The football field is not typically where you would find a school's best behaved students.

But the 120 indigenous teenagers who came to Sydney for a rugby league carnival this week were there for continuing school attendance and dedication to studies.

The students from rural and remote towns across the state are supported by the Clontarf Foundation, which uses football to lure disengaged indigenous boys into the classroom.

Indigenous secondary students in NSW public schools missed one day of school a week on average last year, which is 40 days of school over the year. That rate was even worse in country towns.

It was a reality Clontarf founder and chief executive Gerard Neesham found unacceptable and he saw football as the obvious vehicle to address it.

"They can see in Aussie rules and rugby league that there's a high representation of successful Aboriginal men, so they feel a great deal of ownership as a group of people in both those sports," the former Australian rules footballer said.

The program, which embeds mentors in schools to support indigenous boys, rewards students with an attendance rate of at least 80 per cent with football trips like the one to Sydney this week.

"We've got kids who have never been out of their own town, so it's a huge experience for them," Neesham said.

The students came from Armidale, Bourke, Brewarrina, Coonamble, Delroy, Dubbo South, Inverell, Moree and Tamworth.

Luke Ballard, the academy director at Coonamble High School, said it was important to expose his boys "to the world beyond the levee banks of Coonamble".

The organisation, which now works in 61 schools across Australia and 10 in NSW, achieved a retention rate of 89 per cent last year and an attendance rate of 77 per cent.

Of the 200 boys who graduated high school in 2012, 150 were employed or undertaking further study 12 months later.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli, who will attend footy training with some of the boys in Tamworth on Thursday, said the program was "a great example of approaches NSW schools are taking to improve student engagement".

"The NSW government currently funds 10 Clontarf academies and by next year we will have funded places for 700 students," he said.

Codie Welsh, who graduated from Coonamble last year, is working full-time in civil construction with Leighton Contractors in Sydney.

When Clontarf joined his school a few years ago, he was skipping school every second day.

"I just wanted to drop out and do nothing like everyone else around us," the 18-year-old said.

But the promise of a trip to Darwin encouraged him to start showing up.

"I thought it was just another one of those things that they try to bring into the school that doesn't work," he said. "I really didn't think it would work out like this."

His employer gave him some time off this week to cheer on his young friends and family at the football tournament, which was held at Saint Ignatius' College in Riverview.

"Hopefully they'll look at us as role models and try to do sort of what we've done," he said.