Britain’s leading independent schools are preparing to abandon the national curriculum because recent Government reforms place too much emphasis on “fashionable causes”.

They intend to return to a traditional core of knowledge popular in the 1950s – spending more time on spelling, multiplication tables and key historical dates. This could be at the expense of lessons on softer subjects such as parenting skills, obesity, citizenship and homophobia.

Michael Spinney, chairman of the Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS), said: “The national curriculum is in a number of respects being overwhelmed by a social agenda that has accompanied it. That social agenda is not something that we want to get sucked into.”

Mr Spinney and the other main associations representing independent schools are discussing whether their members should move away from the national curriculum. They are not obliged to follow it.

Thousands of privately educated children could soon be following an alternative curriculum to that offered to state school children. However, it would not be so radically different as to prevent them from taking GCSEs.

There is concern among independent school headteachers about the Government’s “tinkering” with the curriculum for children aged 11 to 14. A quarter of lesson time will be freed from traditional subjects so that pupils can learn about life skills, financial literacy, racial issues and other contemporary subjects. IAPS represents most of the country’s prep schools, with more than 600 members.

Mr Spinney said: “Increasingly, we are living in an era where teaching and learning are sacrificed in favour of fashionable causes, often with disastrous effects upon standards of learning. The time has come to set up an independent schools committee to analyse the national curriculum.

“The Government is increasingly putting a social agenda into the equation. It has an issue about multicultural society and subjects such as slavery. What we’re interested in is knowledge, rigour and fundamental skills. The curriculum has to be flexible and relevant to the needs of children, so we have to go back to the content. We want to have a debate with the other independent school associations on where the curriculum is going.”

Mr Spinney said that parents wanted a return to “old standards of education” and for their children to become employable. Last week he met members of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses Conference (HMC), which represents 250 of the most elite schools, and the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA), to discuss the issue. He told the conference of the GSA yesterday that the consultation would probably take a year.

Bernard Trafford, chairman of the HMC, said: “We should use our independence. The curriculum has lessons in citizenship, sex education. Health and safety will be next. It’s just crazy, schools are being looked upon to solve society’s ills. If they spent all their time on that then there would be complaints that we weren’t educating children properly.”

Pat Langham, president of the GSA, said: “Some national curriculum initiatives have been like a roller-coaster and state schools are trapped in the cars, hurtling towards measurement. We aren’t. Although I would rather be working alongside state schools, we are interested in the proposals.”

She added that personal, social and health education used to be taught as part of the and ethos of the school rather than in lesson time.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “A curriculum which reflects the world in which we live helps to engage children in learning and give them the knowledge they need to succeed, but it does not follow that teaching and learning is less academically rigorous.”

Private schools will be encouraged to forge partnerships with state schools in deprived areas to help gifted children to get to university. Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said that £4 million funding would be available for joint projects that focused on maths, science and modern languages.

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