Free school meals are available for children if their parent or carer receives certain benefits. In addition, the school receives Pupil Premium funding each year of £1,035 per student who is entitled to free school meals; this funding continues for up to six years after the free school meals claim ends.
This means that even if you only expect to claim for a short period of time, the Pupil Premium funding will continue to support your child’s education for the long term.
If you don’t apply our School will miss out on funding which could go towards providing additional support for your child. If your child prefers to bring a packed lunch, you will still need to register for free school meals for our School to receive the Pupil Premium funding.
Easy and discrete
We have cashless catering and all Free School Meal students will receive a daily credit of £3.80 per day on their account. When paying for their meal or snacks they simply need to place their thumb on the biometric reader at the till, and we take care of everything else. All students pay for their meals in the same way, meaning that Free School Meal students are not identifiable by other students.
Are you eligible?
- Free school meals are available to pupils in receipt of, or whose parents are in receipt of, one or more of the following benefits:
- Universal Credit (provided you have an annual net earned income of no more than £7,400, as assessed by earnings from up to three of your most recent assessment periods)
- Income Support
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
- Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- The guarantee element of Pension Credit
- Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
- Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for
- Working Tax Credit
In addition, the following pupils will be protected against losing their free school meals as follows:
- From 1 April 2018, all existing free school meals claimants will continue to receive free school meals whilst Universal Credit is rolled out. This will apply even if their earnings rise above the new threshold during that time.
- In addition, any child gaining eligibility for free school meals after 1 April 2018 will be protected against losing free school meals during the Universal Credit rollout period.
- Once Universal Credit is fully rolled out, any existing claimants that no longer meet the eligibility criteria at that point (because they are earning above the threshold or are no longer a recipient of Universal Credit) will continue to receive free school meals until the end of their current phase of education (i.e. primary or secondary).
The Universal Credit rollout was completed in March 2022.
How to apply
The local authority in which the student attends the school, not where the student resides, is responsible for assessing the eligibility of a claimant.
When you have completed your application, provided you are eligible for free school meals, you will not need to do anything else; we will be notified by the local authority and will be in touch with you. Registering for free school meals is confidential and is administered discretely at the school by our experienced catering team.
