Kayleigh finds it hard to concentrate "worrying about things at home"

BBC News Online meets two young carers living in Carshalton, Surrey.

In February last year Kayleigh Steptoe came home from school to find a note from her father telling her to go straight to the nearest hospital.

When she arrived she was told her mother had had a stroke that had left one side of her body paralysed.

Her mother could no longer recognise Kayleigh, and did not know where she was.

She was 34, and Kayleigh was just 13. For both of them, life would never be the same again.

GCSE fears

Mrs Steptoe left hospital later that day - but she still requires full-time care.

"If she goes downstairs you have to be in front, if she goes upstairs you have to be behind," Kayleigh tells BBC News Online.

The stress of looking after her grandparents made Kirsty ill

"She always has to have someone with her."

And when she is not at school that someone is Kayleigh.

Every morning she gives her mother her medication, bathes her, dresses her, and does her hair.

Her mother gets very tired and has to spend a lot of the day lying down.

But Kayleigh's burden of care does not end when her mother goes to bed - that is when she starts doing the cooking, cleaning and washing for her 49-year-old father, her 16-year-old brother, Robert, and herself.

Her father, who spends as much time as he can helping Kayleigh, is extremely proud of her.

Next year Kayleigh would like to take her GCSEs - but she is less than optimistic about her chances of success.

She frequently has to take days off school to look after her mother, has fallen behind with her course work, and finds it difficult to concentrate without "worrying about things at home".

'Older than mates'

Kayleigh has few friends at school - but it is one of the only places she can meet other young people in the same situation as her.

Her best friend, Kirsty Underhill, spends two to three days every week doing the shopping and housework for her 82-year-old grandfather and 76-year-old grandmother.

When we are out we seem to let our hair down a bit more and just go wild Kirsty Underhill

A year older than Kayleigh, Kirsty is just about to go back to school to start studying for her A-levels.

She passed seven of the nine GCSEs she took - despite missing two months of school last year after the stress of looking after her grandparents made her ill.

Both girls are hoping to go to college, although they will have to choose ones within easy commuting distance.

And they say they already "feel much older compared to our mates", who look up to them because they have so much responsibility.

But that does not mean they always act older - especially on the rare occasions they are able to escape their responsibilities for an evening.

"When we are out we seem to let our hair down a bit more and just go wild," Kirsty giggles.