The Daily Mail appears riled by reports that “thousands of children” are being reported to authorities for using homophobic and racist slurs, and calling each others names like “faggot”.

A Daily Mail article titled “Branded bigots at the age of THREE”, appears to express shock, calling incidents where students have used homophobic language “so-called hate crimes.

It quotes activists from campaign group the Manifesto Club, complaining that the practice of reporting incidents “could have serious consequences for any children labelled as bigots.”

The campaigners complain that schools file the incidents with Local Education Authorities (LEA), and sometimes to Ofsted, but that guidelines no longer require schools to report incidents to LEAs.

It notes that in 13 LEAs, 4,348 incidents were reported.

Surprised that many took place in primary school, and a very small number in nurseries, the Mail report complains: “Records of a child’s ‘prejudice-related’ behaviour can be passed to their next school, potentially casting a shadow over their secondary education.”

One of the listed incidents reads: “Xxx called the supply teacher Jimmy Savile. He told him to go back to Australia, he’s ‘an Australian faggot and a pikey’.”

Another read: “‘There was an argument in the lunch hall which resulted in xxx apparently calling xxx ‘fat’ and xxx ‘gay’. Year Five (age 9/10).”

Others included racial slurs, and using terms such as “gay” and “Somalian”, as derogatory terms.