TV adventurer Ben Fogle has launched an extraordinary attack on children’s toy Lego... telling head teachers in Manchester that it ‘has ruined the world’.

The TV star was the highlight speaker at a schools summit in Manchester.

But he used his keynote speech to take a sideswipe at the popular toy, claiming it encourages children to “build by conformity”.

Fogle, who was named by the Danish giant as a brand ambassador four years ago, said he meant no disrespect to Lego but selling its toy bricks in kit form had created 'boundaries and limits' and stunted creativity.

He made the remarks at the annual conference of the Boarding Schools’ Association at the city centre’s Midland Hotel where he explained how confidence gained in his days as a boarder at Bryanston School in Dorset transformed his life.

As a father-of-two he said he was now 'painfully aware' of the role of parents, guardians and teachers to help develop and nurture youngsters to their full potential.

The TV presenter told delegates: “If I were to write a thesis on this topic I think I would call it ‘How Lego ruined the world’.

“Lego for many parents is the antithesis of the high-tech world. We are desperate to wean our little ones away from the tablet and on to the bricks. It is the toy of aspiration.

“When I was a child, Lego came in brick form. You would buy boxes of random bricks and you would use your imagination to build your mind.

"The box of multi-coloured bricks would be transformed into anything you wanted, free from the mantles of prescription. There was no right and no wrong. Everyone was a winner.

“Today, Lego sells most of its bricks in kit form. Big and, dare I say, expensive boxes with intricate instructions on how to build remarkable things like space rockets or sunken ships.

“Where once Lego offered a whimsical form of escapism into the world of sub-conscious encouraging creativity and imagination, it has transformed into a rigid box-ticking discipline where children are encouraged to build by conformity.

“One misaligned brick during assembly or one tiny lost component can spell disaster.”

He said he had watched his son 'fall apart' because the finished product did not resemble the photograph on the box.

“By making the kits Lego have created boundaries, limits, prescriptions,” he continued.

“My point here is that by selling cookie-cutter kits they have cheated youngsters, and their parents, out of any chance to be truly creative.

“In my mind Lego is a mirror to our education system as a whole.

“The Government recently announced plans to introduce national tests for seven-year-olds. This, in my mind, goes to show how far our exam-obsessed society has come.

“Our children now face a constant stream of assessment by an education system obsessed with box-ticking. They are merely tiny cogs in the Government machine.”

He said that 'positivity, creativity, health and well-being' needed to be brought into the school system, with focus on confidence building.

Fogle said that boarding school had 'nurtured and matured' his confidence to 'head into the wilderness and make something of my life'.

He added: “It’s a virtue, a skill, a feeling of value, that’s attainable by all but sadly all too often overlooked by the state system.

“Confidence is not necessarily borne of wealth and privilege. It’s something earned and something learned. It opens doors and opportunity way beyond that of exams and degrees.

“For me it’s the most valuable commodity and worthy of the eye-wateringly high school fees that are at risk of crippling many hopeful future parents.

“Boost the country’s confidence levels and we can solve so many of Britain’s ills.”