Students at boarding schools across the country are heading home early to farms and outback cattle stations amid uncertainty over the coronavirus outbreak.

Key points: Worried parents are bringing children home to stations and remote communities

Worried parents are bringing children home to stations and remote communities Some boarding schools have decided to close and conduct classes online

Some boarding schools have decided to close and conduct classes online Concerns raised about the NBN's ability to handle demand of online classes

A growing number of schools have announced plans to send students home, while some parents have opted to remove their kids from school.

Anna and Jay Gook, from Huckitta Station, about 280km north-east of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, decided to bring daughter Georgie back from boarding school on the Gold Coast.

"It's not been an easy decision, but we've made it and we're happier for it," she said.

Ms Gook said that, with rapidly changing advice about the coronavirus outbreak, she and her husband were unsure if they were doing the right thing but several factors swung the decision.

Georgie's school was not able to quarantine boarders in the event of a shutdown.

And with airlines slashing flight routes and regional airlines under threat, parents faced the risk of their children not being able to fly home.

"We don't have any family or close friends out there [on the Gold Coast] who would be able to take Georgie in," Ms Gook said.

"A lot of us are not in the house listening to the radio during the day . . . if we came home in the evening to find out we couldn't fly our children home the next day, we'd be in trouble.

"If we had to drive it'd be a 6,000 or 7,000-kilometre round trip . . . it'd be a week or more."

Yirara College in Alice Springs has started sending all its boarding students back to their homes in remote Indigenous communities. ( Supplied: Yirara College )

Yirara College, a boarding school for Indigenous students from remote communities, and St Phillips College, both in Alice Springs, started sending students home this week.

On Wednesday, Queensland's largest boarding school, Toowoomba Grammar, announced it would shut its doors to day students and boarders on Wednesday 25th March.

Headmaster Peter Hauser said classes would continue online.

"The boarding parents will welcome having their sons back home and their lessons are being conducted as they would normally," Mr Hauser said.

"So educationally they are not being disadvantaged in any way. We see this as forward thinking and innovative."

'Travel will become harder'

According to Australian Boarding School Association (ASBA) CEO Richard Stokes, the number of children being taken out of boarding schools was rising by the day.

"I think as time goes on and more information comes out and people realise that travel to distant areas is going to become harder, more and more people are thinking let's [bring our kids home] now rather than later," he said.

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Mr Stokes said there were still plenty of unknowns about the spread of coronavirus and the best thing parents could do was contact schools.

"They know their students better than anybody else and so they'll be able to support families very clearly."

Concerns NBN will not cope

With so many boarders leaving school and getting ready to start classes online, concerns have been raised about the NBN's ability to meet demand.

"[NBN Co] are really conscious about our rural and remote families and about making sure SkyMuster Plus is available for our private and independent school kids because up until now, that has not necessarily been the case," Mr Stokes said.

"So they have asked for me to collate some information about what schools are using so that we can make sure that the right things are available for them."

Families, meanwhile are hoping for the best, said Ms Gook.

"I definitely think there will be an issue with data and families will be looking for extra data from their internet service providers," Ms Gook said.

"I hope we have enough data for one child, let alone two or three or even four children coming home to do their lessons online."

ABSA has been consulting NBN Co to make sure remote students can access enough data to complete schoolwork.

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