Information for Parents & Carers
Our mentors work with their mentees to build successful and collaborative relationships that help identify not only barriers but solutions where possible to help improve each pupil’s levels of attendance.
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 – working alongside parents, carers, schools, and local authorities – understand why pupils are absent, and establish what works best as support for each pupil’s individual needs.
Pupils that are identified as best suited to being supported by mentors will have their parents/carers contacted, with permission required from parents/carers prior to the mentor meeting with the pupil as organised with the school.
Etio have worked with DfE on previous projects, and we and our partners are trusted to deliver our projects both across the UK and globally.
The Attendance Mentoring programme aims to support improvement in:
- 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
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the programme mean for my child’s school?
Etio are delivering this programme on behalf of the Department for Education and are working with your child’s school to identify and support pupils facing challenges around their attendance. The Area Manager for the area and the allocated Mentor will work closely with the school to identify and then offer mentoring to pupils who may benefit from our support. We recognise that there are many factors that impact attendance and that no two pupils are the same, therefore we will collaborate with the school, local authority, yourselves, and other services to provide bespoke support that we hope will help to address the challenges identified.
What do I have to do if my child is assigned a mentor?
If your child is identified as potentially benefiting from our support, the school will contact you on our behalf and ask for your consent to participate. If you consent to being part of the mentoring programme, we ask that you support and encourage your child as much as possible to attend their mentoring sessions, and that you engage with the Mentor and Area Manager when appropriate. We appreciate that the barriers to attendance can also be challenging for parents and carers so we will work collaboratively with you and may signpost you to additional support that we have identified where appropriate.
What happens to my/my child’s data?
We understand that you may have questions about yours and your child’s data, how it is used and who has access to it.
We have a comprehensive data sharing agreement in place with all relevant parties involved with the Attendance Mentoring Pilot Expansion to ensure we are collecting, storing, processing and sharing data appropriately. These parties include your child’s school and the Department for Education and is specific to the data we collect on this programme.
When we request your consent for your child to participate in mentoring, we ask for some information including your contact details, this is so we can work with you in supporting your child’s participation in the programme. When providing consent to the programme, this includes Etio securely storing, processing, and sharing necessary personal data for the successful running of the programme in line with our privacy policy, including your contact details and your child’s information with authorised Etio employees and partners. A full list of these partners is available upon request.
If you have any questions about data or would like more information, you can contact us attendance.mentoring@etioglobal.org and we will be happy to help.
Read our full privacy policy here.
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.