A head teacher wants an eight-foot fence put up around her small primary school after a catalogue of disgusting attacks by yobs.

Mary McAndrew says the level of abuse and damage at St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School, Bingley, has become so bad that she has no alternative but to fortify it to protect the 151 pupils.

Today, education bosses in Bradford said the school's problems highlighted the lengths head teachers across the district were having to take to protect their pupils.

Mrs McAndrew, said the school in Crownest Road had suffered an appalling series of incidents including:

l youths climbing on to the school roof and urinating on the playground.

l human excrement hidden in socks has been found on a pathway in the school grounds.

l broken glass left in the grass injuring at least one child.

l empty drink cans, twisted into sharp, spiky structures being left in the school playing fields.

l staff being verbally abused by youths when they ask them to leave the school.

l cannabis found by children on a footpath.

l windows smashed.

l large rocks thrown on to the outdoor play area.

l one man regularly drinking alcohol while sitting in the playing fields watching the children.

Mrs McAndrew said the safety of her pupils was her first priority.

"My children are entitled to as much safety as any other school in Bradford," she said. "During the day when the children are here they are my responsibility.

"People are openly accessing the school grounds and I have no control over who is approaching the children.

"This has been going on for a while but it is getting increasingly worse. My staff are frightened, and sometimes when I approach the intruders I am shaking, with fear and anger."

Shipley crime prevention officer PC Lew MacKenzie said: "There have been a number of confrontational situations there, which are totally unacceptable for a primary school.

"Security and safety are essential to that type of environment. We support the installation of a boundary fence."

He said similar types of fence had been installed at Grange College, in Wibsey and other primary schools in the area.

But the school's planning application for the fence has attracted 21 letters of objection and a 14-signature petition from people who live close to it.

Kevin Sunderland, who has lived on Crownest Road for 30 years, said: "The school is in Bingley, not in the Bronx. The main school gates are open 365 days a year. Why don't they shut the gate if they don't want people in?"

Objectors say the fence would have a detrimental effect on the value of their homes and have likened it to living opposite a prison, or concentration camp.

But parent-governor Matthew Lynch said he feared for the safety of his sons, six and eight, who attend the school.

His eight-year-old son had been injured by glass left in the playing field.

He said: "It is worrying. There are so many exits out of St Joseph's, anyone could come in and no-one would know. It makes you very nervous."

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Leeds, which runs the school, said the measure was a last resort.

He said: "A number of schools are facing exactly the same problems because children no longer have respect for other people's property.

"This is not a course of action we want to take, and never in our wildest dreams did we think we would have to in a place like Bingley, but given the fact we have young children and staff to protect we are reluctantly having to make this application."

Harden Primary School, near Bingley, has been granted permission to put up a fence around its grounds this term after problems with vandalism.

Head teacher Jean Robinson said: "More and more schools are having to protect their playgrounds and their environment. We want to do interesting things in the playground, develop gardens and so on but we obviously can't do while this is going on.

"People are always surprised to hear we have these problems in Harden but this is a very general problem."

Councillor Dale Smith, the Council's executive member for education, said: "It is a great disappointment to me, and the schools, that they have to spend money on something like this.

"What is spent on having to protect premises is diverted from teaching the children and the community loses out.

"Many schools in Bradford have had to go to extraordinary lengths to safeguard the building and the contents. It all costs money and it all has to come from somewhere, from the tax payer and the community as a whole.

"This is not an inner-city problem, this is happening all over the district."

The application for St Joseph's Primary School will be considered by Shipley Area Planning Panel which meets at Shipley Town Hall, at 10am tomorrow. It has been recommended for approval by planning officers.