Willaston School has been left reeling from a spate of vandalism over the six-week summer break.

Heartbroken headteacher Rose Burton said: ’During the holidays there has been extensive damage to the school environment.

’Our new outdoor classroom decking now has a large hole in it, there have been three windows smashed, numerous fence posts broken, wooden outdoor equipment mutilated, considerable amounts of graffiti, damage to guttering and lightning conductors, to mention a few examples.

’For the children and staff coming back to this amount of damage has been really upsetting.’

The school has very efficient CCTV in place and, where possible, over recent months offenders have been identified and either parents or the police informed.

In an attempt to explore the reasons and address this growing issue, working with a recently-established community group, the headteachers of both Willaston and Cronk y Berry School have decided to invite young people from the community in to the school to discuss the issues that schools face and to see if together they can come up with some solutions.

The alternative is one which Mrs Burton does not want to consider as the effects of the senseless destruction are hard to bear.

’There is so much hard work that goes in preparing the school to be welcoming and inviting for our new school year that we can’t help but feel incredibly demoralised,’ she said.

’It is important to point out that it is a relatively small minority who are causing this damage. Having looked through hours of CCTV footage, it is heartening to witness many children innocently enjoying all that is available and some actually clearing up the debris and putting it into the bins. So it is not all bad!

’We cannot, however, just accept this for the sake of the young children who are having their learning experiences restricted due to equipment being unsafe,’ she went on.

’Our main focus is to try to understand why, what is it that leads some to abuse our attempts to provide engaging environments.

’As a community we want to see if we can all work together to understand and come up with some practical solutions.’

Letters will be going out to young people inviting them to a get-together during the coming weeks.