Schools are used to finding themselves on the receiving end of crime and vandalism. Only too often we have to carry reports of premises being smashed up, robbed, set alight. Scarce resources that should be going into educating children have to be spent instead on repairing damage. Insurance premiums rise steeply. To appease the insurers, still more money has to be spent on security measures.

These are foolish and despicable crimes, often carried out by youngsters from the area in which the school is based. They are hitting themselves in the long run by undermining the educational chances of their community but are too dim to realise that.

Even nurseries are not immune to this sort of attack. The staff and parents at St Columba's Nursery in Tong Street only recently had 15 tricycles, trailers, go-karts and other items of outdoor play equipment, paid for through fundraising events organised by parents, stolen by burglars.

Now the nursery has suffered the additional blow of an attack by vandals who smashed most of the windows in the nursery building as well as some of those in the main school, forcing the nursery to close temporarily.

That is bound to cause a great deal of inconvenience and probably financial hardship to the parents who rely on the nursery for their childcare arrangements.

If this has been done by people from the local area, they are harming their own families. Someone must know who the burglars and vandals are. They owe it to the people who live in and around Tong Street to report them to the police and put a stop to this wilful stupidity.