National Curriculum overhaul: pupils to study more Shakespeare The document says calculators should be banned from maths lessons until the end of primary education, with teachers told that the devices should "not be used as a substitute for good written and mental arithmetic." Geography will also feature lessons on climate change between the age of 11 and 14 after environmental groups attacked the subject's exclusion from an earlier draft. But the document removes all references to the European Union in geography amid fears references in the existing curriculum introduced by Labour were overtly political. In other changes, the curriculum also requires pupils to learn a foreign language at primary school, although it drops a prescriptive list of suggested languages introduced in an earlier draft, enabling teachers to choose any foreign tongue. The curriculum - which sets out the vital knowledge that pupils should master at each stage of their education - will be compulsory in state schools from next year, although independent academies can write their own syllabuses. Teaching unions immediately attacked the reforms, claiming that the timescale was "completely unrealistic" and threatened to cause chaos in schools. Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said it was effectively too demanding, adding: "Not enough effort has been made to design a curriculum for lower attaining children or children with special educational needs." Particular criticism has been levelled at a new requirement to teach fractions to five-year-olds - a subject currently tackled between the age of seven and 11. But Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said: "I think that all students should be able to manage what we are asking the national curriculum to embody. I think it is a counsel of despair to say that there are five-year-olds who won't be able to grapple with fractions. Five-year-olds can understand and use fractions in other countries. Are we saying that there is something somehow invincibly different about English children which means that they can't master and enjoy the sort of education that's available to children in other countries? But Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "We share the Government's aspiration to have a curriculum that is rigorous and challenging in every subject, for all children. We are pleased that ministers have listened to our some of concerns about content in some subjects and have revised the earlier drafts. However the jury is still out as to whether the new curriculum will really give children the skills and knowledge they need for the 21st century. Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said: "The timetable for implementation is dangerously and recklessly short and will leave schools facing potential chaos which could be hugely detrimental to the life chances of a generation of children and young people. The Secretary of State has put politics above common sense.