As it is, only about 6 per cent can expect to achieve the benchmark of five GCSEs at grades A* to C that will provide them with a gateway to further education when they get their results tomorrow. This compares with 56 per cent for all other children.

As in previous years, only 1 per cent of children in care can expect to go to university this year, compared with 37 per cent of all young people.

The shortage of foster and adoptive families to provide a stable home to young people in care, referred to in official circles as “looked-after children”, means that some have to move home up to 35 times and switch schools more than 10 times.

The damage this does to their education and their emotional wellbeing is highlighted today in a report from the children’s charity Barnardo’s, which reveals the challenges faced by these children, many of whom will struggle to gain even a single qualification this week.

An absence of support and encouragement from schools or carers is just one reason young people in care perform so badly at GCSE level. The chaotic and disruptive lifestyles that result from frequent moves, abuse and family problems can mean that simple things, such as an ability to turn up for class on time or to return homework by the expected deadline, are not possible without support.

The report, entitled Failed by the System, also compares the levels of support currently enjoyed by most GCSE-year children from their parents with those experienced by young people in care. About half of children in care said that they were never praised or rewarded if they did well in school.

The young people in care had attended on average five schools. Almost half had attended six or more schools, and 11 per cent had attended more than ten different schools.

Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, said that the cycle of disadvantage that children in care entered at school showed no sign of being broken. “Many looked-after children have academic potential and the desire to work hard, and would have liked to succeed in education, but the State, as a parent, fails them terribly,” he said. “Dreadful GCSE results compound the disadvantages they face and commit them to unemployment and disadvantage.”

The Government is to publish a Green Paper next month on children in care, but its track record is poor. In 2002 it set a target of increasing the proportion of 16-year-olds in care gaining five A*-C grade GCSEs or the equivalent by four percentage points each year, but since then it has achieved an average annual rise of only 1.1 per cent.

The report’s recommendations include the requirement for a designated and specially trained teacher in each school to help looked-after children, and a requirement that social services keep children in the same school where possible.

• Almost 11,000 GCSE grades were revised last year after successful appeals by pupils. Information unearthed by the Liberal Democrats shows that 45,439 grades were challenged in 2005, up a quarter on 2003. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said last night that the number of appeals is a small proportion of the papers sat each year. GCSE students get their results tomorrow.

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