Quick Chess

One Christmas present given this year, was Quick Chess, which my wife picked up at Australian Geographic. It was a gift for our grand-nieces, who are just starting school.
Quick Chess is a 2-in-1 chess game, with a learning version of the game on one side of the board, and a full version on the other. In the Quick version, the game is played on a 6x5 board (only 1 of each piece+5 pawns), and the emphasis is on learning how the pieces move. All the pieces more normally, with the exception of pawns, who only move a single square. As well there is no en-pas, no castling and pawns only promote to captured pieces.
At first glance it looks like a useful way of introducing young children to chess. The smaller size of the board allows games to finish a lot quicker, and tactical ideas are more obvious. On the other hand it isn't that far removed from proper chess to make the game completely different, and the skills learnt in Quick Chess should be transferable to normal chess.
I also believe some national chess federations are looking at using Quick Chess as part of a beginners coaching system, so there may be a new generation of players whose training starts on the smaller board.