Government plans to revamp primary school league tables should be modified to position pupil progress as the main measure of quality, a new report has stated.

Published by CentreForum, the study argues the alterative system put forward by the coalition in 2014 will not deliver an accurate picture of any given school.

According to government plans, primary schools in England will be held to account by two new "tougher" league table measures.

The current system requires that 65 per cent of pupils achieve Level 4 in their SATs exams at age 11. Under the new system, primary schools will be required to achieve an 85 per cent pass rate.

James Kempton, associate director of education and social mobility at CentreForum and co-author of the report, said that when it comes to gauging how effective primary schools are in delivering results, the "best and fairest" system is to assess the progress of children.

"Attainment thresholds always mean that some pupils’ success is more important to the school’s league table position than others," he continued. "That is not fair and at odds with the government’s own aims for the education system."

The thinktank noted that under the new, exacting attainment threshold system, youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to be neglected.

Commenting on the study, Graham Stuart, chairman of the Education Select Committee, said that CentreForum had made an important point and did well to highlight the "crucial importance" of pupil progress as a barometer of quality.

"Progress measures reward schools for helping both struggling children and those at the top of the class alike," he said. "They are therefore a much fairer and more effective accountability measure and the Education Select Committee has championed them as a result.

"This approach fits in much better with the government’s two key aims for the education system, namely to secure the best outcomes for all pupils and to close the gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and the rest."