A Sussex school has been accused of encouraging discrimination over an exhibition of pupils' work on witchcraft for a history project.

Pupils at Kings Manor Community College in Shoreham put together the display for a history project highlighting 17th Century attitudes to witches.

But some of the paintings, captioned with entreaties to "burn the witch" or "prick the witch with a needle and get £1", aroused concerns for visitors to the school.

Theology graduate Pauline Charles said the 17th Century attitudes had no place in a 21st Century classroom.

She saw the exhibition when she went to an adult education workshop at the college and was shocked the paintings were stereotypical images of old women with bulbous noses and tall hats.

She said: "I was horrified schoolchildren should be encouraged to discriminate in this way.

"I have a degree in theology and I learnt about this history of witchcraft as part of my course.

"In fact, a well-known witch from Brighton was one of the other students in my year.

"We know from history these women were harmless. Some were midwives and others were healers.

"If they were disabled, deformed or living on their own they were often made scapegoats for natural events which went wrong."

Mrs Charles, of Fairfield Close, Shoreham, said: "My point is if Kings Manor displayed pictures saying find a Jew, Muslim or black person and get £1 it would quite rightly be reported as being racist and discriminating.

"So why is it allowed to offer £1 to find a witch? I objected to school staff about the pictures and wrote to the head.

"I have had a reply back, which said the school teaches its students about all religions."

Acting headteacher Brian Creese said: "I was really surprised anyone could think we would discriminate against witches or any other section of society.

"This was a history project which encouraged students to put themselves in the places of people who lived in the 17th Century.

"Some of the paintings are in the form of newspaper adverts looking for people to hunt witches, which might have appeared at the time.

"Mrs Charles saw these when she came to a seminar. We were quite shocked someone could mistake the intention of the paintings so badly.

"We have written to her explaining why the work was on display and to tell her we teach our children to be tolerant of all sections of society regardless of race, colour or creed."

White witch Marina Pepper, from Saltdean, who is standing as a Liberal Democrat councillor in May's local elections, said: "Many women, men and even cats were accused of being witches and killed because of it.

"It sounds very much like this was a proper history project to me. I would be intrigued to see the paintings. I am sure the students will have learnt from it that religious fundamentalism in any form is wrong."