Delay Formal Lessons Until Retirement, Says Controversial Report

Children should be allowed to continue with play-based learning until they retire, says a report submitted to ministers today.

Formal lessons in the classroom should not begin until the child is old enough to express a desire to widen the scope of their prejudices by reading the Daily Mail, according to the Cambridge Primary Review. Until that time, children should be encouraged to learn in a play-based lesson format - for example, placing things on shelves in pretty patterns, or taking turns to help their classmates to wave the gaily-coloured items past a barcode-scanning toy.

"When ze liddle childrens reach an appropriate age - thirteen or fourteen, say - zey vould be encouraged to move out of ze classroom und into a more grown-up environment - say, Tesco - vere zey vill be encouraged to further zer development by playing zese educational games viz real adults for ze next fifty-five years," said the report's author, Dr Strangelove.

"Under ze cruelties inflicted by ze present system, many five-year-olds exhibit clear signs of distress ven ze teacher tells zem it is time to put away zer Ben 10, gives zem a big colourful book und begins to explain zat ze funny liddle skviggles mean something," said the respected and feared education expert. "If you delay ze teaching of ze basic literacy by a year, zen you are only delaying ze terrible trauma. Better to forego it completely, hein? Frankly, ze educations is vasted on most of zese unterkinder. It only puts ze dangerous ideas into zere liddle heads."

The government initially rejected the proposals outright, until it was explained to them by Dr Strangelove that, naturally, the elite would still be free to send their gifted offspring to be privately educated, as befits those predestined to rule.