Flowers outside the small community school

Birkbeck School in North Somercotes, near Louth in Lincolnshire, is far from the image of a troubled, inner-city school beset by social problems.

For one thing, it is tiny for a secondary school, with just 276 boys and girls aged 11 to 16 - smaller than many primary schools in England.

Recently it achieved specialist status as an arts college.

'So out of character'

The chair of governors, John Stevens, said: "We are a very small, community school.

"We try to give not just the basic curriculum but the right environment for children to learn and develop."

He said the local community was shocked and very concerned that something like this could have happened there.

"This is so out of character that it is almost unbelievable that it should happen in our school."

The governing body had never had any cause to fear that something "so serious and devastating" might happen.

Pupils too have said "this is not the sort of school where something like that would happen".

'Successful school'

The school was last checked by Ofsted in June 1998, when it was described as "a popular and successful school providing a good quality of education".

"As a small school it offers the considerable benefit of pupils being known, supported and cared for as individuals and guided accordingly," the inspectors said.

They did say pupils had "rather a narrow perspective upon life and they do not always readily appreciate or value the many and varied facets of contemporary multi-cultural society."

But the overwhelming majority showed a strong commitment to the school and a responsible attitude to their work.

Because there is a local grammar school, Birkbeck has relatively few of the highest attaining pupils and proportionately more of low attainment.

Performance

It does well by them. The new "value added" performance indicators, published last year for the first time, showed it was above average in raising the achievement of its pupils, especially between the ages of 14 and when they took their GCSEs two years later.

GCSE results are just a few points below the national average.

Most of the pupils travel to the school by bus from a number of small communities nearby and from the village of North Somercotes itself.

They are from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds though the proportion eligible for free school meals is about average.

There are very few pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds.

"The school takes good care of its pupils," Ofsted said.