School pupils working together at computers

Information for Areas

The Attendance Mentoring programme is a Department for Education trial, fulfilled by Etio with our programme partners. The programme is a pilot aiming to understand the impact of targeted and responsive one-to-one mentoring support for secondary school pupils who are persistently or severely absent. Management of areas will be handled by our Regional Directors, alongside Area Managers, who will oversee the work of our Attendance Mentors.

We primarily work with pupils whose attendance is persistently below 90%, or severely absent with attendance below 50%. We and our partners understand that the impact of low attendance on pupils can manifest in reduced attainment levels, negatively impact a pupil’s wider life-chances, and increase the possibility of developing risky behaviours. As such, it is incredibly important that we – alongside parents, schools, and local authorities – understand why pupils are absent, and what works best as support for each pupil’s individual needs.

The programme is being delivered across 10 areas which are:

  • Blackpool
  • Hartlepool
  • Hastings
  • Ipswich
  • Norwich
  • Nottingham
  • Portsmouth
  • Rochdale
  • Walsall
  • West Somerset
UK MAP - ATTENDANCE MENTORS - ETIO 2

Meet Our Team

Matt Davis

Managing Director

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Matt Davis

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Managing Director

Matt has worked with governments globally on designing and implementing large-scale education transformation projects to develop teaching and leadership capacity. Through his experiences in this work, he is passionate that Etio addresses the challenge of turning policy into practical action and making change stick by implementing in a way which is respectful of the context.

Matt has worked in education for his entire career. After more than 10 years youth work, teaching and training teachers, Matt spent a decade at Education Development Trust in a range of senior roles. He joined Tribal Group in 2022 to run its Education Services division: as we become Etio, he maintains responsibility for our global portfolio of programmes, ensuring we keep our promises to customers so that they in turn can deliver on their strategic ambitions.

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Matt Davis

Managing Director

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Matt Davis

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Managing Director

Matt has worked with governments globally on designing and implementing large-scale education transformation projects to develop teaching and leadership capacity. Through his experiences in this work, he is passionate that Etio addresses the challenge of turning policy into practical action and making change stick by implementing in a way which is respectful of the context.

Matt has worked in education for his entire career. After more than 10 years youth work, teaching and training teachers, Matt spent a decade at Education Development Trust in a range of senior roles. He joined Tribal Group in 2022 to run its Education Services division: as we become Etio, he maintains responsibility for our global portfolio of programmes, ensuring we keep our promises to customers so that they in turn can deliver on their strategic ambitions.

close-icon

Matt Davis

Managing Director

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Matt Davis

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Managing Director

Matt has worked with governments globally on designing and implementing large-scale education transformation projects to develop teaching and leadership capacity. Through his experiences in this work, he is passionate that Etio addresses the challenge of turning policy into practical action and making change stick by implementing in a way which is respectful of the context.

Matt has worked in education for his entire career. After more than 10 years youth work, teaching and training teachers, Matt spent a decade at Education Development Trust in a range of senior roles. He joined Tribal Group in 2022 to run its Education Services division: as we become Etio, he maintains responsibility for our global portfolio of programmes, ensuring we keep our promises to customers so that they in turn can deliver on their strategic ambitions.

close-icon

Matt Davis

Managing Director

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Matt Davis

Region: UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, New Zealand, US

Managing Director

Matt has worked with governments globally on designing and implementing large-scale education transformation projects to develop teaching and leadership capacity. Through his experiences in this work, he is passionate that Etio addresses the challenge of turning policy into practical action and making change stick by implementing in a way which is respectful of the context.

Matt has worked in education for his entire career. After more than 10 years youth work, teaching and training teachers, Matt spent a decade at Education Development Trust in a range of senior roles. He joined Tribal Group in 2022 to run its Education Services division: as we become Etio, he maintains responsibility for our global portfolio of programmes, ensuring we keep our promises to customers so that they in turn can deliver on their strategic ambitions.

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Frequently Asked Questions

About Etio

Etio (formerly Tribal Education Services) has been a proud delivery partner to the UK Department for Education (DfE) since 2006, and our work has been critical to projects including the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP), Multiply RCTs Adult Numeracy Programme, and National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). Our vision – to elevate education, everywhere - through evidence-based insight and action.

What are the expected outcomes of the programme?

Short-term outcomes:

  • School utilise data and intervention approach in their overall attendance practice
  • School have greater understanding of barriers and challenges faced by pupils and families in their community
  • School utilise support networks and services
  • Improved understanding of significance of attendance for pupils and parents/carers
  • Improved relationship between pupil/parent/carer and school/staff
  • Improved pupil wellbeing
  • Improved pupil motivation to attend school
  • Improved pupil engagement with school/staff
  • Improved pupil attendance
  • Pupil awareness of action plan goals and activities that support them.

 

Long-term outcomes:

  • Improved and sustained overall school attendance rate
  • Attendance management approach that is adaptive and responsive to need of pupils (harnessing data)
  • Awareness, adoption and embedding of intervention activities, approaches and methods that have shown positive impact.
  • Improved and sustained pupil attendance rate.
  • Positive peer influence due to improved pupil/school relationships
  • Improved pupil attainment
  • Increased aspirations (educational, career and wider)
  • Reduction in risky behaviours
  • Reduction in numbers of NEET post 16
  • Increased life chances
  • Wider economic and social benefits

Who are the partners that will be working on the programme?

ImpactEd are our data partner – working with us to ensure that we can access the data both to identify the eligible pupils we can work with but also to provide the data to DfE and the Evaluator to support the measuring of impact.

Thrive will be delivering the majority of the Attendance Mentoring training and we will also be using their platform for caseload management, tracking and recording of mentoring activity and progress.

Oasis will be providing bespoke support, focusing on families and how we can support them in addition to the mentoring.

 

How do we get involved in the programme?

The 10 trial areas have now been selected, however if you want to learn more or advise us of your wish to be involved in any future expansion please use the contact us page.

What level of involvement will local authorities have with Regional Directors/Area Managers?

We understand that the attendance challenge requires a holistic approach, therefore our Regional Directors will engage with Local Authorities and Combined Authorities to ensure that there is a cohesion between the Attendance Mentor Programme and wider education strategies. Similarly, the Area Manager teams will engage with local authorities to ensure unity and consistency on attendance policy.

Review of School Data

If you have any questions about the program and are not involved but would be interested in possible future inclusion of any further expansions, please use the contact form below.

If you are interested in the project, and would like to receive updates, along with relevant articles and research, register here:

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