School slammed after asking students to list 'pros' for slavery as homework

Parents are outraged after a UK secondary school asked its pupils to list the "pros and cons" of slavery for homework. Photo / Getty Images

Parents are outraged after a UK secondary school asked its pupils to list the "pros and cons" of slavery for homework.

The exercise was given to Year 11 pupils aged between 15 and 16 by a history teacher at Hazeley in Milton Keynes to highlight the possible motivations for slavery, showing how plantations were motivated by profitability.

However, one parent has hit out at the school, saying the homework was "racist inappropriate and offensive".

Parent Sabrina Aries immediately raised the issue with the school's head teacher. She received a response apologising "for any upset caused by the homework".

"The response from the school was that they're sorry, there hadn't been an intention to offend anybody and the teachers were going to have a conversation with the students in class about why the wording was incorrect and why it needed to be addressed," Aries told the Huffington Post.

"I don't feel that, individually, any of those teachers meant to cause offence. But I also think that, as a majority white staff, they do not consider history from any other perspective.

"To me, if they re-educate the children appropriately then I don't have an issue with the fact that there was a mistake made. The fact that the mistake has not been rectified is an issue to me. This is an ongoing problem that I have with this school."

The school has since changed the term "pros and cons" to "reasons why Britain chose to develop plantations" and "why slavery shouldn't exist".

"In no way where we trying to encourage, celebrate or praise slavery and therefore we have amended the language in this homework," the school said in a statement.

"We stress throughout the lessons on this topic that we do not see this as a positive part of history and that it was one of Britain's most shameful acts."