Tributes left at the school gates described the teenager as someone who had been “the life of a party” and who had “brought joy and laughter to everyone who knew him”.

One card read: “Harvey my ‘pal’, gone too soon but won’t be forgotten. Rest in Peace. Bailey and the RE department.”

Parent Luisa Meco said her daughter had known Harvey since nursery and that his death shocked everyone.

“It’s not something you imagine, that your children go to school and then something like this happens,” she said.

“We just don’t understand how it happened, it’s just really shocking, sad, heart-breaking.”

Ms Meco said she was told the school would reopen on Thursday but that her daughter’s return was making her “nervous”.

“We just have to wait and see what happens and see how she’s feeling because I’m going to go on how the children are feeling and not what the school say they want to do,” she said.