Originally set up in the USA in 1984 with the support of Coca Cola as a means to keep youngsters at risk of dropping out attending school, the Valued Youth programme has spread to Brazil and the UK. Valued Youth has operated in the UK since 1996, currently in 55 schools in 6 regions. The programme is for secondary school students who are at risk of disengaging with school or under-performing for a variety of reasons. These students are selected as tutors and given training on how to work with younger children and placed in a local primary school where they work with pupils. Valued Youth can be seen as part of the wider body of work on re-engagement in learning and contributes to the UK government strategy of extending opportunities and providing flexible learning experiences to meet individual learners' needs and aptitudes (DfES 2003,2004). In South Yorkshire, the Valued Youth programme has been supported by the European Social Fund (ESF) in a re-engagement programme within a Pathways to Success project to raise achievement and improve motivation and employability skills as part of the Objective 1 programme, 2001-2007 (Coldwell, Holland, Rybinski and Trickey, ECER 2004). Evidence from the USA has shown the value of the programme in reducing drop-out, strengthening youngster's perceptions of self and school, and reducing disciplinary referrals and absenteeism ( Intercultural Development Research Association, 2004). The evaluation which will be discussed in this paper will consider the effect of the programme in a UK context, not only in terms of young people's attendance, attainment and confidence, but also in terms of what sort of youngsters seem to benefit most, any positive impact sustained beyond involvement in the programme and the effects of rewards, if any, on the outcomes. The paper will report on the first year of a two-year evaluation. Data will be obtained from a pre- and post- questionnaire survey to tutors, visits to selected case study schools in several regions to interview coordinators and youngsters, and observation of youngsters at work in primary classrooms. The paper will also make a contribution to the literature on what works in dropout prevention and the debate on the relationship between self esteem and school achievement (see Review of Self-esteem Research, National Association for Self-esteem, Reasoner, 2003).