Royal National Children's Foundation

The school was based at Wanstead on the edge of Epping Forest in grand buildings that today house the Snaresbrook Crown Court.

These young people have one or no active parents and have suffered some degree of abuse, neglect, fear and disruption in their home, family or school environment such as to be seriously prejudicial to their normal development.

Coupled with the charity's low administrative costs, this helps ensure that a very large proportion of all donations and legacies go direct to paying fees for these disadvantaged young people.

The charity's invested endowment helps underwrite its commitment and ensures the continuity of schooling and care for young people who have already suffered so much disruption in their short lives.

During a speech at the charity's annual conference in 2010, The Princess Royal said: "Boarding school will , by no means, suit every child vulnerable or not.

But our case studies show that, for the right child in the right school at the right time, Assisted Boarding really can help transform a young person's life and prospects.

He has advocated that local authorities could more readily recruit as foster parents some working couples where the children were in boarding schools.

He ascribes at least some of this success to the way in which these young people grasp their "golden opportunity" with both hands: they appreciate their good fortune in being able to develop a promising new life after a particularly troubled start.

The Network, which is now being jointly promoted both by the RNCF and Buttle UK, was launched at a Westminster conference in June 2012, addressed by Tim Loughton, the Under Secretary of State for Children & Families and by Lord (Andrew) Adonis his predecessor in the former Labour government.