Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching under a secondary school curriculum published yesterday.

Ministers announced reforms to the national curriculum for 11 to 14-year-olds to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility over what they teach.

But Britain's wartime prime minister - along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King - has been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum.

Among the few named figures in the new curriculum are William Wilberforce, who will be studied for lessons on the slave trade.

The history of the development of the European Union has also survived as a specified topic for study.

A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said: "Teachers know that they need to mention these pivotal figures.

"They don't need to be instructed by law to mention them in every history class. Of course, good teachers will be teaching the history of Churchill as part of the history of Britain. The two are indivisible."

Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, Winston Churchill's grandson, said the move was "madness", while Chris McGovern, director of the History Curriculum Association and a former Government advisor, condemned the reforms.

He warned that some classes already taught the Second World War without teaching Churchill, and many children were ignorant of key figures including Hitler.

"I'm appalled by all this," he said. "Unless we nail down these key individuals in world history, British history in particular, they are not going to get taught."

Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove also stressed that Churchill must be taught.

"Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th Century British history," he said. "Our national story can't be told without Churchill at the centre."

The curriculum, which will be taught from September next year, is intended to be far more flexible than the present national curriculum.

Ministers said the reforms would free up about a quarter of the school day by cutting down on duplication, so teachers could concentrate on giving extra help to pupils who were falling behind.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls insisted he had protected key traditional elements in the curriculum, while allowing for more flexibility. The two world wars and the Holocaust, for example, were still named as topics in the new statutory history curriculum.

"I have protected the classic elements of the curriculum that have stood the test of time, such as Shakespeare, algebra, historic dates and the world wars," he said.

Steven Harness, headteacher at Woodham Community Technology College, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, said: "I welcome the idea that we regularly review the curriculum, otherwise it becomes fossilised."

Elaine Kay, regional secretary with the Northern area National Union of Teachers, said: "If it gives teachers greater choice to be able to exercise their own professional judgement and allow them to show more creativity and flexibility in being able to deliver classes that best meet the needs of the children in their care, then it is a good thing."