School doctors 'should check infants are ready for lessons' It would represent a return to a system largely phased out across Britain more than 30 years ago. Mrs Goddard Blythe said: "When my eldest son started school, these checks were done as a matter of routine; it was very simple things like stand on one leg, hop to the other side of the room, pile some bricks and simple vision and hearing tests. But by the time my second son, who is now 28, started school those tests had largely been phased out. The result is that we have several generations of children who are not quite bad enough to be picked up as having a medical problem but, at the time of school entry, don't have the physical ability to be able to succeed to the level of their potential. She said that growing numbers of infants were entering reception classes without key motor skills because of modern child rearing techniques. Too many children are denied the chance to exercise and take part in free play after being stuck in baby chairs or placed in front of screen-based entertainment for hours at a time, she said. Pupils without these skills often struggle with the physical demands of the classroom, she said, meaning they were much more likely to make a slow start in the three-Rs and fail later in their primary and secondary education. The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology has now pioneered a series of exercises for children aged seven to 17 to enable them to develop balance control, good posture and co-ordination, which are essential to support basic learning. Exercises, which have already been introduced into a series of primary and secondary schools, include asking pupils to lie on their stomach and learn to hold their head in line with the body to "replicate the movement patterns a baby should have had in the first year of life." At one primary school in Derbyshire, pupils did the exercises for 10 minutes a day throughout the academic year. Last summer, all pupils reached the national standard expected of 11-year-olds in English and math tests, up from just 56 per cent two years ago. Jackie Micklethwaite, head teacher of Brailsford CofE primary, said: "We have seen great improvements in most of the children we have put through these exercises."