Announcement - Etio awarded major Department for Education project: Attendance Mentoring Pilot Expansion (AMPE)  

The Department for Education (DfE) has awarded a significant new project, the Attendance Mentoring Pilot Expansion (AMPE), to Etio. The pilot will run for a duration of three and a half years, and will primarily focus on students who are consistently absent from school between 10% to 50% of the time. 

A 'mentoring-first' approach

The pilot will take a 'mentoring-first' approach to address the national attendance challenge. Around 50 mentors will be deployed to help approximately 3,600 students annually (or 10,800 students in total), spread across ten critical local regions.

The service, designed specifically to focus on those persistently absent students more likely to respond well to mentorship, is set to be swiftly assembled and launched in October 2024. The mentorship with help to identify and address any associated issues that may be contributing to students' absence. 

The pilot project will be led by Etio Project Director, Laura Bell, who has more than 15 years of experience executing national contracts for DfE. To deliver this project, Etio will join forces with three partner organisations: ImpactEd, Thrive, and Oasis Community Partnerships. The AMPE project will utilise mentors for direct pupil intervention, to be introduced in a number of selected secondary schools in each of the ten earmarked regions. 

Developing an evidence base 

The outcomes of the pilot will contribute to the understanding of effective practices and delivery models by evaluating interventions to comprehend what works best. Consequently, comprehensive and reliable evidence will be collected in a manner that is easy for schools to understand and utilise. The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) will support the evaluation of this pilot through a Randomised Control Trial, supplying solid evidence to guide future national policy decisions.

Each mentorship course will be centred around the students and will usually consist of weekly one-hour sessions for 12 weeks. There will be four phases: establishing trust and identifying obstacles; setting goals and actions; implementing action plans and forming a student support network; and planning for school reintegration and long-term self-reliance. In suitable situations, the Oasis Encounter model will be employed to assist and empower families and parents to participate in enhancing their child’s school attendance. This method involves therapeutic intervention that teaches tools to improve the wellbeing of both parents and children.

Equitable and inclusive mentoring 
The mentoring will be accessible, inclusive, and fair, offering flexible meeting times and locations to encourage participation. The mentors from Etio will be recruited from the local community and will work closely with the staff of the participating schools to reduce pupil absence quickly and permanently. The attendance crisis is the result of multiple, intertwined factors such as student anxiety, student safety and disengagement, changes in parental work schedules, and cost-of-living pressures. These factors disproportionately affect those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Visit the AMPE Recruitment page 

Etio are currently recruiting for a range of roles for the Attendance Mentoring Pilot Expansion (AMPE) project, including: Attendance Mentors, Area Managers and Regional Project Directors.