England’s “Victorian” exam system is not preparing pupils for the modern world appropriately, according to the headmaster of one of the UK’s top public schools.

Tony Little, headmaster at the exclusive Eton College, said that the existing system is “unimaginative” and does not do enough to promote broader education beyond passing exams.

In an article for the Radio Times, he voiced his support for the headteacher of a Lancashire school who had sent a controversial letter to each year six child along with their key stage two test results.

The letter said that although they should be proud of their achievements, the tests could not measure everything that made the pupils unique and listed a number of qualities that cannot be quantified through exams.

“The Lancashire teachers were right – there are many ways of being smart,” Mr Little wrote.

“For a start, measuring only the easily measurable, such as exam results, can be misleading. There is a real risk that the measurable parts become more important than the whole.

“And we compound the problem by having an unimaginative exam system, little changed from Victorian times, which obliges students to sit alone at their desks, in preparation for a world in which, for much of the time, they will need to work collaboratively.”

Mr Little says that although encouraging high performance is evidently a good idea, “jostling for position in a league table” is not the be all and end all in education.

He also refers to a recent poll which found that parents were worried about falling standards on international tests which have found the the UK’s position is declining relative to Asian countries that have far more rigorous programmes.

Significantly, he warns the government against turning England’s education system into something similar to that in China or Singapore, saying that educators in these countries are currently trying to break away from that regime.

In fact, he recounts speaking to the head of a Shanghai school who was looking to the British example for suggestions on how to build students’ abilities to develop and present ideas.