A high school has admitted it got it wrong after photographs of students were put up in a busy corridor alongside progress charts that were meant to be inspirational.

Instead Year 11 pupils arriving at Lynn Grove Academy in Gorleston this morning reacted angrily to the display, which included their attendance record, and said they were uncomfortable with the tactic.

Headteacher Alison Mobbs said the 'success boards' were put up after school last night and were meant to encourage the more than 200 students who had just taken their mock exams.

A traffic light system indicated how far they had come with everyone being able to climb into the green zone because the results were based on progress, meaning some of the weakest students could top the board, she said.

However students were immediately angry and upset, triggering a re-think.

An assembly planned for Friday about the charts was brought forward to today, but because of the unexpected backlash they have now been taken down.

Mrs Mobbs said similar initiatives had worked well in other schools in the Creative Education Trust's academy chain and that she had not anticipated the negative reaction.

'We have taken it down and we are not putting it back up because the children have said it is not helping them,' she said.

'We will think about another way of getting the message across. It was absolutely meant with good intentions but as it has not worked we will think again. The idea was to illustrate to the children the progress they are making against their starting point.

'It was colour coded and the expectation was that as their grades went up they were going to move up the board. The idea was that we were going to support each other to be successful. It was meant to be motivational but it absolutely has not worked.

'Some were quite comfortable with it and were starting to nod their heads and get the sense of it.

'The majority of children did not feel at all comfortable.'

One parent who asked not to be named said she disapproved of the boards with some Year 10 children who had witnessed the fallout saying they were not going to take their GCSE's next year if the same was going to happen again.

Another parent was reportedly upset that their child's attendance looked worse than it was because of a number of hospital appointments.