Parents shocked after 12-year-olds told to research James Bulger murder for homework: 'Will have nightmares'
A dad is worrying that his 12-year-old son may "have nightmares" after a homework project required students to research the disturbing murder of little James Bulger.
Eighth-grade students at Cooper School in Bicester, Oxfordshire, were asked to read about the violent 1993 murder, which saw two 10-year-old boys — Robert Thompson and Jon Venables — kidnap, torture, and murder the two-year-old boy, The Sun reports.
The pupils were allegedly asked to do homework on the case to prepare for a religious education class on good and evil, parents claimed.
Embattled father Rob Gregg took to Twitter and shared a photo of the homework slip his son received at the Oxford co-educational secondary school.
"Cooper School Bicester asking their Year 8 students to research this," he tweeted alongside the picture. "WTF, my boy will have nightmares for weeks now."
The assignment, due to be submitted by February 5, asks students to "make sure you look at respectable websites such as the BBC and newspapers to 'avoid inappropriate material.'"
That said, Cooper School appeared to have known that the unusual homework could bewilder parents and therefore attached a warning note alongside the homework slip.
"Please can we assure you that the covering of the James Bulger case was a very carefully considered decision," it read. "We are currently studying Good and Evil in Year 8 and, within this considering the problem of evil. Full harrowing specifics of the case are not necessary and will not be covered."
While parents were instructed to contact the school directly if they had any concerns, several took to social media to express their outrage.
"My daughter is Year 8 at Cooper and it was my comment that I have no problem with her doing this," one mother commented on a Bicester residents' Facebook page. "She is mature and level-headed, not easily scared or upset and rather analytical with facts." "Once they get to a certain age you can't wrap them up in cotton wool and protect them from the world," she added.
The worried parent later added that the school had "pulled" the homework.
Another parent called the assignment a "disgrace."
"In all my 20 years compiling class packs and lesson resources for years 7 - 14 I have never seen anything so out of order!" they wrote.
However, some users appeared to be okay with the homework.
"We studied this in Year 8 - of anything it made me more aware of the dangers out there but never traumatized me in any way," wrote one former Cooper student, who is now aged 32.
The abduction of James Bulger from the Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, and subsequent murder sent shockwaves across Britain in the mid-90s.