Teachers blame Life On Mars for homophobic bullying

But teachers fear that schoolchildren fail to realise that it's supposed to be a joke.

They warn that it risks encouraging sexist and homophobic bullying in schools.

Scroll down for more ...

The award-winning show, set in the early 1970s, features a team of Manchester policemen led by Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt, who appears to revel in such crass abuse as "fairy boy", "bender", "spastic" and "Paki".

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, warned that youngsters take the insults at face value.

She told the union's annual conference in Belfast: "If you've got abusive terms like 'fairy boy', that is particularly worrying in a context where our evidence is showing that one of the factors which causes young people to consider suicide is the fact that in schools they are subject to homophobic bullying.

"There is still a prevalence of homophobic bullying, bullying people on the basis of their body image, and that's not taken as seriously as if you have racist bullying where everybody now, by and large, responds very severely.

"There is still an idea that, 'Well, this is only a bit of fun', or 'That's what school is like'.

"Those programmes in that context could have a detrimental impact.

"I don't think it's an issue of saying, take the programme off air. It's an issue of saying, 'What are we doing as a society to make sure that when young people see that kind of material they know that it's not acceptable behaviour'.

"Clearly schools do have an important role to play in that but also so do parents.

"Also there is a responsibility in the media to make sure those kind of programmes aren't in the majority.

"I would hope children realise it is entertainment and not an appropriate way to behave.

"I would never argue there should not be a programme like Life on Mars but we have got to make sure that in our schools and in the home the message is getting to children, and these comments are put in context." Some 7.7million viewers saw the final episode of Life on Mars, screened on Tuesday. The BBC has already announced a sequel to the series in which DCI Hunt moves to London in the 1980s.

The show was Bafta-nominated and won an International Emmy.

It has been a critical success and is seen as an affectionate tribute to the 1970s. But Mrs Keates claimed thousands of lives were "ruined" in that era because people were poorly treated and "devalued".

"Women couldn't get jobs, they couldn't get promotion. People who were gay were being verbally abused. It was actually an era where life was extremely unpleasant for a large number of people."

Her warning came as the union released a survey showing that teachers were suffering alarming levels of sexist, homophobic and racist bullying at school.

Most insults came from pupils but 20 per cent of incidents were perpetrated by heads of department and 14 per cent by fellow rank-and-file teachers.

In all, two thirds of the 5,000 respondents had suffered workplace bullying during the past two years.

A spokesman for the BBC said: "The character of DCI Gene Hunt in Life On Mars is an extreme, tongue - in - cheek take on a stereotypical 1970s "bloke" and the audience revel in his abrasive and direct approach to his job and life in general.

"Life On Mars is a postwatershed production, aimed at an adult audience. However, as with many dramatisations, we do not condone the actions of many of our fictional characters."