Schools are working to tackle the dangers of underage sexting after dozens of incidents in Kent - including one involving a child as young as nine.

Sending an explicit picture of a child or a teenager, even if the sender themselves is underage, is illegal and can lead to prosecution.

This year, Kent Police recorded 57 underage sexting offences. The majority of the incidents involved 13 to 14-year-olds, but the youngest child caught sending an explicit message was just nine years old.

Video: Robert Napier School tackles dangers of sexting

The NSPCC defines sexting as people "sharing sexual, naked or semi-naked images or videos of themselves or others, or sending sexually explicit messages".

Schools including The Robert Napier School in Third Avenue, Gillingham are trying to tackle the issues around underage sexting in a unique way.

They have been working closely with Kent Police to raise awareness by having pupils write and perform a play about the dangers.

Rob Leadbetter, assistant head teacher, said: "Over the last few years sexting has become a real problem with young people.

"So we’ve taken the stand that we need to make sure they are really well informed of the dangers."

Anyone who has or passes on indecent images of someone under 18 is breaking the law but encouraging someone to take or send "sexts" can also be illegal.

Another concern is that the pictures could get into the wrong hands, especially if they are posted online.

Claire Cobb, head drama teacher, said: "By the time the police are involved it’s already too late, they don’t have the resources to go into every school and do assemblies every day on all the different issues. This is a way for them to have a big impact in the community.

"It shocks me that it’s happening so young, but in the current climate it’s not surprising.

"It’s happening younger, children have phones and they’re in a school with children of all ages, they’ve got brothers and sisters so it filters down a lot younger than we would probably be aware of.

"I think there are other schools who are afraid to admit it happens, they perhaps don’t want to tackle it in such an open way.

"It’s very open here, everything is talked about and I think that helps students because they don’t feel like they’ve got to hide anything."

The play was devised by 16 to 18-year-old pupils with the help of Kent Police.

Officers went into the school to watch the rehearsals and gave the pupils feedback and guidance to ensure that all the facts and legal aspects of the piece were correct.

As well as exposing how peer-pressure can affect their attitude to sexting, it was designed to highlight how sending naked or semi-naked pictures could affect their lives as well as their peers’.

The collaboration started seven years ago and since then, the drama group has tackled hard-hitting subjects like knife crime and female genital mutilation (FGM).

The plays were also recorded and sent to other schools to raise further awareness.

Drama teacher Fran Humphreys said: "It’s very easy for young people to switch off during a performance if there are a lot of words so we try and make our pieces as visual as possible.

"And we have that educational aspect as well as the engagement with the audience."

Sam Bending, 18, is one of the students who wrote and performed in the play.

He said: "I don’t think people really understand at all, they don’t think it would happen to them and then a few weeks later it does.

"We want to raise awareness and make sure that people completely understand.

"Obviously we can’t stop people but maybe we can make them stop and think."