St John's Catholic Comprehensive School, in Gravesend

A school has started an investigation after a parent claimed some pupils were accessing pornographic websites on its computers.

Mum-of-three Ngozi Okeke says she is prepared to call in the police if St John’s Comprehensive School, Gravesend, doesn’t put a block on the material.

Head teacher John Stanley (pictured below) said the school, in Rochester Road, is investigating the matter.

Mrs Okeke says she first contacted the Catholic school in January after her son, a pupil in Year 9, told her that students were logging on to gay porn videos.

She said the school told her at the time they were aware of the incident and assured her the necessary blocks would be put in place.

However, Mrs Okeke, of Hillingdon Road, said her son told her that weeks later, pupils were still able to access the offending websites.

“My son was laughing and joking when he first told me but I was shocked that they were able to see such material,” she said.

“I contacted the school and they told me they knew about the incident and were going to block it but my son says it is still happening.”

Mrs Okeke says the children are also playing pranks on each other by using each other’s computers and computer accounts to log on to the images when a pupil leaves their desk.

She said: “I accept that mistakes can happen and children will do such things but surely they must have a system whereby they can automatically stop it.

“I have told them that if it is not solved I will go to the police. At home I have put restrictions on our computer.”

Mrs Okeke emailed the school last week and then alerted the KM Group. She has since been contacted by Mr Stanley. The nurse says he assured her the school will block the offensive material.

“The school said the matter will be investigated and looked into. The kids are all laughing about it but the school should react promptly and acknowledge that what is happening is wrong,” she added.

In a statement, Mr Stanley said the matter was now subject to an internal investigation.

He said Mrs Okeke would be involved in the investigation.

Kent County Council was unable to comment, but it is understood that most secondary schools are responsible for their own web filtering.

A KCC website, called Kent Trust Web, has guidance for internet policies in schools.

A document states: “Any schools installing or managing their own filtering systems and policies must be aware of the responsibility and demand on management time. Thousands of inappropriate sites are created each day and many change URLs to confuse filtering systems.

“It is the senior leadership team’s responsibility to ensure appropriate procedures are in place and all members of staff are suitably trained.”