Teacher risks job with Penthouse photos

A series of steamy naked photographs in Australian Penthouse may have cost a young Kiwi primary school teacher her career.

The New Zealand Teachers Council has revealed it is investigating 26-year-old Rachel Whitwell after she appeared in the New Aussie Babes section of the magazine's website professing to love pornography.

The shots show Whitwell kneeling seductively in front of a piano and frolicking in a spa, and quotes the woman, nicknamed "Lexy", as saying: "I am a 26-year-old single school teacher from New Zealand that would love to get into modelling."

"I've written erotic stories for an R-rated magazine and run my own pole dancing studio."

New Zealand's Teachers Council director Peter Lind said an investigation was under way to see whether she should be struck off the teaching register.

But Whitwell, who is taking a break from teaching to spend time with her young daughter, told New Zealand's Sunday News she didn't know what all the fuss was about.

"People will vouch I'm a really good teacher," she told the newspaper.

- AAP