A Birmingham headteacher has defended suspending the National Curriculum for a week to allow pupils to spend time singing, painting and dancing.

All Key Stage Two pupils at Benson Community Primary School in Handsworth have put away their exercise books this week.

The school believes it will help to boost self-esteem, foster better relationships and behaviour among pupils with a knock-on affect on attainment.

But the move has been criticised at a time of national concern over literacy and numeracy levels among the young.

More than 60 six to 11-year-olds from four year groups at the school are working with Birmingham choir Ex Cathedra and will perform a concert tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the girls are spending the week doing art, dance and drama.

Headteacher Cath Rindl said the benefits of taking the youngsters off curriculum and getting them working together across the year groups were already showing through.

"We had the same problems as everyone else at playtimes," she said.

"But we are having a calmer week because of this. Around the school at the moment there is a real buzz.

"Every room you walk into there are children singing or playing music.

"We hope that instead of a Year Six boy yelling at a Year Four boy in the playground they will think 'we sung together last week and you are not so bad'."

Nearly all the pupils from Benson Community are of non-English heritage and the school also has a high proportion of children from asylum seeker families.

Nearly a third have special needs and some 18 ethnic groups are represented.

Despite the educational challenges, Ms Rindl claimed dropping literacy and numeracy classes for a week was a worthwhile move.

"Children who don't normally experience success in literacy and numeracy are flying this week," she said.

"We hope they will take the positive bits of this week and use them next week when they sit in front off the whiteboard again.

"Also the harmony among the boys will bring them together so you have a calmer school."

But Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, claimed the move could be damaging to children who were already struggling with the basics.

"My guess is that sensible parents would be horrified by this," he said.

"It is fine for youngsters to do these kind of things as part of a school day, but when standards are already under question it seems stupid doing it at the expense of subjects like English, maths, history, language and geography." Britain's record on basic literacy and numeracy skills in the population has been the subject of much debate and concern.

Last year the CBI claimed nearly a third of firms have to provide remedial training to new recruits.

Nationally, more than 20 per cent of 11-year-olds fail to reach the required level in literacy and numeracy upon leaving primary education.

Birmingham scores below the national average in both areas with 26 per cent missing the mark in Key Stage Two English tests and 31 per cent in maths.

Improving core skills in English and maths among primary school pupils has been a key focus of the National Curriculum and the current Government. But many teachers believe the intense focus on the National Curriculum and testing is turning youngsters off and failing to give them a rounded education.

The National Union of Teachers welcomed Benson Community's innovation.

Nigel Barker, deputy general secretary of the union's Birmingham branch, said: "I am 100 per cent in favour of it. The National Curriculum is far too restrictive.

"We sometimes forget the real purpose of education which is not to meet Government targets."