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.
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