfortable... she would rather stay home with her family."

Out of the 60 pupils who had booked for the trip, at a cost reported to range from £195 to £350, four have withdrawn with three of those places filled from the reserve list.

Dave Cunningham, the college's director of business development and operations, is in charge of the safety on the trip. He sought to reassure parents that the risk is no higher than it was before the trips, that the school would be doing all it can to ensure pupils' safety, and added that governors were looking at possibilities for reimbursement in spite of the fact they would not be able to claim it back on insurance.

He said: "After the Paris atrocities we took some advice from Cornwall Council, National Counter Terrorism Security Office, MI5, the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police about whether we're safe to travel to London. We discussed it with our travel operators as well. The advice from all of these is that there was no change to the security state in London, and that state is severe and has been since August 2014."

He added that the school had offered the pupils the chance to withdraw for personal reasons following the attacks in Paris. However the travel operators had told them that because there was "no reason not to travel," their insurance would not cover refunds for somebody who "just withdrew."

He said: "At the moment the governors are reviewing whether they will make a contribution to refunding those parents."

He added: "We understand everybody's concern, which is why people are able to drop out this late, but all the advice we have had from everybody is that it's safe to continue with the trip."