Police now believe there is no specific risk after schools in three districts went into lockdown after receiving phone threats.
Photo: Supplied / Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod
North Island schools who went into lockdown after receiving phone threats began moving students off site this afternoon.
Threats were made by phone to five schools in the Waikato, Thames Coromandel and Gisborne districts, police said.
In a statement, police thier investigations into the source of the threats was continuing.
They thanked the schools involved for following their emergency procedures, and to the wider school communities for their co-operation.
The Waikato Principals' Assocation suspected pre-recorded messages were behind the incidents.
The association's Hamish Fenemor said it was hard to determine where the messages had been coming from.
Matamata College, Lytton High School, Thames High School and Cambridge High School all received threats.
Matamata Intermediate and Firth Primary, near Matamata College, were put into lockdown but students are now being allowed to go home.
Matamata Intermediate, Matamata College, Firth Primary, Thames High School and Cambridge High have all posted on social media that students are to be evacuated and collected by parents.
Lytton High School said it had been given the all clear.
Students were forced to leave bags, phones and bikes behind when they evacuated this afternoon.
Staff confirmed via social media that they had been allowed back into school and teaching would resume tomorrow.
A jeweller next to Cambridge High School said five police cars could be seen in the area.
Students and teachers could be seen from the gates gathering in an outside field.
Matamata Intermediate confirmed that buses would be running to their normal timetable.
Earlier, Matamata College posted it had received a threat and was evacuating out of an abundance of caution.
Matamata Intermediate said that students were safely locked down within classrooms as they waited to be picked up.
Police officers searched the schools and students began to be picked up by parents.
Students who cannot be picked up by their parents are being kept in lockdown.
Lytton High School in Gisborne wrote on social media that students were being picked up by buses.
A fish and chip shop worker close to the school said police cars have been around the area since early this morning.
