A quarter of the secondary school timetable will be freed from teaching traditional subjects, in one of the biggest reforms of the curriculum in a generation.

The changes will allow teaching in five-minute bursts or day-long sessions, arranged around themes or projects rather than subjects. Pupils will have more classes in life skills and “contemporary issues”.

Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), said that the changes were needed because teaching methods were not raising standards fast enough.

“Across the Western world, the rate of improvement in educational attainment has slowed down in the past decade. In some countries it has reached a glass ceiling, through which it cannot break,” he said.

“The traditional approach to covering the syllabus has been exhausted. It has delivered all it can; it will work no more.”

Central to the changes is a drive to give teachers more flexibility in the classroom by cutting back on “unnecessary detailed prescription”.

In history, this means that a requirement to teach about Churchill, Hitler and Stalin has been replaced by “the causes and consequences of various conflicts, including the two world wars, the Holocaust and other genocides”.

The Government defended this approach by saying that it would be impossible to teach the Second World War without referring to such significant historical figures. Specifying them in the syllabus would be patronising to teachers, a spokesman said.

In English, students will continue to study Shakespeare and Jane Austen, but will also be taught to correct their English using computer spell-check programmes.

Mr Boston made no apologies for what he described as a “child-centred” approach, which would make it easier for teachers to tailor lessons to the needs of individual children. “In an English class, the teacher might direct some pupils to the works of Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells or Robert Louis Stevenson, while others might be reading Hardy, George Eliot or Chaucer,” he said.

Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said that space was being made in the new curriculum to equip young people with “the personal, learning and thinking skills they will need to succeed in education and in adult life”.

Under this heading come new classes in financial literacy and money management, climate change, cookery and “understanding racial differences”.

Lord Adonis denied that this new emphasis on practical skills would threaten the importance of traditional subjects, insisting that it would “increase engagement and motivation” by making education more relevant to young people.

The new approach would give teachers time to focus on the core elements of learning and knowledge and to help pupils struggling with literacy and numeracy, as well as giving other students extra challenges to stimulate them, he said.

But critics claimed that the emphasis on theme-based teaching could divert schools away from their primary task of imparting knowledge.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, said: “Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th-century British history. His fight against fascism was Britain’s finest hour. Our national story can’t be told without Churchill at the centre.”

Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said that the reforms did not go far enough because subject-based teaching would be retained for the majority of the timetable. This would make it hard for teachers to “meet the differing learning styles and needs of individual children and to personalise their learning”.

There was praise, however, for the reforms from the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, who said that it was time to stop “the massive cramming job” in which pupils are “coerced into swallowing facts and figures”.

He called for the list of prescribed authors on the English syllabus to be changed more often, and welcomed a new focus on education “as a means of discovery”.

On the curriculum

English In place of “English literary heritage”, students will study “stories, poetry and drama drawn from different historical times”. They will no longer have to learn about the Bible, Arthurian legends and the Greek myths. They will, however, have to study the whole text of “at least one play by Shakespeare” and see it in a theatre or act out key scenes. New authors on the curriculum include Bill Bryson, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Meera Syal.

Mathematics Maths should be regarded as “a creative discipline” with an “international” language. Students will cover key concepts including algebra, linear equations, ratios and rounding. They could be taught the maths used in planning a holiday budget, or measuring the home for improvements.

Science Lessons should cover the ethical and moral implications of science as well as the key methods of lab work. Genetic engineering of plants and animals and the use of nuclear energy should be weighed for their ethical implications. Pupils learn about the importance of healthy eating and exercise and “the effects of drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and cannabis on mental and physical health”.

History The requirement to teach by dates (1066 to 1500, 1500 to 1750, 1750 to 1900 and post1900) has gone, replaced by general categories of “British history” and “European and world history”.

Geography The requirement to know the names and locations of countries of the world and their capital cities, as well as the continents and main mountain ranges and rivers is replaced by the study of “the location of places and environments”.

Modern languages Pupils will be able to learn Urdu and Mandarin as well as European languages.

Music Pupils must develop a knowledge of and participate in various musical styles, and show cultural and critical understanding of music.

Physical education Lessons will combine activity with learning how exercise affects fitness and health.

Citizenship Students study how identities are built and learn how migration shapes communities. They must consider how diverse identities in a multicultural society are affected by change.

Art and design As well as developing creative skills, pupils should engage with contemporary art, craft and design by visiting workshops and studios.

Design and technology Product design should include lessons on instances of where a produce may benefit a minority or majority now or in the future.

ICT As well as technical skills, pupils should learn about the impact of ICT through issues such as copyright, plagiarism and privacy of information.

Other Pupils will get an entitlement to cook and be taught how to make simple, healthy meals from basic, fresh ingredients, helping to combat obesity. They will be taught essential financial life skills including investment and trade, personal budgeting, mortgages, interest rates and balancing credit cards.

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