A £15 million expansion of the Department for Education’s attendance mentor pilot programme will launch next year, six months later than planned.
The contract has been awarded to Etio Global to provide support to persistently absent secondary school students in 10 Priority Education Investment Areas across England, the DfE said today.
The mentoring scheme was originally launched alongside a rollout of school-led attendance hubs by the previous Conservative government in an effort to tackle stubbornly high pupil absence rates since the pandemic.
The DfE said the expansion announced today builds on the “practice” developed through the existing mentors pilot run by Barnardo’s in Middlesbrough, Salford, Doncaster, Knowsley and Stoke on Trent, which is due to end next year.
Etio will deliver the new rollout from next March in Blackpool, Hartlepool, Hastings, Ipswich, Norwich, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Rochdale, Walsall and West Somerset.
Up to 750 schools in these areas will be contacted shortly to express their interest in getting involved in the programme, the DfE said
Programme to be expanded from March 2025
The contract notice for the expansion was first published last year, detailing that delivery would commence “in October 2024 and conclude in October 2026”.
However, this timing was based on a contract being awarded in June, which would have been delayed due to the election being called in May to take place in July.
The DfE said today that the programme will now be expanded from March 2025.
It said that 50 mentors will be recruited to support up to 3,600 pupils per year (around 10,800 pupils in total) over the three years.
While the original contract was for two academic years, Etio said today that it had been awarded a three-and-a-half-year contract, adding that it would work with partner organisations ImpactEd Group, Thrive and Oasis Community Partnerships to deliver the project.
The firm also said today that the pilot will be evaluated through a randomised control trial supported by the Youth Endowment Fund.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the support should not be limited to those living in areas where the scheme is running and “a national network of support” is needed.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Tackling the national epidemic of school absence is non-negotiable if we are to break down the barriers to opportunity so many young people face.”
She added that persistent absence “has held back young people across the country” for too long, insisting that “this government is gripping this generational challenge facing our schools”.
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