New style of boarding school for foster children

SIR – Camilla Turner (report, June 12) writes well on how boarding schools can have a “life-changing” effect on foster children.

I do wish, however, that the media would stop using pictures of boys in the rarefied uniform of Eton whenever boarding schools are mentioned. Such images reinforce and perpetuate a stereotypical and outdated view of a hugely dynamic, forward-looking and diverse sector of education (which is also mostly co-educational).

Eton is a very fine school, but it is not the only boarding school. Its uniform is far from the norm and its constant presentation does little to move people’s perceptions of such schools on from the days of Tom Brown’s Rugby. Paul Taylor

Headmaster, Framlingham College Woodbridge, Suffolk

SIR – The proposal from Lord Agnew, the schools minister, to place children in social care at boarding schools is to be applauded and encouraged.

As a governor with a specific safeguarding remit at an independent boarding school, I am confident that such children would thrive in the environment we create.

Consistent excellent pastoral care and the opportunity to develop individual talent, not only academically, but across a range of arts, in drama and in sport, would grant these children life chances that the current social care regime would not seem to guarantee.

Aside from the cost savings to local authorities, the value of such an opportunity to these children would be immeasurable. Patricia Abbott

Wattisfield, Suffolk

SIR – I retired over 20 years ago as the bursar at an independent school, and during my time there we had boarders financed by local authorities.

I can recall one particular boy of mixed-race parentage who was sent by the old Inner London Education Authority. He arrived as a likely candidate for borstal and left six years later a fine young man. Maurice Burbidge

Bexhill-on-sea, East Sussex