Anne Maguire, the teacher stabbed to death in her classroom yesterday, was just weeks away from retirement, her school said today.
Mrs Maguire, 61, was due to retire in September but would have taken her last lesson in July. She had already gone part-time and was working a four-day week at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds.
A post mortem examination has confirmed she died from "multiple stab wounds" following the attack at around 11.45am on Monday.
Police are still questioning the 15-year-old boy accused of stabbing her in the back and neck during a Year 11 Spanish lesson in the school''s languages block.
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The pupil is said to have excelled academically but had become increasingly withdrawn following the separation of his parents.
Mrs Maguire, who taught Spanish and Religious Education and was described as the “figurehead” of the school where she had taught for 40 years, was the first teacher to be killed by a schoolboy since Philip Lawrence, a London headmaster, was stabbed at the gates of his secondary in 1995.
It is the first time in Britain a teacher has been murdered in a classroom allegedly by one of their pupils.
Det Supt Simon Beldon said at a press conference outside the school that interviewing the suspect could be a lengthy process.
"Given his young age this is a process that needs to be handled sensitively," he said. He added that pupils who had witnessed the attack were being interviewed by specialist officers.
He said the boy would be questioned "at some point during today".
Around 150 people attended a mass at Corpus Christi church
"This is clearly an unprecedented and tragic incident which has left the school and wider community in a state of shock," he went on.
The crime scene remains cordoned off within the school, where lessons carried on as normal today, but it is no longer the subject of active forensic examinations.
Martin Dowling, chairman of governors at the school, said: "Anne Maguire was a wonderful and dedicated teacher and will be remembered fondly by all of us. She touched the lives of many people in the community."
He also paid tribute to the staff - some of whom restrained the suspect until police arrived - for the way they had responded to the tragedy.
Mrs Maguire had been married for 37 years to Don Maguire, a 62-year-old landscape gardener, and was mother to two highly successful daughters, Kerry, 32, an osteopath, and Emma, 30, who trained at the Royal Ballet School and has been a Royal Ballet soloist since 2011.
Her death, described as “an appalling tragedy” by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, reopened the debate over security in schools. Last year 250 children were caught on school premises with weapons.
A message is left amongst the floral tributes outside Corpus Christi Catholic School in Leeds (WILL WINTERCROSS)
This morning around 150 people gathered for a mass at Corpus Christi church, next to the school, to remember Mrs Maguire.
Some people were in tears as Monsignor Paul Fisher began the mass.
He told them: "Yesterday evening, the community gathered here in church as well as outside to light candles and to say a prayer. Some people struggled to know what to pray for.
"By the time the church was closed, the candelabras were full of light.
"Today we pray for the light of hope. Hope for ourselves that we will come to terms, eventually, with what has happened.
"We pray for all those young people at our school next door and their teachers. We pray for Anne''s family and friends. We pray for Anne.
"We offer prayers too for the family of the man who, unfortunately, did what he did. We pray for ourselves."
Mrs Maguire is understood to have been teaching a Spanish class of around 30 pupils when she was attacked.
Jacob Hill, 16, a student at the school, said: “I was told she was stabbed in the back.” Jacob, who was in another lesson when he heard screams, said of the accused boy: “He is really clever and always got top grades.”
The image of a grim reaper on the Facebook profile page of the pupil arrested at Corpus Christi College
The boy in custody comes from a middle-class family in the Halton area of Leeds. His mother is a human resources director and his father is a civil servant. He has a 19-year-old brother.
Neighbours said that after his parents split some time ago, the boy would rarely speak to anyone outside his immediate family.
He was predicted to gain good grades in his GCSEs and excelled particularly in art.
One neighbour said: “He was very quiet and a bit of a dweeb, but never caused any trouble. This is the last thing you would ever have expected from him.”
Police were piecing together the boy’s background, including a Facebook page with a prominent image of the grim reaper.
David Cameron was among those who paid tribute to Mrs Maguire, saying: “My thoughts are with the family of Anne Maguire, as well as the staff and pupils of Corpus Christi school, where she was stabbed to death.”
Mrs Maguire, who could have retired last year and was expected to retire this summer, was regarded as a mother figure at Corpus Christi, which she joined in 1974 and where she had been head of Year 11 for more than a decade.
Floral tributes outside Corpus Christi Catholic School (WILL WINTERCROSS)
Kerrianne Ayward, 17, said: “She was just lovely. She was helpful and caring and you could have a laugh with her. She was always there for you, even if she didn’t know you very well. No one had a bad word for her — I mean no one. She was the heart of the school.”
Georgina Kilroy, 16, said her teacher broke down when she told the pupils the news that Mrs Maguire had died. She said that before then they were told a teacher had gone to hospital but lessons continued.
Many pupils burst into tears when they were told that Mrs Maguire had died in hospital. Many of them staged a candlelit vigil for the teacher in the Corpus Christi church next to the school.
