A Hull mum has been left fuming over her 11-year-old daughter’s school work which asked her class to define hardcore pornography as part of their home learning – among other wildly inappropriate topics.
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As reported by Hull Live, children in Years 7, 8 and 9 at Archbishop Sentamu Academy in east Hull were set the work in their Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) class.
Teachers asked the 11 – 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. What the actual fuck?!
Thankfully, another parent got wind of this assignment and put up a Facebook post, alerting all the other mums she knew at the school, including Mrs. Taylor who said that if her daughter had ended up Googling the topics it would have “destroyed her mind” and “scarred her for life”.
The 34-year-old told Hull Live:
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.
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.
Archbishop Sentamu Academy, a religious school funnily enough, has apologised for the offence caused. Academy principal Chay Bell said:
I am genuinely sorry if parents or students have unnecessarily researched any of these phrases and for any offence caused.
I have asked that any future materials of this nature have a clear statement ensuring students and their parents are aware of any potentially sensitive content and will ensure all materials are fully age appropriate.
The PSHE materials that we share with students are produced in line with government guidance, the PSHE Association Programmes of Study and the Sex Education Forum’s definition of Sex Education. They also cover the Equality Act of 2010.
Students were not directed to research these topics themselves on the internet because all the answers to the questions students posed were contained in the teacher-produced materials we shared. Again, I am genuinely sorry for any upset caused at this difficult time.
In line with government guidance?! Surely the government guidelines aren’t suggesting 11 – 14 year olds should be defining hardcore porn, transgender porn, breast ironing and all the rest of it as part of the school curriculum? Jesus, whatever happened to a few awkward lessons of sex ed and then being done with it?
A good reminder in any case to always check out the work that schools set your kids/younger siblings. They’re not always safe in the classroom either – as these traumatised children found out when their teacher showed them the ‘Don’t F*ck With Cats’ documentary as an end of term treat. Whoops.
