The government has confirmed £15m will be spent to provide 10,000 more vulnerable children and young people with specialist attendance mentors who can help them to overcome barriers to attending school.
The expansion will cover 10 additional areas – Blackpool, Hartlepool, Hastings, Ipswich, Norwich, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Rochdale, Walsall, and West Somerset – with roll-out beginning in March 2025.
The original programme launched in 2022 across five pilot areas and sees attendance mentors providing one-to-one support to persistently absent pupils including those with SEND or mental ill-health in a bid to break-down the barriers to attendance.
It was originally piloted in Middlesborough before being expanded in 2023 to Knowsley, Doncaster, Stoke-on-Trent, and Salford.
Persistent absence is categorised as any pupil who misses more than 10% of their school sessions – this is about seven days across a term.
New attendance guidance (DfE, 2022) became statutory in September last year and includes a list of what attendance policies must include as well as a focus on identifying specific barriers to attendance and building strong relationships with pupils and families.
School attendance is slowly improving, but the latest attendance figures (DfE, 2024a) show that so far this academic year overall school absence is running at 5.5%. This breaks down to 4.2% at primary level and 6.8% at secondary level.
However, figures from the autumn term in 2023 show that 19.4% of pupils were persistently absent. This is down from the previous year (when the figure was 24.2%) but still notably higher than pre-pandemic levels (the figure was 10.9% in 2018). Persistent absence remains a more significant problem in secondary schools (23.4%) than in primary schools (15.4%) (see DfE, 2024b).
Pupils on the mentoring programme are supported over a 12 to 20 week period and will have a specific plan to help them, developed by the mentor.
This might include helping pupils to manage anxious feelings, developing their confidence and self-esteem, establishing more consistent routines at home, and supporting pupils to access support from wider services.
The pilot programme has supported pupils with a wide range of challenges including low-level anxiety, SEND, poor attitudes to learning, and complex family circumstances. The pilot evaluation showed improvements in individual pupils’ attendance, wellbeing, home routines, and engagement at school.
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 that so many young people face.
“For too long persistent absence has held back young people across the country and denied them the life chances that they deserve.”
Commenting on the announcement, children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said: “Children tell me all the time that they want to be in school, so this investment is a welcome step in addressing some of the barriers to attendance. These barriers are varied and complex: unmet mental health or SEND needs, family commitments such as being a young carer, or a disengagement from school that needs special care to resolve.
“I remain deeply concerned by the rate of severe and persistent absences, which have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Attendance mentors can be an important part of the solution by being a trusted person working closely with children and their families.”
The Department for Education confirmed that the expanded programme is to be run by Etio, a specialist consultancy that already runs the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics.
The DfE has also confirmed the appointment of the Youth Endowment Fund to evaluate the mentoring programme and provide a “more robust evidence-base around what works”.
- DfE: Week 39: Pupil attendance in schools, October 2024a: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools
- DfE: Autumn term 2023/24: Pupil absence in schools in England, May 2024b: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2023-24-autumn-term