Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if I did then Naruto would have at least included chakra level tests in the academy.

Note: This is a story of a possible restructure of the academy that was initially inspired by "Naruto: Shinobi Institute of Performance Analysis" by MaxFic, but took on a life of its own. The initial idea was to move the SIPA tests to the beginning of the academy or have a watered-down version for the year end tests. This fanfic evolved from that to being a complete restructuring of the academy as I planned it out.

Sarutobi's New Accademy

Sarutobi was looking over the records of the academy following the council's ruling that no one would be allowed to graduate until they were twelve due to the fact that they had finally recouped their losses from the Kyuubi attack. The civilians thought that because there was no pressing need for new ninja they shouldn't be graduating people extremely young. What they didn't understand was that some shinobi could learn and mature extremely quickly due to the effects an active chakra system had on the brain. Leaving children like that in the academy the way it is now would not only be a waste of their talents it would make them resentful of being held back. Especially as many of the most famously powerful ninja that had come out of Konohagakure recently were prodigies that had graduated at extremely young ages such as Itachi Uchiha and Kakashi Hatake. That meant that the academy had to be restructured so that prodigies could be somewhat challenged throughout their extended years of schooling, could still turn out gennin extremely quickly if Konohagakure entered wartime footing and finally it couldn't require additional budget after implementation. Currently the academy was designed to graduate average people in five years that people typically took from ages 7 through 12, however some did enter in as young as 5 and occasionally people graduated older than 12. This meant that the academy had 5 simultaneous classes at all times with two teachers for each class that allowed them to spilt the class into male and female groups for certain subjects. The building had one classroom for each class group and an additional one that was used for kunoichi specific training. Outside the building had two sparring rings, a set of targets for throwing practice, a set of dummies for kata practice and a path around the outside for endurance training. This meant that he could at most have ten simultaneous classes where 6 were indoor and 4 were outdoor although this would make the outdoor facilities reasonably crowded.

From the records of the academy it appeared that a lot of the time was used on skills many ninjas barely used as their areas of specialisation lead them away from the generalised curriculum of the academy. So, it followed that if the academy was split into specialized classes that students could advance in at different speeds people could begin their career specializations earlier potentially leading to better ninja. At the very least it would lead to more useful gennin and make it easier to design specialised teams. Additionally, it would buy time with the prodigies as each specialisation would go further in depth then the academy offered at the moment. Especially if the highest level of each specialisation had a guided self-study portion allowing them to be taken multiple times without becoming redundant. The issues with the system would be what the specialisations would be and how the schedule would be set up. The others would be how to set the graduation requirements and how to test and place students in the new system. The last one was a simple fix. Have everyone take the full difficulty test for all possible subjects to not only test what they were taught, but also what they learned outside of classes. He would also have chakra levels tested to better place students and guide their learning in the chakra based classes. He also decided to have a ten-point system for each subject where there were three class levels for each. Each level of class would teach three points of the learning with one point being for learning beyond in class material in the subject. He would also have the tests set up so that they were not open for interpretation whenever possible to try and avoid favoritism.

The hard part about this whole issue was what classes needed to exist, what the different levels would be and most difficult the scheduling of the whole thing. He knew that taijutsu, conditioning and target practice were necessary on the physical side. With taijutsu and conditioning to be continued through all levels. Conditioning would probably be set as a two-level course with the first level being guided closely by a teacher to show how to preform a proper work out to the students. The first three points would be assigned for having the forms for the exercises down perfectly and the rest of the points would be from their level of fitness, specifically their endurance in the exercises they learned. This would allow the second level to be set as a partially guided workout where students would push themselves to increase their stamina. Then the taijutsu could have the first two levels teaching academy styles with the third level being mainly sparring with the teacher pointing out holes in their style. For the target practice the first level could be getting proficient enough at kunai, the second for shuriken and the third for trick throws such as bouncing throws off of each other to hit targets. For chakra there needed to be control classes. One for set for low chakra reserves or high control with leaf balancing, leaf dancing which was an extension of leaf balancing where you make the leaves move and thread weaving which involved moving multiple different things moving in concert. One for higher chakra reserves with tree walking, water walking and stealth walking which was using chakra to make it so that you didn't leave footprints stiffening the grass you walked on so it didn't bend. The third level would be nature transformation and would only be offered if you completed both of the other levels which you would be placed in depending on your chakra levels until you mastered all exercises of the class. The nature transformation class could hold students nearly indefinitely because you can do the exercises for the chakra natures that don't come to you naturally, but it takes so much time it isn't usually worth learning. Then they would also have to teach jutsu, the first level would be fully about handsigns. What they are, what they do, why we use specific ones and finally making them properly and at speed. The second level would be learning the substitution, transformation and clone techniques. The third level would be learning other d-rank jutsu from the library with help from the instructors. Then for general information they would need a reading and writing course with the first level being writing skills because if you can write you can read. The second level would be learning how to write proper reports. The third could be possibly be sealing, at least getting their kanji up to sealer level and maybe after that a few basic seals. There would also be a need for a general Konohagakure knowledge course. The first level of that would be the shinobi code and the Konohagakure interpretation of it along with our values. The second would be the history of the village. The third level would basically be a study of the bingo book so possible threats could be identified as well as styles that students could wish to emulate.

For non-essential courses, healing would probably be the most popular at least in the lowest levels of learning. The first level would be basic first aid. The second level would be about herbs for healing and curing poisons. The third level would be the one to delve into actual healing jutsu. Another could be a stealth and detection course. The first level would be about how to properly hide from people both in plain sight and avoiding them completely as well as finding people in those situations. The second level would be laying traps for your pursuers and detecting traps. The third level would be jutsu for avoiding detection and detecting others. Another optional course would be about weapon use. Rather then levels this would be spread out into types. The first type would be about swords, the second would be about staves and the third would be about obscure weapons.

You would need to get 6 points in all of the required classes in order to pass except for the chakra control one which you would only need three adding up to 39 points and students would be required to have 51 points total in order to pass the academy. This would probably be a low enough standard to be accept. Then to allow for special cases to pass he could have a ten in a required course to remove three points from the required course total. It might allow over specialised people to pass but it would probably be worth it for how skilled they were in their chosen fields. The courses could also be set up so for most courses all levels were run simultaneously allowing less overlap between courses. The testing would be done at the end of the school year and include students that start the next so everyone could be placed correctly. Also, because all the tests would be centralised he could have an ANBU watch them to make sure no student was at a disadvantage or an unfair advantage. That would also give him a foot in the door to have ANBU randomly audit classes as Naruto would be starting the academy the year after next. The scheduling of it all would have to be done by the academy or possibly by the council if they were in a mood when he brought this to them. Danzo would probably want an emotional conditioning class, which might by reasonable if it could be toned down enough. Others might want some clan specific courses, but that could easily be differed as their clan skills being given additional credit in the existing classes. Anyways that was beside the point, he had the proposal complete enough to bring to the council and argue his points for not changing it.

Hiruzen returned to his office after the council meetings satisfied with the way they both went. The shinobi council went exactly as expected, and he got the emotional conditioning class Danzo proposed was marginalised into a survival training class that was admittedly needed. The first level of the class was basically camping with how to find and/or make shelter and making a fire. The second level was the one with the emotional conditioning as it was a hunting class that required the killing of an animal. It also covered where to find water. The third level was a more informational class about how to survive in other known environments. This was put as a required class you needed to have 6 points in making it so that you needed 45 points from required classes and 57 points total to pass the academy. Hiruzen thought that the only reason why Danzo allowed the class to be moderated that much was that he agreed that it was the only way for it to pass the civilian council. Speaking of the civilian council that meeting didn't go quite as planned, but it did have a somewhat acceptable result. They thought the graduation requirements were too high. They thought that there should be margin for error in all of the classes and made it so that you only needed five of the six points to pass those required classes, but luckly were dissuaded from reducing the three-point class down to two. This lowered the graduating requirements to 38 required class points and 50 points total. They then wheedled the total points down to 44. While this wasn't ideal it was still acceptable. It would still raise the graduation requirements slightly in some areas, and more importantly as they had focussed on the graduation requirements they didn't touch the furthered education aspects. Now he just had to see how well the new system worked.

As Hiruzen watched Naruto enter the academy at the tender age of 5 he was pleasantly surprised at how well the system had worked. Not only were the graduates getting better under the new system it had done something Hiruzen had thought impossible. It had harnessed the insanity that is the fangirl. As the fangirls tended to latch onto the most skilled male in their year and those skilled males were in higher level classes, the fangirls ended up applying their insanity to their training just to be in the same classes as the object of their affections. This actually led to the largest boost in skill for the ninja forces as it cut the number of people who did just enough to pass in half. He was also hoping that Naruto took his advice about focussing hard on the writing class. As that led to skill in sealing which was in many ways his birthright. Both as an Uzumaki and as the son of the fourth hokage. He had hinted that any kage needed to be good at writing to defeat the legions of paperwork and that the fourth was a master at sealing. He had also told the child that even though he had seven years in the academy he should try to do his absolute best in every class as that would help his career. Although he had phrased the last part as it would make him more awesome.

Note: This story is meant to be a stand-alone story, but I might do a follow up chapter about how the characters in Naruto did during the academy and what grades they got when they graduated. I personally would like to know what you think the cast would do in the new academy. Also feel free to tell me if there are any writing issues I need to correct.