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A GROUP of children who allegedly planned to knock their teacher unconscious with a glass paperweight, bind her with handcuffs and duct tape and then stab her with a broken steak knife, were motivated by revenge, police said.

Police Chief Tony Tanner told Associated Press the third-graders at Centre Elementary School in south Georgia were angry because the teacher had scolded one of them for standing on a chair.

Two girls aged nine and 10,and an 8-year-old boy face charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault over the alleged plot. As many as nine children were involved in the plan, which police said took one week to organise.

Each of the children were assigned separate roles. One child`s job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, and another would clean up after the attack.

Teachers at Centre Elementary School in Waycross, Georgia, uncovered the plot on Friday when a pupil reported that a child in the third grade had brought a weapon into the school.

"The plan was to handcuff the teacher, put tape over her mouth and hit her over the head with the paperweight and possibly cut her," said Lieutenant Duane Caswell of Waycross police, adding that some students said the knife was simply there to cut the tape.

"It was a rather elaborate scheme for children of that age," he said.

Friends and parents told AP, the teacher involved taught students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity.

Police said they were unsure of whether the children aged between eight and 10 actually understood they would hurt the teacher. He said the children were not known as troublemakers

“We`re not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher,`` Mr Tanner told AP.

“They are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon - we do whatever and then she stands up and she`s OK. That`s a hard call.``

District Attorney Rick Currie told AP some of the students thought they were just kidding.

“Some of the kids said, `We thought they were just kidding,``` Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn`t bring it because he thought he would get in trouble.``

Mr Currie said the children were too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention centre.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely,`` Mr Tanner told AP.

"We feel like if they weren`t interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don`t know.``

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