Police assure parents and teachers there is no danger as thousands of schools in Italy and hundreds in the UK affected

Hundreds of schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland were hit by a fresh wave of hoax bomb threats on Wednesday, with some sites evacuated as a precaution.

Police in Scotland said that about 1,000 schools, from Dumfries in the south of Scotland to Aberdeenshire and Orkney in the north, had received the hoax warnings. At least 300 schools were affected in Northern Ireland. Similar claims were sent in a “generic communication” to schools in the Republic of Ireland.