Parents express outrage as children as young as 11 are asked to 'define hardcore pornography'

A number of parents have expressed outrage after their children, as young as 11 years old, were asked by their school to define hardcore pornography and other “inappropriate” topics.

Youngsters in years 7, 8 and 9 were given the schoolwork for their Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) class, as part of their home-learning during the coronavirus school shut down.

Teachers at Archbishop Sentamu Academy in east Hull asked the 11 to 14-year-olds to “define” pornography, soft pornography, hardcore pornography and transsexual pornography, as well as female genital mutilation, wet dreams, trafficking, male circumcision, breast ironing and more.

They were also asked questions about alcohol, drugs and smoking.

Following complaints from parents, the academy has now apologised for any offence caused.

A mother who saw her 11-year-old daughter’s homework was so upset that she complained about it.

Mum-of-three Mrs Taylor said if her daughter had searched these phrases online in order to define them, the results would have “destroyed her mind” and “scarred her for life”.

Mrs Taylor, who has children aged 7, 11 and 16, was warned about the work in a Facebook post by another parent before her daughter began working on it.

The 34-year-old said: “My daughter is still very much a child, we’ve still got magic elves, her bedroom is done in My Little Pony. She is very innocent and naive.

“She was only in primary school last year living her best life, now she is being asked to search for hardcore pornography.

“She’s 11, she should be doing stranger danger, and don’t share your info online, but genital mutilation is another thing. It was asking about male circumcision, breast ironing…I don’t even know what that is myself.

“I’m just thinking is there kids out there who have done this work? You would be scared at what you saw. At 11 I was playing with Barbies.

“Now it’s making me think what they are learning about at school that we don’t know about. We only know about this because they’re home learning.”

Mrs Taylor said some of the work was acceptable, and encourages learning about sexuality, but said a lot of the work was “completely inappropriate.”

Other parents and carers said they felt the same and were equally “disgusted”.