Don Barrell, Greenhouse Sports CEO
What does it take to get a child through the school gates each morning? A uniform, a packed lunch, maybe a hurried nudge from a parent running late for work?
For many, it’s that simple.
But for one in five children in the UK who are persistently absent from school, it’s not.
The government’s latest approach to tackling absenteeism – free breakfasts and short-term mentoring schemes – shows good intent, but misses the bigger picture. Attendance isn’t just about food, and it’s not a quick fix.
Bridget Phillipson’s recent Financial Times piece states a proper breakfast can get children back into school and learning, with the government expanding free breakfast clubs to 750 more primary schools – and this is a great thing.
No one disputes the importance of nutrition – hunger affects concentration, and breakfast clubs can help create a sense of routine and community and can address the financial barriers that many families face. But this oversimplifies the deeper barriers to attendance. It misses the crucial role of trusted adult relationships.
The Department for Education has also pledged £15 million for mentoring schemes targeting persistently absent pupils. Mentors will work with students over 12–20 weeks, helping them manage anxiety, build confidence, and improve attendance. But you don’t rebuild a child’s trust in a term.
Research suggests that short-term mentoring can sometimes do more harm than good. If a young person builds trust in a mentor only to have that support pulled away, it can deepen feelings of abandonment and disengagement. A few months of encouragement isn’t enough to undo years of feeling unseen or unsupported.
Real change takes time. Young people don’t show up just because they’re told to – they show up because they feel seen, valued, and part of something bigger. That’s why tackling absenteeism isn’t about stricter rules or short-term schemes. It’s about trust. It’s about relationships. Young people need something to move towards, something to look forward to.
Teachers are incredible and work hard, but their role and the expectations placed on them have grown over the years. They provide stability, guidance, and encouragement every day. But some young people, especially those disengaged from school, need someone who isn’t grading them or is under pressure to hit targets, someone more relatable. A trusted adult. A mentor.
A mentor embedded in a school isn’t just an occasional visitor. They’re a constant presence – there to build confidence, create belonging, and guide young people toward positive activities. In a day that feels discouraging or lacks motivation and success, mentors help them find it.
And here’s the key: many young people won’t sign up for a mentoring scheme, especially if they’re already disengaged. What would draw you towards sitting in another room, speaking with another adult? There’s a far higher chance they’ll sign up for basketball, art, drama – something that excites them, something that allows them to succeed. These activities are the hook. And when they’re delivered by trained mentors, things shift.
Through shared experiences, young people build trust. They start opening up, feeling valued, building self-belief and improving overall wellbeing. And what keeps them coming back isn’t just the sport or the art – it’s the people. It’s the coach, mentor, trusted adult who believes in them and shows up, every single day.
That’s the power of having someone show up, and having someone to show up for.
For young people growing up in poverty or with a challenging home, life can be unpredictable. Support networks are often fractured. School can feel like just another system that isn’t built for them. But when there’s a mentor – a consistent role model embedded in their school, invested in their success – it’s a game changer.
They start to see school not as a place they have to be, but as a place they want to be. And the impact is real.
We see the power of this every day at Greenhouse Sports, investing £8.5m every year to place full-time Coach-Mentors in schools in communities facing poverty, working daily with disengaged students. Through sport and mentorship, we reach over 8,500 young people a year – young people who could have easily become another absenteeism statistic. Instead, they attend up to 14 more days of school annually and have improved wellbeing and attainment compared to those not on our programmes.
The government’s strategy is missing a vital piece: relationships. If we’re serious about tackling absenteeism, we need to stop looking for quick fixes and start investing in what works: sustained support.
There’s a legal and moral obligation to get a young person to school. By working in this environment and providing an intervention that complements the educational sector and other programmes, we can act as force multipliers and genuinely impact young people.
Food matters. Resources matter. But what young people need most is to feel valued. They need to believe their future is theirs for the taking.
Short-term interventions won’t solve long-term disengagement, and we don’t need a £15 million pound trial to show what is working, we are doing it every day and at a significantly cheaper cost.
If we’re serious about solving this crisis, we don’t need patchwork solutions. Turn up, stay present and show young people what it is to succeed and partner with great people like “Magic Breakfast” to maximize the interventions being provided to young people. You don’t get to choose when you are ready to change, but when you are ready to be influenced, we must be there.
And that’s something worth showing up for.