Children as young as three are being branded racists, homophobes and bigots over playground taunts.

Thousands of pupils are being reported for so-called hate crimes after using innocuous words such as ‘Chinese boy’, ‘Somalian’ or ‘gay’.

Teachers also log insults like ‘doughnut’ and ‘fat bucket of KFC’. Even calling a pupil a ‘girl’ can be classified as abuse.

Scroll down for video

Children as young as three are being branded racists, homophobes and bigots over playground taunts (file picture)

Schools file the incidents for local education authorities. The details are also passed to Ofsted inspectors who are required to assess how teachers deal with bullying.

Records of a child’s ‘prejudice-related’ behaviour can be passed to their next school, potentially casting a shadow over their secondary education.

Alleged offences by more than 4,000 pupils were logged in just 13 council areas – meaning the national total may stretch into the tens of thousands.

Civil liberties campaigners warned the practice could have serious consequences for any children labelled as bigots.

Josie Appleton, of the Manifesto Club, a civil liberties group, said: ‘Particularly worrying is the expansion of incident recording and reporting to ever-greater categories of prejudice, which seem limited only by the strange imagination of education officials.

‘One primary school pupil calling another a girl suddenly becomes a sign of gender image prejudice, subjected to recording requirements more thorough than accompanying most burglaries. A reality check is urgently required.’

The reporting of racist incidents in schools became recommended practice for local education authorities across the country under Labour.

The Coalition government made clear that schools were no longer under obligation to submit these reports to LEAs and should exercise their own judgment in deciding whether to record.

Thousands of pupils are being reported for so-called hate crimes after using innocuous words such as ‘Chinese boy’, ‘Somalian’ or ‘gay’ (file picture)

However, data published by the Manifesto Club – and gained under the Freedom of Information Act – shows that reporting and recording has continued and in some cases has been expanded.

The 30 LEAs who recorded the most abuse under Labour were surveyed and 13 continue to collect racist incident reports from schools and six have expanded their recording to include a broader range of ‘prejudice-related’ bullying.

The majority say they ask, recommend or encourage schools to keep their own records.

In 2012-13 – the latest available statistics – 4,348 incidents were reported to the 13 LEAs.

Of the 1,909 incidents where the age of children involved was specified, over half were in primary schools and astonishingly, four were in nursery schools.

In one case, at a Brighton school nursery, a child aged three or four was the subject of an incident report and given counselling.

Looking at pictures of people with different eye colours he had said ‘yuk not black’ and discarded all the black faces.

'XXX CALLED A TEACHER JIMMY SAVILE': EXAMPLES LOGGED BY SCHOOLS ‘Children in the playground had been calling her son “Chinese boy”. A child in Year Two (ages 6/7), Brighton ‘Xxx was heard calling xxx “black” and “chocolate bar”. A Year Three child (ages 7/8), Brighton ‘Xxx called xxx an African rat, and xxx a rat. Xxx said “I know I shouldn’t have called it her because I’m black as well”.’ Birmingham Xxx called the supply teacher Jimmy Savile. He told him to go back to Australia, he’s an Australian faggot and a pikey. Xxx then said to xxx he’s Savile and he rapes babies.’ Brighton ‘Xxx was asked by xxx why we wear sun cream. He replied “Muslims and Catholics wear sun cream so we don’t look like xxx”.’ Brighton ‘Xxx called xxx a monkey. Xxx responded by saying xxx was fat.’ Brighton ‘Xxx called xxx “Egyptian bitch”.’ Birmingham ‘There was an argument in the lunch hall which resulted in xxx apparently calling xxx “fat” and xxx “gay”.’ Year Five (age 9/10) Brighton ‘Xxx was called “doughnut”, “fat bucket of KFC”, “fat custard cream” repeatedly.’ Girl victim aged 9/10, Brighton ‘Xxx called them both retards.’ Brighton Advertisement

In a primary school in the same city, a group of Year Two children (ages six/seven) were hauled in before their headteacher after a mother had complained they had called her son ‘Chinese boy’ at playtime because they did not know his name.

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: ‘We ask schools to record and share details of bullying by type, without identifying the children or young people involved.

‘This helps tackle bullying in the most appropriate way and to develop assemblies or programmes about specific issues if required.

‘Recording types and rates of bullying and prejudiced-based incidents is good practice for schools and is data that Ofsted is interested in.’

Adrian Hart, who analysed the data for the Manifesto Club, said it was ‘highly likely that thousands of incidents are being logged by schools across the country, regardless of whether their LEAs are requiring them to submit data or not’.

Of the 13 Brighton primary schools he surveyed, five said they would attach incidents of prejudice-related bullying to the child’s reports submitted to the next school.

Birmingham City Council has stopped asking schools to submit the data, but some schools are continuing to collect it internally.