A JUNIOR school has hit out at brazen thieves who have stolen £40,000 of computers in the last ten months.

Pupils, staff and parents at Raglan Junior School are “devastated” after the latest break-in on Monday night, when 19 Apple Mac computers were taken in a smash-and-grab raid.

Deputy Head Deborah Dykins said despite rigourously fortifying the ICT room in the school, the thieves still managed to force their way in at 3am after climbing over the gates and school roof.

She said: “The thieves are so blatant, they just don't care. They only get two minutes before the alarm goes off but to them it's worth it.

“The last two times were at 3am, they smashed through the windows, grabbed the laptops and ran.

“We had Macs for every child in the class, but that has all come to a stop now and they are going to have to use PCs now.”

She said everyone at the school was “shocked and saddened” that someone could repeatedly target a school in this way, stealing a total of 38 laptops.

The school, in Raglan Road, has followed police advice rigidly since the first break-in in January, but appears to be powerless to stop the thieves and will no longer be able to use the dedicated ICT room.

Manon Palm, the ICT teacher whose department was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in the latest inspection, said the impact on the curriculum has been “immense”.

Mrs Dykens added: “We are getting to the point where everyone is very disillusioned. We are having to completely rethink the way we go about ICT.”

The thieves have left behind clues including a Nike trainer and a crow bar, but so far the police have not caught those behind the raids.

The school, which has 900 pupils, has tried to make the best of the situation, getting classes to make newspaper articles about the crimes.

Mrs Dykens said she decided to speak out to alert the wider community about the break-ins, in the hope residents' vigilance will lead to the thieves being caught.