The Southport striker's manager Axel Rudakubana said she felt his behavior was "preparing for something". Rudakubana attended Acorns School - a referral unit for pupils aged 11 to 16 - from October 2019, following his permanent exclusion from Range High School in Formby.
This happened after he called Childline and admitted to carrying knives on 10 occasions and that he was ready to "stab someone because he was tired of being pushed around". Rudakubana had previously displayed disturbing behavior at Formby School, calling the Manchester attack a "good fight" and "making comments like 'this is why teachers are being murdered'".
But there was a "rapid escalation" in the first weeks of Year 9 and he got into a fight with a boy who he said was harassing him during an English lesson on October 7. Later that night, school safeguarding officer David Cregeen received an email from Police Constable Alex McNamee, of Lancashire Police, who said the force had received information that Rudakubana had called Childline and repeatedly admitted carrying a knife.
Rudakubana was permanently excluded two days later. Later that month, he began attending Acorns. He returned to The Range in December that year when he attacked another student with a hockey stick and was found to have a knife in his bag.
Joanne Hodson, headteacher of Acorns School in Ormskirk, spoke at the ongoing Southport inquest at Liverpool Town Hall on Thursday October 23. The investigation refers to Rudakubana as AR.
Of his conduct, Ms Hodson said: I had the impression he was up to something. I felt like something was going to happen and that level of agitation and - the kind of direct challenges to the staff and the principals - the way he behaved with the other students, it was like every day we were building and building and building and I was aware that he had brought knives to school and I was afraid that he was going to bring something to our school and do something similar to our school.
In the end he didn't do it, he went to The Range and did it, but that's what I feared would happen at our school.
Ms Hodson described a memorable first encounter with the teenager at his Acorns admissions meeting, when she asked him why he had taken a knife to his old school.
She said: He looked me in the eye and told me to use it. This is the only time in my career that a student has said this to me or behaved in such an unremorseful manner. What also surprised me was that AR's parents didn't flinch at this comment.
She said parents believed he took the knife to school in response to bullying. Ms Hodson also said Rudakubana was the most unusual student she had encountered during her career.
In her statement to the inquest she wrote: AR was a very unusual student, the most unusual I have known in my career.
"At Acorns we educate and support young people with a range of complex needs, but I have never met a student like AR.
"He was incredibly difficult to read and had an unusual, unpredictable energy. There was a sinister undertone and he was difficult to build relationships with. He had no respect for authority and generally a lack of respect for other students and staff.
"He insisted that his opinions alone were correct and everyone else was wrong.
Rudakubana, then aged 17, killed Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and attempted to murder 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29 last year. He was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years after admitting the dance party offenses on the first day of his trial in January.
The first phase of the investigation, which is expected to last until November, continues.