Fifteen-million-pound plans to ramp up a school attendance scheme that provides mentoring to severely absent pupils in left-behind parts of England have been unveiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barnardo\u2019s is currently running a three-year trial of the project<\/a>, which began in 2022, in five of the government’s 24 priority education investment areas (PEIAs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The charity was awarded the \u00a32.32 million contract to provide one-to-one support to 1,665 schoolchildren across three years who are missing more than half of their lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a tender released by the Department for Education this week<\/a> revealed it is looking for firms to recruit and train mentors to work with 3,600 youngsters every year across 10 PEIAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It said: \u201cWe would need a supplier to support vulnerable children and families in each of the identified PEIAs to improve attendance. Through this work we aim to enhance capacity for early help\/intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe would be looking for a possibility to deliver an attendance support offer, initially for one year with the intention to extend to three years (total).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It added that mentors must be trained work with \u201cpupils and families on a one-to-one basis with the intention of understanding barriers\u201d to the child\u2019s attendance and supporting them to resolve this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The support \u201cshould be responsive to the individual’s needs\u201d and could be provided in school or in the youngster\u2019s home. Officials estimated the tender’s value at \u00a315 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Barnardo\u2019s trial currently covers Middlesbrough, Salford, Doncaster, Knowsley, and Stoke-on-Trent.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Education secretary Gillian Keegan told MPs last December<\/a> that the pilot \u201ctackles the factors behind non-attendance, such as bullying or mental health issues, as well as that feeling of just being too far behind\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMiddlesbrough was the first area selected to take part. It is a scheme to combat those low school attendance rates, and then we will look to expand that to [four] other areas of the country next year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ministers unveiled the 24 PEIAs last year<\/a> \u201cto address entrenched underperformance, including in literacy and numeracy, in areas with some of the highest rates of disadvantage in the country\u201d, according to the schools white paper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Schools in these parts of the country are eligible to receive extra cash through the local needs fund, as well as the attendance mentoring pilot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n PEIAs are a subset of the government\u2019s wider education investment area (EIA) levelling-up programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier this month the DfE announced that it had allocated a further \u00a320 million to its connect the classroom project<\/a>, which prioritises bids from schools in the 55 EIAs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The scheme – which will now allocate \u00a3200 million in all until 2025 – aims to improve internet speeds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Schools Week <\/em>analysis in October showed the extra cash afforded to primaries and secondaries across the investment areas came to about \u00a3105 million on average every year<\/a>. This equates to \u00a349.83 for each pupil. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Government launches search for firms to expand project into 10 investment areas and help 3,600 pupils a year <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311204,"featured_media":137034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1576],"post-theme":[2524],"class_list":["post-194282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-attendance","post-theme-attendance"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tAttendance pilot tender valued at \u00a315m<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Second investment area scheme boosted<\/h3>\n\n\n\n