MICHAEL HOWARD pledged that Chris Woodhead would rewrite the school timetable under the Tories as head teachers effectively tore up the Government’s education White Paper yesterday.

The Conservative leader said that the former head of Ofsted would slim down the curriculum and rid it of political correctness, as well as bringing rigour back to exams.

Mr Howard is seeking to move the pre-election agenda on to education after successfully diverting attention away from Labour’s school plans last week with his attack on the NHS.

This will continue today with plans for special-needs children that challenge the drive for inclusion in mainstream schools. Conversely, Labour wants to talk about health this week with its “mini-manifesto” for the NHS tomorrow.

Mr Woodhead told The Times that he would want all primary children to be taught to read using phonics and all secondary children to be given a good grasp of the classics of English literature.

The former Ofsted chief, regarded as a scourge of the teaching profession, said: “This would herald a return to curriculum subjects which focus upon the knowledge that most people want their children to be taught. In geography, for example, they want children to learn where capital cities are and spend less time on ecological issues like global warming.”

The Tories are seeking to capitalise on a tough start for Ruth Kelly as Education Secretary after she was jeered by the Secondary Heads’ Association last week.

Mr Howard was helped further by head teachers yesterday, who said they would advise students to study for A levels instead of vocational qualifications if they wanted to go to university.

Speaking less than a fortnight after the Government published its 14-19 proposals, Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads’ Association (SHA), said that the plans had delivered no change and simply affirmed the second-class status of vocational qualifications.

“If universities continue to ask only for A-level grades, we will focus our efforts on getting our students the grades they need. Schools that want breadth for the brighter students will adopt the IB (international baccalaureate) — if they can afford it,” he told the annual conference of SHA members in Brighton yesterday. “Every child matters, we are told, but we now know that those who take A levels matter more than others.”

Mr Ward’s assessment came as an astonishing blow to Ms Kelly, who last month rejected plans for a radical reform of secondary examinations and favoured, instead, a vocational diploma system alongside GCSEs and A levels.

Mr Ward accused the Government of losing its nerve over the diploma recommended by Sir Mike Tomlinson, the former chief inspector of England’s schools, to maintain its credibility with middle-class voters.

He said: “The presumption has to be in the sort of response the Government made to the Tomlinson report, that it was most concerned to maintain its crediblity with the middle classes and less concerned to extend its reach and reach of education into less well-advantaged classes.”

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