Spider Identification

[aestarte]

My daughter came home from school the other day and told me she had seen a spider in her art room. It was about an inch long, had a round body, it was black with a red pattern on its bum. We have been through the Gallery but to no avail. Should we worry and should the school worry. Many thanks. Fi.X X X X

[demicav]

Possibly a Seatoda species, maybe a widow spider, possibly a false widow which can give a nasty bite, without a pic it's difficult to say. These spiders do seem to be getting more common though.

[Venger]

That's not a lot to go on

Second hand info is always going to to hard to deal with (no offense to your daughter.)
You don't have to panic though, none of our native UK spider deliver a fatal bite (think bee sting) and they are less likely to do this than the 1000's of bee/wasp stings that happen during a normal day (barring an allergic reaction).
So just treat spiders with the same respect as you would a wasp or a bee and you'll be ok.

To quote the BAS on foreign spiders:
Don't panic! Catch it, preferably without killing it. If you are arachnophobic or not too keen on doing this then get a friend or neighbour to help. Put it in suitable container and telephone your local council's Environmental Health department or natural history museum. Very few museums will be equipped to deal with this but should be able to advise you.

Or catch it and take photos of it, post it on the forum and we'll have a look at it and try to ID it.

Oh try looking here and seeing if you can get close, or find something that it looks like:
UK spider pictures