Using emojis to teach Shakespeare will lead to state school children falling behind their privately-educated peers, a headteacher has warned.

A number of teachers are using the icons and cartoon faces as learning aids, believing that they can help pupils connect with English literature and other subjects.

Students at one college have been asked to summarise scenes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream using emojis, the Times Education Supplement (TES) reported.

But Clare Sealy, headteacher of St Matthias School in Bethnal Green, east London, criticised the method.

She said: “As educators, we have not a single minute to waste teaching trivia, such as emojis.

“How will such learning help bridge the word gap? How can we help disadvantaged children gain the sorts of powerful knowledge that children in, say, the top public schools have? Not by devoting precious curriculum time to the detritus of youth sub-culture. That would be fiddling while Rome burns.”

Charlotte Hodgson, who teaches English at Avonbourne College in Bournemouth, said that everyone in her department uses emojis and they have helped her students to engage with Shakespeare.

“I’ve just taught A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, when we’ve read a bit of the scene, they summarise it in two main emojis and then have to explain it,” she said.