Statement:

Attendance mentor programme expansion to go ahead under new Government

14 October 2024
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The Government has announced a £15 million investment to expand the reach of attendance mentoring  to reach 10,000 more children and cover an additional 10 areas including Blackpool.

In response to the announcement School-Home Support Chief Executive Jaine Stannard said:

“The school attendance crisis is one of the biggest challenges the education system faces and tackling it should be a priority for the Government’s Opportunity mission. We welcome any new investment in support for children and families to help tackle the root causes of absence, but we will need to invest more if we are to meet the scale of the crisis we face. There are huge gaps in family support in and around schools and this has exacerbated the school attendance problem. School Home Support has been helping children and families tackle barriers to school attendance for 40 years, so we know that the right sort of help at the right time can make a huge difference. Failing to address problems of high absence will have huge consequences for years to come.  Every day lost from a child’s education is one too many.”

 

In our route map for Government, we set out what the Government should achieve in its first 100 days, including a commitment to a ‘moonshot’ goal of every child in school and ready to learn by 2050, and to funding a whole family support practitioner in every school. Read our route map.