Caversham Primary School has become the latest to fall prey to an international hoax bomb threat.

Police searched the site in the early hours of yesterday morning following reports from an unknown caller that a bomb had been left in the building.

Officers arrived at the school shortly after 2:30am before alerting the headteacher, Mrs Ruth Perry, about the alleged "terror threat".

Following a thorough search of the premises police found nothing suspicious and the school was re-opened yesterday morning.

The school, in Hemdean Road was ranked in the top 200 primary schools in the country in school league tables published by the Department for Education in December 2015.

It was today just one in a line of schools that had been searched by police in the last eight days. Schools in Birmingham, London and Cornwall had to be evacuated on January 26 following bomb threats from hoax callers.

Last week a 14-year-old boy was arrested in Birmingham on suspicion of making a copycat hoax bomb threat amid dozens of similar calls across the country.

A Department for Education spokesman said: "We are aware of the ongoing incident, police are looking into it and we are monitoring the situation.

"Nothing is more important than the safety of our children, where any school is subject to such a threat, real or otherwise, there are clear emergency arrangements in place that have been agreed with police and the local authority.

"We trust schools to follow those."

One parent, who did not want to be named, said: "We were surprised that someone chose to do this to our school. We were more surprised to see police in the playground when we were picking the children up and then again this morning when we took them to school again.

"They must have taken it very seriously.

"The school sent an email out to parents after the school day saying there had been a call, that the police had been informed and the school searched."

Thousands of students had to be evacuated from schools both nationally and internationally as hoax calls spread as far as Paris, Amsterdam and even Tokyo.

It was thought that a Russian Twitter group was responsible for the bomb threats which caused panic to 14 schools in Britain and six in Paris.

According to local reports in the French capital, callers threatened to turn up at schools armed with bombs and guns.

Following the search of Caversham Primary School, a spokesman for Reading Borough Council said: "Police received a call at 2.30am on Wednesday (February 3) claiming a bomb had been left in Caversham Primary School.

"Officers alerted the Headteacher and carried out a thorough search of the school but found nothing suspicious. The school opened as normal on Wednesday morning.

"The matter is being treated as a random hoax call but, as a precaution, all staff at the school were reminded of the bomb threat procedure and were asked to be extra vigilant around the premises."

Members of the public said they had spotted police officers roaming the playground this morning as the ripples of the early morning terror shock continued to spark fear 24 hours later.

Thames Valley Police have so far declined to comment on the Caversham incident despite several requests for information. No-one could be contacted in their media office.