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The Qualifications & Curriculum Authority says schools should use magazines to engage children, even though some schools have previously banned teenage magazines, claiming they are promoting promiscuity and pressure children to look as good as celebrities.

The guidlines, which will be published on the QCA website later today, advises teachers to use the magazines to help pupils discuss information seen in magazines that are relevant to problems they may encounter.

The list of activities laid out in the paper includes the idea that pupils can construct a problem page for a teenage magazine.

Children will then be given the chance to write a reply to the problems and discuss how the problem could be resolved, and in doing so, show a range of relationship issues that young people experience.

A QCA spokesman said: "Children enjoy and value magazines and they are a talking point among pupils in everyday life. By using this type of resource that children use everyday and looking at them more critically, it will enable teachers to engage pupils in an interesting and engaging way."

The guidelines are designed to help schools to deliver their sex education or Personal, Social and Health Education curriculum. It was put together following consultation with teachers, pupils, parents, faith groups and education officials and organisations.

However, the move represents something of a U-turn. Teenage magazines have long been the subject of criticism about their sexual content.

Earlier this year, publishers of teen magazines in Scotland were fighting proposals that could make it an offence for editors to offer sex advice.

The battle is being led by The Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel, which was set up in 1996 following a bill introduced by the Conservative MP Peter Luff, which would have put parental advisory warnings on the covers of magazines had it succeeded.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers has also been behind a move to call for regulations that would impose age restrictions on magazine covers, making it illegal to sell them to younger readers.

Former Boomtown Rats singer and Live 8 organiser Sir Bob Geldof has also been a well-known campaigner for tighter regulations after slamming teenage girls' magazines for their sexual content.

Speaking in a BBC Two documentary in 2003, titled 'Grumpy Old Men', Geldof questioned the appropriateness of features on sex and sexuality

"Are they any less offensive than a 22-year-old man going to an 11- or 12-year-old girl and saying 'I am going to talk to you about sex and how girls can give blow jobs to men?' If such a conversation happened, you would view it as odd, probably illegal and certainly predatory," Geldof said.

Editors of teenage magazines have defended claims that they promote eating disorders and promiscuity, saying that providing the information is the best form of sex education.

The major publishers have since agreed to a set of guidelines, issued by the TMAP, regarding the way that sexual issues are covered by stating the age of consent, discouraging underage sex and highlighting the emotional consequences of sexual activity.

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