Later school start plans rejected

The proposed change was included in the Cambridge Primary Review.

The authors of the report, the most comprehensive review of primary education in England for 40 years, 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.

But Mr Coaker told GMTV: "For many of those children coming into school, it is of crucial importance 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, it would mean they would start a long way behind others."

He added that many of the review's findings were included in an earlier Government-backed review and had already been acted on.

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."

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