20,000 more pupils accessing free school meals (FSM) due to new trial scheme
A new trial has led
to thousands more pupils being able to access FSM.
The National College
A pilot project run
by research programme Fix Our Food has identified thousands of pupils eligible
but not registered for FSM and automatically enrolled them. The scheme has been
implemented in roughly 20 LAs so far and provided FSM to approximately 20,000
more pupils.
Under normal
circumstances, eligible families have to register their children to get access
to FSM. The DfE has encouraged all families who qualify but are not
automatically registered to sign up.
There are currently
2.1 million pupils in England registered for FSM, making up 24.6 percent of the
pupil population. FSM saves families £500 per year in lunch costs.
To be eligible for
FSM, families need to be on universal credit (UC) and have an annual household
income of below £7,400 after tax. The thinktank Policy in Practice has
estimated that there could be up to 470,000 families that meet the FSM criteria
but are not registered. The difficulties facing eligible families registering
include language barriers, lack of understanding of the eligibility criteria
and a stigma around sharing financial information.
Researchers behind
the new scheme have called for the government to automatically enrol the
eligible families that are missing out on the support by having them opt out of
FSM rather than opt in.
40 additional
councils are now working with Fix Our Food to find out if they could implement
the scheme. Councils already participating include County Durham, Wakefield,
Lambeth, North Yorkshire and Middlesbrough.
According to Fix
Our Food, the additional registrations have brought in millions of pounds in
funding for schools through the pupil premium. The scheme, however, requires a
significant amount of paperwork to identify eligible families, and researchers
have said they want the government to bring together datasets from different
departments to ease the process.
A headteacher from
a participating school in Lambeth said that he used the additional funding for
residential trips and extra mentoring and tuition. More than half of the pupils
in his school were already registered for FSM, over double the national
average, but the trial scheme identified an additional 15 pupils that were able
to receive the support.
As we have covered
in our Compliance
Digest article, MPs will debate the automatic registration of pupils
eligible for FSM in Parliament, with a bill addressing the issue having been
introduced earlier this month.
The government has
committed to tackling child poverty, but not to rolling out the trial scheme
nationwide. A spokesperson said that one of the first priorities was the
rollout of free breakfast clubs in primary schools, which is expected to begin
in April 2025.
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