Give porno danger classes to Brit kids as young as FIVE - parents
Sex ed must cover web smut, families tell heads
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Schoolteachers should warn British children as young as five about the "dangers" of finding pornography online, say families.
The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) asked parents to suggest what schools should be doing to protect kids from smutty websites: nearly half (42 per cent) of 1,009 respondents believed children needed guidance as soon as they start using the internet.
And 51 per cent of parents said that such lessons should be introduced when the youngsters become teenagers.
However, the survey showed a clear consensus for bringing pornography into sex education in schools. More than eight out of 10 (83 per cent) of respondents called on teachers and parents to together provide advice and warnings on XXX-rated material.
The independent research commissioned by the NAHT noted that the policy of blocking pornographic websites from UK internet connections by default scored highly in the survey: 90 per cent of parents backed the idea that netizens should be required to opt-in to view skin flicks on "all equipment that offers internet access".
“NAHT has been working with a number of agencies for some time to address concerns raised by our members on how they can help pupils deal with the modern phenomenon of easy access to graphic images and content," said the organisation's general secretary Russell Hobby.
"NAHT has repeatedly said that young people must be protected from pornography and children should receive appropriate guidance as part of relationship and sex education. We would also like to see improved advice for schools to help them manage these issues most effectively."
Hobby claimed that young people were too readily exposed to pornography because of the amount of material found "on the internet and phones".
The organisation - whose members heckled Education Secretary Michael Gove at the NAHT's annual conference in Birmingham at the weekend - claimed late last week that computers, mobile phones and fondleslabs served as a "digital dummy" for parents to pacify their kids.
Separately, a Private Members' Bill was reintroduced into Parliament on 14 May by Baroness Howe of Idlicote. It reads:
A Bill to make provision about the promotion of online safety, to require internet service providers and mobile phone operators to provide a service that excludes adult content, to require electronic device manufacturers to provide a means of filtering content, and for parents to be educated about online safety.
At present, the government has stopped short of calling on ISPs to automatically block supposedly controversial content at a network-level.
Prime Minister David Cameron told British families in late 2012 that they would be nudged by telcos to consider blocking online pornography, self-harm websites and similar material as part of the industry's Active Choice voluntary code. But ultimately - for the time being - parents get to decide what content should be censored in their own homes. ®
