Lawyers for a teenager accused of throwing a six-year-old boy from the viewing platform at Tate Modern are to obtain psychiatric reports before entering a plea, a court has been told.

The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, has been charged with attempted murder in connection with Sunday’s incident.

At a hearing at the Old Bailey on Thursday, the recorder of London, Nicholas Hilliard QC, said the defendant would remain in custody in youth detention accommodation while awaiting trial.

Psychiatric reports are to be submitted by 31 October before a plea and preparation hearing on 7 November. A trial date of 3 February next year was agreed, and proceedings are expected to last two weeks.

The defendant, unshaven and wearing a blue T-shirt and grey tracksuit bottoms, spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth and stated his nationality as British.

The six-year-old, a French national visiting London with his family, remains in a stable but critical condition in hospital. He suffered a bleed to the brain and fractures to his spine, legs and arms.

The boy, who was with his parents on the platform, fell about 30 metres (100ft) from the 10th floor of the art gallery’s Blavatnik extension on to a fifth-floor roof.

He was treated at the scene before being airlifted to hospital by the London air ambulance. His family are with him in hospital.

Police were called to the gallery at 2.40pm on Sunday. The London ambulance service also attended.

A journalist, Olga Malchevska, was on the viewing platform with her four-year-old son at the time of the incident and described what had happened as “absolutely terrifying”. She said she could hear a woman crying desperately and shouting: “My son, oh my son.”

The gallery reopened on Monday, but the viewing platform remains closed. The defendant first appeared at Bromley youth court on Tuesday.