The number of exams that schoolchildren sit will be cut under a Conservative government, to restore common sense to the testing system, the party’s conference was told yesterday.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, said that a Tory review into the exam system was likely to result in some SATs being scrapped.

The review, headed by Sir Richard Sykes, former rector of Imperial College, was set up after the fiasco over the marking of SATs this summer.

Yesterday the Department for Children, Schools and Families confirmed that this year’s performance tables for England’s primary schools will be published three months late, in March next year.

Mr Gove told representatives at the Conservative conference in Birmingham: “It must be our mission to inject common sense into our examination system so we have fewer, better, more rigorous exams. As the number of tests proliferate, the place of real knowledge in learning is undermined.”

The Tories have already set out plans to replace the Key Stage 1 exam with a reading test.

Plans to make schools that wish to become academies agree to help another underperforming school to qualify for the extra money were also set out by the Conservatives yesterday. Mr Gove, unveiling proposals intended to double the number of academies, said: “We’ll ask every new academy to team up with a school which needs extra support. The innovations pioneered in the best schools will be deployed to drive up standards in the poorest.”

The Government hopes to have some 400 academies running by 2010, but the Tories think their proposals will allow more than 1,000 to open.

Mr Gove pledged to trim the national curriculum but to increase the teaching of British history in schools, and promised to reduce “absurd” health and safety legislation that, he said, prevented pupils from taking part in sports and school trips. Mr Gove also outlined plans to encourage members of the Armed Forces to become teachers and promised free university tuition to veterans.

The Tories announced plans to back members of the public prepared to intervene when they see crimes being committed on the streets. The announcement came after Frank McGarahan, a senior banking executive with Barclays, was murdered as he tried to help a couple being attacked in Norwich. Dominic Grieve, in his first speech to conference as Shadow Home Secretary, said: “We’ll amend the police guidelines so officers back those who use reasonable force to maintain the Queen’s peace.”

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