Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, said that the State should pay the fees for children in care who chose to board. He told The Times that the first state-funded city academy to offer boarding would open next year.

Kingshurst City Technology College in Birmingham will convert to an academy and build accommodation for 100 boarders. Twenty per cent of places will be reserved for children in care as part of the £2.5 million project, which will partly be funded by HSBC, with the remainder offered to parents willing to pay boarding fees.

Sir Cyril said that boarding schools would improve educational opportunities for vulnerable children and save public money. Local authorities were spending £100,000 a child in residential homes each year and the annual cost of foster care was between £20,000 and £50,000. “Despite this investment the outcomes are distressingly inadequate,” he said.

Only 6 per cent of pupils in care passed five good GCSEs, compared with 56 per cent of children nationally. Conviction rates for “looked-after children” were three times the rate for other juveniles.

Treasury estimates put the annual cost of looking after all 60,000 children in care at £2.5 billion. Sir Cyril said that costs were likely to be twice as high once spending on welfare and prison was taken into account for adults let down when children in care.

Children in care frequently changed both their homes and their schools. He will tell a conference of head teachers at Wellington College, in Crowthorne, Berkshire, today: “How can any child flourish when they move home three times a year?”

He will propose a charter of rights for children in care to help them to succeed. He will also call for adult volunteers to join a programme to mentor children in care.

“Children in care should have the right, with the help of their mentor, to apply for a boarding school place. They should be able to put pressure on social services and local authorities to do that,” Sir Cyril said. “I am proposing that we set a goal over a three-year period that at least 10 per cent of looked-after children should have the possibility of a boarding school place.”

The trust represents most of England’s 3,200 state secondary schools and has taken charge of Tony Blair’s £5 billion policy to open 200 city academies by 2010. Sir Cyril suggested that half of academies could take boarders, with 20 per cent of places reserved for children in care. Boarding units could also be added to 100 state day schools. The remainder would be available for parents willing to pay annual fees of about £7,000 in the same way as those charged by the existing 35 state boarding schools. Provision at these schools would also be expanded.

“There is a waiting list for state boarding schools so I am confident there would be demand,” Sir Cyril said. “A civilised society should be judged on how it looks after its most vulnerable and disadvantaged citizens. Sadly, our record in looking after one of the most vulnerable groups, children in care, is not good.”

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