BURGLARS smashed their way into an East Lancashire primary school over the weekend stealing a safe and thousands of pounds of state-of-the art computer equipment.

Detectives were alerted to the theft at Broadway Primary School in Haslingden just after 11am on Saturday.

The thieves used a stone to break through a glass panel in a ground-floor fire door before searching the school for things to steal, police said.

The school safe containing a quantity of cash and 30 new Samsung laptops and netbooks were taken, officers said.

Head teacher Paul Stanley said the thieves struck some time after the teachers left the school in Ryefield Avenue at 6.30pm on Friday.

He said: “They’ve taken the lot, apart from six old laptops. They were quite selective, which laptops they took.”

He added that, in the short term, the theft would affect how the youngsters were taught at the school. “It’s going to have quite a serious impact,” he said.

“We use ICT an awful lot at Broadway, all through the curriculum. We are going to struggle without the laptops and netbooks.

“The police are investigating and we are hoping to find out who did this.”

But he believes that the theft probably wasn’t carried out by youngsters.

He said: “It’s hard to say who has done it but I would suggest that it’s not youngsters, it’s somebody who knows what they were doing.”

Now officers are appealing for anyone who witnessed people acting suspicious around the school or who knows anything about the crime to come forward.

A Lancashire Police spokeswoman said: “We are appealing for anyone who saw anything to come forward.

“No arrests have yet been made.”

Anyone with information should call police on 101 quoting reference number 557 of May.