Elementary students assigned elf murder case

When eight- and nine-year-old students at Hyde England's Flowery Field Elementary School walked into class last week, they were confronted with a crime scene. Behind the police tape was chalk outline of an elfin figure and a desk smeared with blood. Their assignment? Solve the mystery of the murdered elf. Apparently it was a writing exercise. And surprise! Some parents were pissed.

"My daughter came home and she was absolutely traumatized," one parent said. "I'm not the only parent who felt like that. A lot of the kids in Year 4 were unsettled by it."

Apparently, that did not discourage head teacher Ian Fell who encouraged the students to continue their detective work.

"I have been a teacher for 30 years and this is, in my judgement, an appropriate, engaging and exciting thing that children aged eight and nine have done," Fell said. "They have been so up for it."

(UPI and Manchester Evening News)