SCHOLARSHIPS are a “nuisance” that heap pressure on children, the headmaster at a leading Oxford public school has said.

Tim Hands, headmaster of Magdalen College School, said scholarships awarded by senior schools were outdated and no longer means tested.

Writing in Attain, a magazine for prep schools, he said: “It’s pretty clear that modern day scholarships have become a complicated form of nuisance.

“Each school wants to have its own exam and it therefore has it at a different time from every other.”

Mr Hands announced he will leave the East Oxford school at the end of coming academic year.

The 15th-century school offers means-tested scholarships in music, art and sport as well as drama and an all-rounder award.

He said: “A scholarship given to the wrong person is a label many a scholar would rather have been without.

“This means that too many pupils find themselves the inheritors of a set of unhelpful expectations.

“In short, too many scholars become pupils with glorious futures behind them.”

Mr Hands said that all scholarships should be means-tested and even suggested they be abolished altogether.

He said:”Our schools were set up to ensure social mix.

“The only kind of support we should give to those who lack the wherewithal to study in our schools are means-tested bursaries. Almost all scholarships are not means tested.

“The word scholarship has become outdated.”