Teachers ‘becoming robots’ says adviser

John McIntosh suggested that teachers are working “slavishly” to the demands of the national curriculum and league tables. As a result, pupils are being taught “facts” out of context, just to enable them to pass exams.

Mr McIntosh was headteacher of the London Oratory School, which was attended by two of Tony Blair’s sons.

He sits on the advisory committee for the Government’s national curriculum review.

At a seminar run by the right-wing Politeia think tank, which promotes free-market alternatives to state intervention, Mr McIntosh said: “We are where we are, partly because, I have to say, of the national curriculum.

“I find that teachers have become increasingly robotic, they have worked slavishly to the national curriculum, to the prescribed curriculum, they have worked slavishly to the demands of the league tables etc and a lot of the teaching is not very sort of, instrumental, and children are taught a lot of facts, completely out of context often, simply the minimum required for whatever the next test or examination will be.”