A schoolboy told a teacher “as if anybody’s going to stab me” hours before he was knifed to death in his school.

Claire Staniforth was giving evidence at the trial of a 15-year-old boy accused of murdering Harvey Willgoose, also 15, at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, on Feb 3 2025.

Ms Staniforth said Harvey came to see her that morning and was chatting about his grandparents going on holiday, before asking about a lockdown incident in the school five days before.

She told Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday: “He said he wasn’t going to be coming into school because he’d heard there had been a knife.”

The teacher explained that there had been rumours on social media of a knife being involved in an incident on Jan 29 but police had not found a weapon.

Ms Staniforth said: “My reply to Harvey was that I wouldn’t have been at work if somebody had had a knife.

“He said something about being stabbed and put his hands up and said ‘as if anyone’s going to stab me’.”

The teacher said Harvey later spoke to her on the phone from a room where he was working, just before lunch, calling her his “bestie” and telling her he had been talking to a girl from another school.

She said he was laughing as he said: “Don’t tell her anything about me.”

Ms Staniforth said she told him he could come and have his lunch with her “but he never arrived”.

She had grabbed something to eat from the dining hall and had gone back to her office when she was told that Harvey had been stabbed.