Can you write oath of allegiance?

The Government sparked a row with teachers today after a proposal for schoolchildren to take part in American-style pledges alongside the British flag was condemned as "half-baked" and "un-British".

Lord Goldsmith, the peer charged with carrying out a review for Gordon Brown, suggested children take oaths of allegiance to mark accession from being a student to becoming a UK citizen - an idea which appears similar to that held in America, where children stand at attention to the US flag with their right hand over the heart.

The peer also indicated that a special British "national day" should be established by 2012, when London hosts the Olympic Games. He also called for verses of God Save the Queen to be scrapped, and outdated treason laws reformed.

However, plans for school pledges caused an immediate backlash from head teachers, the Scottish government - which has its own education powers - and a leading Liberal Democrat peer.

"This is a half-baked idea, which should be allowed quietly to go mouldy," John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said.

"Schools will reject it as an un-British idea imported from America, which does not fit into their ethos or culture.

"Schools already have their own rituals and annual ceremonies. School leaders will also reject the idea that this ceremony should mark the graduation from school to citizenship. Schools want children to become good citizens long before they leave."

The plans were also greeted with a hostile response in Scotland, which has its own education powers. "We don’t support it and neither do the vast majority of parents, teachers and children in Scotland," Jim Mather, the Scottish Enterprise Minister, said.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, a Liberal Democrat peer, also condemned the idea, saying: "I just think the symbols of a healthy democracy are not to be found in empty gestures and I’m afraid I see this as an empty gesture."

Lord Goldsmith had claimed that a ceremony could mark the accession of a student from child to adult.

"The research does tend to show that there has been a diminution in national pride in the sense of belonging and it is a particularly generational thing," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "The citizenship ceremonies ... are a way of marking that passage from being a student of citizenship to being a citizen in practice."

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