SEVEN-year-olds 'shocked' by Oxford's homeless crisis have piled pressure on city politicians.

While many children in the county sent present requests to the North Pole this month, one class had more important prose on their minds.

Year 3 pupils at Larkrise Primary School wrote to Oxford City Council, urging the authority to open empty buildings to shelter the homeless.

Abrar Alaaeldin, seven, said: "We wrote our letters to the council because homeless people are sleeping on the street and we want to stop this.

"How would you feel if you have no bed to sleep on only the cold, hard street?"

The youngster was among 29 pupils at the East Oxford school, aged seven and eight, who each penned a handwritten letter to the council's chief executive Gordon Mitchell.

One boy wrote: "Dear Gordon, I am writing to inform you about the shocking level of homeless people on the streets.

"I think the empty buildings could tern into a shelter.

"You should open the sheltes from the first Desmber [sic]."

The class project was part of a wider topic on human rights, inspired by young Nobel prize winner and Oxford University student Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls to be given an education in Pakistan.

Gemma Golds, who teaches the class of seven and eight-year-olds, said: "Malala was just one person but she made her voice heard.

"They [the pupils] are just young children but they still could actually make a difference.

"I don't think just me writing would have had much impact."

She said the class discussed the book Malala's Magic Pencil, in which the activist reveals how she used to try to draw her wishes into reality, and many children talked about how they would draw homeless shelters.

The East Oxford resident said she too had been saddened by the growing level of homelessness in the city.

She said: "I was cycling home [recently] and it was bitterly cold, and I must have seen about five homeless people.

"It's then that you really think about what it must actually be like to be in that position.

"I was trying to tell the children that those people are human beings.

"The nicest thing was when a boy came in with his mum, asking where they could volunteer to help."

The teacher took advice from the council's Green Party leader, David Thomas, about a practical measure pupils could encourage the council to take.

In October Mr Thomas told the Oxford Mail he was 'disappointed', after the council's search for suitable empty buildings to house the homeless drew a blank.

It came after the council, which has a gold standard from the National Practitioner Support Service for homelessness prevention, unveiled a raft of new measures to tackle the problem.

In recent nights the temperature has consistently dropped so low that all rough sleepers – of whom it is estimated there are about 100 in Oxford – have been offered emergency accommodation.

The youngsters are currently waiting to receive responses.