SHATTERED glass littered a primary school playground yesterday morning after vandals destroyed its library bus.

Sobbing pupils at St Nicholas’ Primary School in Oxford lined up behind police tape as they tried to look for clues on the red double decker left behind by those responsible.

Rachel Crouch, headteacher at the Old Marston school in Raymund Road, said it was heartbreaking to discover the damage yesterday morning.

She said: “The children are absolutely devastated, they love using that bus, it is a fantastic resource that encourages learning and reading.

“I’ve had children crying because they are so distraught by the attack.

“One pupil came up to me at the end of the assembly and simply asked: ‘why?’

“It is just mindless and so cruel to target schoolchildren.”

With every window in the bus smashed, Mrs Crouch believes that the damage caused would cost at least £5,000.

The vandals also ripped out the school’s CCTV cameras.

She added: “What is truly tragic is that the school will not be able to afford to replace all of this glass.

“We are urging the public, anyone who might have heard something, to get in touch with the police so we can get some justice for the children.

“They must have made a lot of noise because bus glass is extremely sturdy and takes a lot for it to break.”

The library bus, which came to the school in 2015, was used so regularly by pupils that a weekly rota had to be set up to ensure each year group could enjoy the facilities.

Soly Sahraouei, 11, is on the school’s reading committee and said the vandalism was ‘horrid.’

He added: “Because they have got the time and effort to vandalise primary school children’s reading space, they should be doing something more valuable with their time.”

Lumka Sithole, 9, said she thought the school needed better security to make sure ‘it never happened again.’

School librarian Linda Grace said it was so important for the pupils to have this ‘quiet space’ where they could learn.

She added: “Not every child likes to charge around and run about during playtime.

“This is the perfect space for someone to come and quietly read.

“They have been really affected by what has happened today and were pointing at different parts of the damaged bus, trying to see if it was a clue left behind by the people responsible for this.

“If we cannot get it fixed then I doubt we will be able to use it again because it will not be safe.”

Call police on 101.