June O’Sullivan, chief executive of the Westminster Children’s Society, warned the Government against introducing a prescriptive “tick-box” framework in which the needs of small children are overlooked.

The comments by Ms O’Sullivan, who runs 16 London nurseries, came after the publication this week of the Childcare Bill, which proposed that childminders and nurseries should have a legal duty to teach a new curriculum for children up to 5 known as the Early Years Foundation Stage.

“My real concern is that we will have death by worksheet at 2½,” Ms O’Sullivan said.

“How do you turn out creative thinkers and entrepreneurs if you ask them to act to a worksheet at the age of 2?” Under the proposed change, each childcare provider would be inspected by Ofsted, the schools watchdog, to ensure that pre-school children had mastered skills such as communicating, comparing, categorising and recognising symbols.

Westminster Children’s Society is a charity that offers affordable childcare to about 800 children in the London borough. The children, often from poorer families, attend from six months to five years.

Ms Sullivan’s greatest fear is that the government plan will result in a formalised approach, resulting in less play. At the same time, less competent teachers would be in danger of relying on strict guidelines rather than being led by the mood of the toddlers. “Because everything is so target-focused now, in less-quality groups children could be wrongly taught.”

Deborah Lawson, chairwoman of the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses, said that many nurseries already followed Birth to Three Matters, the guidelines introduced two years ago. She hoped that the new framework would support good practice, but said that a one-size-fits-all curriculum would be almost impossible to implement.

“One child might not learn to walk until 14 months, while another walks at 10 months. So it will be very difficult to have a curriculum that matches all children’s needs,” she said.

In Birth to Three Matters, four areas are defined: heads up, lookers and communicators for nought to 8 months; sitters, standers and explorers for 8 to 18 months; movers, shakers and players for 18 to 24 months; and walkers, talkers and pretenders for 2 to 3 years.

The Early Years Foundation Stage would be “completely age-specific” and based on creativity and imagination, as well as music, dance and play. It would build on an existing system which teaches three-year-olds “mathematical development and communication, language and literacy”, according to the Education Department.

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