Police began receiving calls of a shooter at the Covenant School at 10.13am. Officers could hear gunfire coming from the school’s second floor, Don Aaron, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, told reporters.

The shooter had at least two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, Aaron said.

“We do not know who she is at this juncture,” Aaron said.

Three students were pronounced dead after arriving at Monroe Carell Jr Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt with gunshot wounds, John Howser, a hospital spokesperson, said in a statement. Three adult staff members were killed by the shooter, police said.

Students’ parents were told to gather at a nearby church.

The Covenant School, founded in 2001, is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in the Green Hills neighbourhood of Nashville with about 200 students, according to the school’s website. The school serves preschool through 6th graders and held an active shooter training programme in 2022, WTVF-TV reported.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by Tyler Clifford, Rich McKay; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell.)