FURIOUS parents of children who were evacuated from a Whitefield primary school have still not been told full details of the “threat”.

More than 600 children and staff of Higher Lane Primary School were escorted to nearby Philips High School on Monday afternoon as a safety precaution.

Parents only received a text from the school later in the day informing them that their children were back in school and safe after a “safety issue”.

Livid parents took to social media to vent their rage at how the school had handled the situation.

One wrote: “I’ve emailed school asking for an explanation. They can’t just send us that text and tell us not to worry!”

Another demanded to know why parents weren’t allowed to know what the unknown threat was.

A angry father wrote: “They won’t say anything more than ‘for safety’ No way that’s acceptable!”

A number of them threatened to keep their children out of school until they were given a full and proper explanation about what happened.

One furious mother told the Bury Times: “Rumours were going around. I’d been told that the road was cordoned off, police were looking through the windows and that there’d been a fire.

“My child said the teacher told her it wasn’t safe to stay in the school building.”

“I phoned the school three times to try and find out what the threat had been but it just rang out.”

In a statement which appeared on the school website the following afternoon, headteacher Ian Tetlow, said: “We received a phone call making threats against the school. We take any threat against the school seriously and we therefore called the police. The welfare of our children is paramount and, with the nature of this threat, and to ensure the safety of all our children, we carried out a full evacuation immediately, of over 600 children and staff, to our neighbouring high school, Philips High School.

“The children were got together in a peaceful manner and we successfully evacuated the premises, and had all the children out of the school grounds in 10 minutes. Once the police informed us they believed there was no threat to pupil safety or the school, they escorted us back to school.

“We can understand why some parents might have wanted more information, however the safety of our children is always our first priority. We took immediate action to keep our children safe when faced with what could have been a legitimate threat.

“All parents were texted as soon as we got back to school to inform them of the incident. I would like to thank all my staff for their care and diligence in evacuating the children quickly and efficiently.”

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: “Shortly before 1.30pm on Monday 11 February 2019, police received a report that threats had been made towards Higher Lane County Primary School, Egerton Road, Whitefield.

"Officers attended and carried out searches. Pupils were evacuated by the school.”