Police have today responded to calls of a concerning nature directed to 27 schools throughout country.
Police have attended each school and worked with the schools management team to decide on the appropriate response.
As indicated earlier, todays calls may be linked to those received yesterday which initial inquiries indicated have originated overseas.
Police are undertaking a number of lines of inquiries to establish the exact origin of these calls.
We should make it clear that while such calls may display a New Zealand number, they can still be originating from overseas.
As we stated yesterday, similar incidents have occurred overseas in United States, and more recently Australia.
Until police can rule out any actual threat, we must take all these calls seriously and respond accordingly.
The safety of students, teachers and schools are our priority. We understand the fear and concern that this will cause, however we reiterate that so far we have not established any actual threat to any school.
How a school responds to these calls is a matter for the schools management in conjunction with police. Schools will respond differently according to their individual circumstances and the information available to them.
Police will not disclosing the names of each school who has received a call today given the ongoing investigation and in the interest of preventing further such calls being made to other schools.
ENDS