SOME 300 pupils were sent home from Newton Abbot’s Highweek Primary School today after staff received a malicious ‘bomb’ call.

Police rushed to the Coronation Road school after being tipped off that a suspected bomb hoax call had been received.

The drama comes hot on the heels of similar incidents at schools across the UK on Monday and Tuesday, six in the south west - in Paignton, Exeter and Devonport and three in Cornwall.

No one at the school was available for comment this afternoon, but a message on its website said: ‘All children to be collected from the rear of the school site by parents/carers today please, Friday, 27 May 2016. Emergency procedures in place.’

A police spokesman stressed that no staff or pupils had been in danger as a result of any of the calls this week.

In a repeat of their message from earlier in the week they insisted: ‘While we are currently of the opinion that these call are without substance, as a precaution, police officers attended each of the schools in question.’

Anyone with information about the latest matter in Newton Abbot should email police on [email protected] or call 101.