Keeping boys and girls apart at school protects their innocence and stops them needing such 'graphic' sex education, says Eton headmaster

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Keeping boys and girls apart at school allows them to keep their ‘innocence’ for much longer, the headmaster of Eton has claimed.

Tony Little said children today needed ‘pretty graphic’ sex education from just nine years old because of the pressures they encounter day-to-day.

But he claimed that children are able to ‘be themselves’ until way into their teens if they are kept apart from the other sex.

Eton headmaster Tony Little said children today needed ‘pretty graphic’ sex education from just nine years old because of the pressures of mixed-sex education

Speaking at an education summit in Dubai, Mr Little said: ‘What does strike me is that in a single-sex environment, particularly at the age of 13, 14, 15, there is an opportunity for both boys and girls to be themselves for longer. To be 'boyish' for longer, to be young girls.

‘One of the real challenges we face as parents and particularly in schools, and this has accelerated in the last few years, is the growing apparent sophistication of children at a younger age.

‘The need even at the age of nine now, pretty graphic sex education because of the pressures that are being put on girls particularly, from the age 11 and upwards.’

Eton - the exclusive boarding school attended by David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Prince Harry and the Duke of Cambridge - is an all-boys school which costs £30,000-a-year to attend

Mr Little, who is due to step down this summer as Eton’s headmaster, said it was a ‘sad thing’ that sex education is now needed.

After 13 years in the post, Mr Little is due to become chief education officer of the GEMS Education network of schools in Europe, the US and Africa.

He told the Global Education and Skills Forum: ‘I guess what I'm saying is in a single sex environment, you can allow innocence to last a little longer.’

The head master claimed single sex schools like his ‘remove some of the pressures’ from children around sex and relationships.

He said: ‘There are ways of talking about emotional development and about sexuality with single-gender groups, that oddly, and perhaps perversely, can get you further than in co-ed groups.’

But another headteacher – David Goodhew of the mixed sex private school Latymer Upper School – dismissed the claims.

Mr Goodhew, who taught in Eton in the late 1990s, said teaching boys and girls together teaches children to ‘see each other as friends and “real people” rather than fantasy figures from the internet or magazines’.

He said: ‘Pupils at co-educational schools spend remarkably little time chasing each other romantically, and quite a lot of time studying hard and excelling in a variety of extra-curricular activities.’

Last month the Commons Education Select Committee said primary school children should be taught about sex and relationships because of new dangers posed by the internet.

MPs on the influential committee said sex education should be made a legal requirement in all schools to equip pupils for life in today’s society.

In a report, the cross-party group pointed out that children are at a growing risk of harm because of new pressures including sexting, online porn and cyberbullying.

They also noted that while many children begin puberty at an early age, some primary schools were only teaching pupils about it at the age of 11.

Under the current system, primary schools do not have to provide sex and relationships education (SRE) beyond what is covered in the science curriculum.

The select committee’s proposals would mean primary schools across the UK would be legally required to provide sex education to all pupils. While the committee did not specify an age at which sex education should start, it could in theory begin at five under their proposals.