PUPILS at a Bradford school were thrust into the role of crime scene investigators on their first day back after the Christmas break, after they found an ominous chalk outline in their gym.

Year five at Frizinghall Primary School arrived back from their break to see the apparent scene of a murder, complete with a pile of burned ashes. A subsequent “investigation” into the incident by the pupils will now make up much of a project for their upcoming school term.

In science lessons pupils will sift through the ashes for evidence, test chemicals to see if the victim might have been poisoned and try to match fingerprints found at the scene. And children will use maths to help solve the crimes, and literacy skills to document their findings, as well as getting to grips with deductive reasoning.

Year five teacher Tim Palmer said the project had been very successful in engaging the returning pupils. He said: “The children were completely unaware this was going to happen. There is a new science curriculum this year, and we thought this would be a really good way to get the kids interested. We’ll even be having police come into school to talk to them about this.”