CHILDREN have been left devastated after vandals ripped up hundreds of plants and seedlings they were growing at their primary school.

The 170 pupils at St Andrew’s Primary School in Church Road, Laverstock, came in on Monday to find plants thrown up on to the roof, along with a garden bench, their new greenhouse destroyed and polytunnels ripped beyond repair.

An apple tree the children planted last year had also been snapped.

The children, who share the upkeep of the garden with one bed per year group, were growing all kinds of fruit and vegetables to cook for their lunches.

They had just won a grant from the Food for Life organisation to pay for the greenhouse and polytunnels, which were taken apart in the rampage.

Headteacher Karen Walker said: “The children were very upset, and the reception teacher, Mrs Kate Huckle, was devastated.

“We have some sort of vandalism most weekends, but it’s generally benches getting smashed, Chinese takeaways and cans getting left, things like that. But when it affects the children it’s hard.

“The fact that they have set out to destroy the children’s hard work makes this much harder to accept.”

The police are investigating but Mrs Walker says she is not hopeful anyone will be caught and thinks the perpetrators could be teenagers.

She said: “We think it happened after 9.45pm on Friday night, as one of our governors looked in on his way past then and there was no one there, and before 8.20am the following morning when a teacher came in to school.

“The children are really disappointed, and have been asking why people would do this – we don’t know either.

“And how they managed to get the bench on the roof I don’t know – it’s quite a heavy object.