A respected head mistress has warned that competitive parents are blocking the joy children should experience in their childhood.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Alexia Bracewell, the head of fee-paying Longacre School in Guildford, explained that mothers and fathers risk undermining their children's development by forcing them to take evening and weekend classes.

By pushing children so hard in their early years, Ms Brace said that families were "setting their children up to fail".

"The joy of childhood is fast disappearing with parents eagerly inflicting one activity after another in a desperate bid to ensure their child succeeds," she commented.

"Parents' ambition and intervention in their child’s education is undoubtedly hampering a pupil’s enjoyment and ability to develop at an individual rate … Of course, you must be sympathetic to parents but the pressure needs to be controlled."

This comes shortly after new figures showed tutoring is increasingly popular in preparation for the 11-plus and Common Entrance.