Education at primaries 'is deficient'

Children's lives are being impoverished by an education that is "fundamentally deficient", a major inquiry concluded today.

It argues their entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum has been eroded by a fixation on standards in the basics of literacy and numeracy. Subjects such as history, geography, the arts and science have been "squeezed out".

While there is a need for a national curriculum, currently it is seen as "overcrowded, unmanageable and in certain respects inappropriately conceived".

The interim report on the primary curriculum is part of the Cambridge University-based Primary Review - the biggest such inquiry in 40 years.

The report also addresses the issue of testing, noting that in Year 6 especially, the final year of primary school, "breadth competes with the much narrower scope of what is to be tested".

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "To say our children are receiving a deficient education is insulting to hard working pupils and teachers everywhere and flies in the face of international evidence."