A teacher in the US has gone the extra mile to stop one of her students being bullied by cutting off her own hair.

Shannon Grimm had noticed that five-year-old Prisilla Perez had been “really sad and depressed at school because friends think she looks like a boy” because of her short hair.

So the teacher from Texas decided to chop off her waist-length brown hair to match her student’s.

And she even reportedly bought matching bows for her and Prisilla to wear together at Meador Elementary School, north of Houston.

“My students in my classroom are like my children, I love them so much, and when they come to school upset and sad because of the way they look, that destroys me as their teacher,” Ms Grimm said in a video posted on Facebook.

“What better way to show them that you can look any way and still be true to yourself, and that you can be whoever you want, it doesn’t matter what you look like, than to cut my own hair?

“I want my students to know and [I want] to teach them, whether it’s things that they academically need to know or just in life. This is just one of those things…I can teach them and myself a lesson about life: that they are beautiful no matter what they look like, no matter what haircut they have.”

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The gesture has prompted an outpouring of support, with social-media users hailing Ms Grimm as a “real-life hero”.

Prisilla has been overjoyed at her teacher’s decision and even gave her a medal in thanks at a school board meeting.

Before, she told CNN, she “would cry because I think that school was not fun”.

Ms Grimm said in the video that she missed her long hair and felt self-conscious when she went out in public shopping.

Even her own son, Lucas, had told her she “looked like a boy” after she had had the chop.

But she said it was worth it so she could understand what Prisilla was going through and make her feel better about her appearance.

“I don’t want my students to ever, ever feel like their confidence is down, that they don’t want to come to school because of the way people look at them,” she said.

“Sometimes as a teacher you have to live through what your students are going through, and you have to teach them and show them that you are there for them.”