Arsonists raze primary school sheds in latest shocking attack
Parents have expressed their disgust at a 'despicable' act of suspected arson after two sheds containing hundreds of toys were set alight at a school in Willenhall.
The sheds, which contained outdoor play equipment, wellies and toys belonging to nursery children at Lodge Farm Primary School in Furzebank Way, were believed to have been set alight on Friday after a series of acts of vandalism at the school.
Shocking images of the blaze were posted on Facebook by the school, after firefighters from Walsall and Bloxwich attended the scene.
West Midlands Fire service confirmed they were called to the scene at around 5.50pm on Friday, sending two fire appliances and using hose reels to put out the blaze. They left the scene at 6.20pm.
Since the fire, parents have set up a JustGiving page to try and raise money for the youngsters who are due to attend school on Monday.
Sally-Anne Millward, whose eight-year-old son Cameron-Kai attends the school, said: "I think it's despicable.
"Someone has broken in there with the intention of just destroying things and that's the worst thing - these babies are going to come back into school and not understand what has happened or where their things have gone.
"I'll give credit to the school in that though vandals broke in on the Thursday through the skylight and ransacked the reception and the nursery, the staff worked really hard to make sure things were safe for the children to attend on Friday.
"In previous years the school was in special measures with Ofsted, but since then, new people have come in and worked tirelessly to make the school better and they've really been turning things around. Now this has happened. It's so upsetting, it really is."
Posting on their Facebook page, the school said they had been suffering a period of 'extremely serious' vandalism attacks over the past couple of weeks but that the fire had been the most serious.
The school said: "Someone thought that is was appropriate to set fire to the shed containing resources in the EYFS area.
"Luckily, staff were still on site and able to call the fire brigade in advance of the wind sweeping the fire to the school.
"While we say 'luckily', there could have been a very different outcome if a staff member, or even child, had been trapped or a different part of the building had been targeted. This all happened before 6pm.
"This is a school for 3-11 year old children and yet someone seems to think that it is acceptable to destroy valuable resources and affect the education of your children.
"Lodge Farm has started to make real progress to becoming a 'Good' school and we're sure that you will agree that funding should be spent on improving your children's education, not need to be used on rectifying these sorts of problems."
The school are now working with the police to try and identify and catch the vandals. CCTV has been handed over to the police and the school has asked parents to 'remain vigilant.'
"We're just pulling together to make sure that our children don't lose out because of this" Miss Millward added.
"It's so shocking that anyone would think of doing this, but we won't let the vandals beat us."
To donate to replace the equipment destroyed in the fire go to crowdfunding.justgiving.com/sarah-matthews-2lodgefarm-school
