ANEW report has recommended that children should only start formal schooling at the age of six.

The proposed change was included in a special report published last week called the Cambridge Primary Review, which is the most comprehensive review of primary education in England for 40 years.

It found children respond better to play-based learning at a young age and said there was no evidence to suggest it would hold them back in later life.

Rather than delaying the school starting age, the way children are taught until the age of six should be reformed, the report said.

It said: “Many practitioners believe, again backed by considerable research evidence and the positive examples of many other countries, that the principles that shape effective pre-school education should govern children’s experiences in primary school at least until age six, and possibly until age seven.”

The report found that in the current system of early years education, “quality is too variable, and too many staff are underqualified or poorly paid”.

In many European countries, children start school later, but in Britain almost all three to fouryear- olds are already getting at least 12-and-a-half hours of education per week.

Susan Mason, headteacher of Nunnery Wood Primary School in Worcester, said it was teachers and the schools who should give children a balanced education from the start, mixing structured play with lessons.

She said: “I think already the very best provision for the youngest children in primary schools is very closely related to structured play activities. So that where schools are making great provision for the youngest children, this already involves play-based activities within their learning and getting the right balance for the child.

“It’s about knowing the child really well and making sure we have provided for the children and meet their needs. Different children sometimes need different things.

Children are always learning. Any good school and staff can monitor what the child needs.”

Richard Bellfield, headteacher of King’s St Alban’s in Worcester, agreed. He said: “I think what matters is the individual’s needs.

It’s very difficult to do an overarching approach. It is easier as I do have smaller class sizes but even then it’s down to the individual needs, particularly for the younger children. What they do need is a supportive, happy and nurturing environment so you can get the balance between learning through play and a little bit more formal learning on an individual basis.

“We have all met children who are reading before the age of four, and those who struggle to read at the age of six. But happy children make happy learners,” he said. The review, six years in the planning and writing, also criticised the testing system for making the entire curriculum too narrow.

It said SATs should be replaced with assessments across all subjects, and ranking of pupils’ grades must be separated from the rating of schools’ performance as a whole.

The report said a full review is needed of special needs education, where the classification of a child’s requirements is too often “arbitrary”.

But schools minister Vernon Coaker rejected the proposals for children to begin formal education at the age of six.

Mr Coaker said: “For many of those children coming into school, it is of crucial importance that they are in that formal but appropriate type learning environment so they can gather the skills and get the skills they need as they go through life.

“Leaving it to six would leave many of our children, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, starting a long way behind others.”

He said that many of the review’s findings were included in an earlier Government-backed review and had already been acted upon.

He said: “We’re already reducing the emphasis on the SATs test, which is another point they make.

“But, as I say, for the reception children coming into school, for the four-year-olds, it is a play-based curriculum, then moving into year one and obviously there is an emphasis on reading and writing.”

Chairman of the review Dame Gillian Pugh said introducing children to too formal a curriculum before they are ready for it can damage their development.

She said: “If they are already failing by the age of four-and-a-half or five, it’s going to be quite difficult to get them back into the system again.”

The Government intends to refurbish or rebuild half of primary schools by 2023, and the report urged ministers to bear in mind the greater need for specialist facilities.