Leading head teacher attacks 'quick-fix culture' that robs children of patience to learn new skills

Jonathan Milton of Westminster Abbey Choir School said youngsters increasingly lacked the patience to acquire skills such as choral singing.

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Even cricket matches now last no longer than a couple of hours, he said.

Mr Milton, chairman of the Choir Schools Association, said our exam system was fuelling the problem.

School tests forced youngsters to "get the right answer very quickly" rather than developing their ideas over time.

Mr Milton spoke out as a top public school demanded greater use of "exam-free" project work in the sixth form.

Rugby School has developed a blueprint for an extended project that involves in-depth analysis. It believes the plan could be introduced to other schools.

Dr John Taylor, a chief examiner on the scheme, said: "We need a certain amount of knowledge and it ought to be tested. But there are skills which cannot be tested in a one-and-a-half hour paper."

His concerns echo those of Mr Milton, who was speaking at a Choir Schools Association conference in Liverpool.

"We are increasingly used to sensationalism and the quick fix within our culture all the time," he said.

"For a musician or an artist that's really not very helpful. So many of our children these days are just used to producing instant results.

"Even cricket, for goodness sake, can increasingly only be sustained for 20 overs."

He added: "With so many children it is about instant results and something which can be done quite easily. I'm thinking very much of common tasks that children are asked to do in their curriculum."

Mr Milton said a chorister's education was "simply a way of life", involving hard work and repeated practice.

"The benefits are felt academically, artistically, socially, culturally," he added. "We make expectations of our choristers which if colleagues in ordinary schools were to witness they would quite simply be amazed.

"Our choristers think nothing of tackling the most complicated polyphonic or avant garde music.

"They sustain concentration over a three-hour rehearsal or recording session and they take it all for granted, fitting it in quite naturally among all the other aspects of their increasingly busy school lives."

He added: "Children are capable of quite extraordinary things given the right expectations, the right teaching and the right nurture."