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Children are to be taught and tested at their own pace and primary school pupils will study fewer subjects to concentrate more on the basics and a foreign language, under a radical shake-up to be announced tomorrow.

Some of the traditional subjects such as history and geography, or art and music, could be rolled into one, The Times has been told. As well as French and German, primary pupils may get the chance to learn Urdu and Mandarin.

The system of “one size fits all” national curriculum tests taken annually by all 11-year-olds and 14-year-olds will be swept away and replaced by twice-yearly tests pitched at the level of individual children. The changes will come in a ten-year “children’s plan” to be outlined by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, who admitted yesterday that the British system was not yet “world class”.

The aim of the changes will be to ensure that the very bright are continually stretched and the stragglers are given sufficient support. The rigidity of the present national testing system, which challenges schools to ensure that as many as possible reach minimum levels of achievement for their age, will go. Instead a child would take a level four test, for example, not at a given age but when they reach that level.

The new system would allow most pupils to take two shorter tests when they are ready, instead of one longer test fixed at age 11. Pupils could sit their tests either in the summer or the winter, instead of all during one week in May.

The reforms are intended to stop teachers spending too much time drilling pupils to pass the tests because children will only sit the assessments when their teachers believe that they are ready. The results will still be published in tables to show parents and authorities how schools are progressing.

Head teachers welcomed the reform but gave warning that schools would still face too much pressure if the results are used to compile league tables. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “We think the concept of when-ready testing is the right concept. I agree we want to get away from the rigidity of the current system.”

Mr Balls wants to take out “some of the clutter” from the timetable and make the teaching of a language at primary school compulsory. Sir James Rose, who led the review that promoted phonics as the primary way to teach reading, is to head the first “root-and-branch” review of the primary curriculum for ten years.

Mr Balls told BBC 1’s Andrew Marr programme yesterday that the curriculum needed to have “more space for maths and more space for reading and also to make sure that every child is being taught a foreign language in primary school.”

Recent research from Manchester University suggested that around 51 per cent of teaching time is already devoted purely to English and mathematics as teachers drill young children to pass their SATs tests.

The plans respond to concerns that, after ten years of steady improvement, progress in the three ‘r’s at primary school has come to a standstill.

Mr Balls denied that the need for a Children’s Plan after ten years in government was an admission of failure. There had been “a sea-change” under Labour, he insisted, adding: “We are doing better than we were, but it’s not good enough. We aren’t world class.

“I want to move to a much more flexible approach to testing which will take the burdens off children and be better for teachers to track the individual progress of every child.”

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