A 12-year-old boy fell to his death on a school ski-ing holiday when he tried to prank his pals by climbing over a hotel balcony to get into their room.

Victim Ferry Magnus Richter from the small town of Dorstadt, Lower Saxony, had been holidaying with classmates in the town of Ahrntal, North Tyrol, Italy, when he decided to play a trick on the hotel room next door.

Local media report that he tried to climb over the second-floor balcony privacy screen but slipped plunging 20 feet (6 metres) to the ground on 12th February.

He was rushed by air ambulance to a hospital in the city of Bolzano, South Tyrol but reportedly died two days later of multiple injuries and severe internal bleeding.

His traumatised classmates and teachers – from the Grosse Schule grammar school, in the city of Wolfenbuettel, Lower Saxony, Germany – needed psychological counselling.

The school had only arrived for their one-week ski trip the previous day.

Education department spokeswoman Bianca Trogisch described the fall as a “tragic accident.”

With ski-ing and snowboarding still popular sports in Central Europe, many schools in Germany are taking their pupils to the Alps each winter.

These trips usually last one week and are generously subsidised by educational authorities for an increasing number of families in the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Ahrntal – where Ferry’s school were staying – has 6,000 inhabitants. The town is situated around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Bolzano, the location of the clinic he received treatment at.