EIGHT police were deployed for more than an hour to attend to a bomb hoax at a Dubbo school on Thursday morning.
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More than 200 staff and students from St Laurence's Primary School were evacuated to nearby Dubbo South Public School shortly after 10.30am, following a call to the school which indicated the presence of a device on the premises.
The hoax came on the same day as a series of other fake calls at schools across NSW and the ACT, including Bathurst's Assumption College and Sacred Heart Primary School at Wagga Wagga.
In most of the cases the call is believed to have come from an automated dialler, although Orana Local Area Command Duty Officer Andrew McKittrick said he couldn't confirm if that was the case at St Laurence's.
"I haven't heard the call. I do know that it was a male voice, but I can't say for certain whether it came from an automated dialling system or not," he said.
"Once the school received the call police were contacted and the staff at the school engaged their evacuation procedure and shifted everyone down to Dubbo South Primary, and that went without incident."
"All of the information from each of these hoax cases that we've seen over the past few weeks is being investigated by a central team to try and determine their source and whether they are linked."
Parents of children in attendance at St Laurence's were informed of the evacuation by a message on the Skoolbag phone application, which advised them that all staff and students were safe.
A later message informed them that classes had resumed as normal, and stated that an explanation letter would be sent home with the students.
Duty Officer McKittrick praised the school community for the swift nature of the evacuation, which allowed the officers to commence their search as quickly as possible.
"A thorough search of the school was undertaken by officers on duty, which revealed nothing, and once we'd spoken with the school and determined they hadn't received anything of late that could have been suspicious, we were happy to let the staff and students return," he said
"The school itself and the staff did an excellent job of handling the call and the subsequent evacuation. It's never easy moving a large group off a site and they did very well."
A spokesperson from the Catholic Education Office said they were thankful the incident ended up being little more than an inconvenience for everyone involved.
"Our staff and children performed admirably and followed the evacuation procedures set in place very well," the spokesperson said.
"We would like to praise everyone who kept calm and made sure all of our students and staff were safe.
"Thankfully it was just a hoax and everyone was able to return to school as normal."