Facebook
TwitterIn England a free school meal is a statutory benefit available to school aged children from families who receive other qualifying benefits and who have been through the relevant registration process.
On 17 September 2013 the Department for Education announced that all infant school pupils (pupils in reception and years 1 and 2) in state funded schools in England will be eligible for a free school meal from September 2014.
This statistical release estimates the number of children in relative and absolute poverty by free school meal entitlement in the current system and looks at the impact on this of the announced extension to all infant school pupils for 2014 to 2015. In addition, this release presents analysis of the number of families currently on free school meals in relative and absolute poverty which would stand to benefit from being able to increase working hours without losing free school meals following the increase in entitlement.
Facebook
TwitterThis release contains statistics on free school meals, including:
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Progression to HE by Free School Meal eligibility(including progression rate gap)
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Numbers of eligible pupils and the take up of Free School Meals (FSM) for Maintained York Local Authority Schools (Excludes dual registered subsidiary pupils). All data is taken from the January School Census and published around April time. Data for Academy schools is not available. Please note that FSM taken data isn’t available in the census data since 2018, and therefore columns relating to FSM taken has been removed from the dataset. Due to data protection requirements, we can't publish real values for FSMTotal or FSMTaken when those figures are < 5. Thus, those values have been converted to 9999. If a cell has no value it means that data is not collected for that field for that specific school.
Facebook
TwitterAround 2.17 million pupils were eligible for free school meals in England in the 2024/25 academic year, compared with 2.09 million pupils in the previous year. Free school meals became a key issue during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, when they were replaced by a voucher scheme in the lockdown and Easter holidays. Although the voucher system was initially not supposed to extend to the summer holidays, a pressure campaign by English footballer, Marcus Rashford resulted in a government U-turn, on the issue, resulting in the voucher scheme covering the summer.
Facebook
TwitterThis shows the estimated number and percentage of 15 year old pupils in 2008 to 2009 from state-funded schools in England with free school meal status and by local authority, who entered higher education by age 19 in 2012 to 2013. It covers higher education institutions in the UK and further education colleges in England. This is taken from Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) analysis of matched data from:
As the analysis is from matched data all figures should be treated as estimates. Further details are available from the BIS statistical publication ‘Widening participation in higher education July 2015’.
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Estimates of Free School Meal eligibility - Explore Education Statistics data set Free School Meal eligibility estimates from Estimate of additional children claiming Free School Meals following expansion of eligibility
Facebook
TwitterGLA's Opinion Research team carried out qualitative research with parents to understand the impact of implementing universal free school meals to children in years 3 to 6 in London's state schools.
Facebook
TwitterThis release contains the latest statistics on school and pupil numbers and their characteristics, including:
School census statistics team
Email mailto:Schools.Statistics@education.gov.uk">Schools.Statistics@education.gov.uk
Ann Claytor 0370 000 2288
Facebook
TwitterOfficial statistics are produced impartially and free from political influence.
Facebook
TwitterNumber of pupils eligible for Free School Meals in Calderdale Primary Schools (Academies and Local Authority Maintained Schools); the data source is the termly school census. Academy data is only available from October 2015 onwards. The dataset for Academies and Local Authority Maintained Schools is being published as one dataset from October 2016. May 2020 is missing because this census was cancelled by the government due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Other schools data
Facebook
TwitterData presented here is an extract of data taken from the Annual School Meal Census in publicly funded schools in Scotland. The data shows the provision of school meals (including free school meals) for each school in the Glasgow local authority area. The dataset forms part of a time series and is available for the years 2003 through to 2014. Full datasets can be downloaded from The Scottish Government. The data is graduated to school level and data includes: the numbers on the school roll; counts of pupils entitled to free school meals; counts of pupils present on the day of the survey, counts of pupils taking a school meal (free or not) on the day of the survey; and counts of pupils taking a free school meal on the day of the survey. In order to protect the identity of pupils a * used in the dataset denotes the number of pupils is 4 or less (zero included) or where such a figure could be worked out. A * * used in the dataset denotes where the difference between the number of pupils on the register and pupils with FME is 4 or less. Some of the datasets also include information on breakfast clubs, the provision of fresh fruit and water and the anonymity of the free school meal application process. The School Meal Census is carried out annually. For individual dataset errata or qualifications users should consult the background data or notes of the individual datasets. Licence: None fsm2003-2014.zip - https://dataservices.open.glasgow.gov.uk/Download/Organisation/728522f0-86da-48c6-8f75-1649934eb8a4/Dataset/7a0f701f-b55f-463f-a748-d62d6adf9979/File/51a57ba3-cf7b-4738-90ff-81d48dac9820/Version/7e43a6c6-cff0-4be2-b6e4-cd2e9c2707a5
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition outputs for understanding the free school meals earning gap, based on Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data for people who were aged 30 years between April 2016 and April 2019.
Facebook
TwitterIn 2024/25, **** percent of school students in the North East of England were eligible for free school meals, the highest share of any region in England. By comparison, the South East of England had the lowest share of pupils eligible for free school meals, at **** percent.
Facebook
TwitterThis dataset contains the number of students by Leicester Ward, the number of these in receipt of universal infant free School Meals and the number of receipt of other free school meals based on data as at November 2021
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
This is the number of pupils eligible for and claiming free school meals (FSM) as a percentage of all pupils. This includes state-funded nurseries, state-funded primary schools, state-funded secondary schools, Pupil referral units (PRUs), state-funded special schools and non-maintained special schools. General hospital schools are excluded. This includes full time and part time pupils who are sole or dual main registrations, boarding pupils, and pupils registered with other providers and further education colleges. The information is based on data collected via the pupil level spring school census, school level annual school census, general hospital schools census and alternative provision census.
Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.
Facebook
TwitterProvides information on the estimated number of 15 year olds in receipt of free school meals (FSM) who progress to higher education (HE) by age 19 by 2008/09. It is presented at national and local authority level. Also provides data on the number of young people taking A levels or equivalent qualifications who progress to the most selective institutions by school type. These measures aim to contribute to the understanding of widening participation and social mobility issues. Underlying data for this publication is also available in a machine processable format on the Transparency/Report Data webpage. This publication replaces ‘Full-time young participation by socio-economic class: 2010 update’ (URN 10/P81).
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Progression to HE by Free School Meal eligibility, Sex and Ethnic Group - Regional level
Facebook
TwitterOpen Government Licence 2.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/
License information was derived automatically
% of children taking a free school meal in the secondary sector (excluding Danesgate) - (Jan Census Snapshot)
Facebook
TwitterInformation on this page outlines payments made to institutions for claims they have made to ESFA for various grants. These include, but are not exclusively, coronavirus (COVID-19) support grants. Information on funding for grants based on allocations will be on the specific GOV.UK page for the grant.
Financial assistance available to schools to cover increased premises, free school meals and additional cleaning-related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer holidays in 2020, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Financial assistance available to meet the additional cost of the provision of free school meals to pupils and students where they were at home during term time, for the period January 2021 to March 2021.
Financial assistance for additional transition support provided to year 11 pupils by alternative provision settings from June 2020 until the end of the autumn term (December 2020).
Financial assistance for schools, colleges and other exam centres to run exams and assessments during the period October 2020 to March 2021 (or for functional skills qualifications, October 2020 to December 2020).
Financial assistance for mentors’ salary costs on the academic mentors programme from the start of their training until 31 July 2021, with adjustment for any withdrawals.
Financial assistance for schools and colleges to support them with costs they have incurred when conducting asymptomatic testing site (ATS) onsite testing, in line with departmental testing policy.
Details of payments included in the data cover the following periods:
| Phase | Period |
|---|---|
| Phase 1 | 4 January 2021 to 5 March 2021 |
| Phases 2 and 3 | 6 March 2021 to 1 April 2021 |
| Phase 4 | 2 April 2021 to 23 July 2021 |
Also included are details of exceptional costs claims made by schools and colleges that had to hire additional premises or make significant alterations to their existing premises to conduct testing from 4 January 2021 to 19 March 2021.
<h3 id="coronavirus-covid-19-workforce-fund-for-schoolshttpswwwgovukgovernmentpublicationscoronavirus-covid-19-workforce-fund-for-schoolscoronavirus-covid-19-workforce-f
Facebook
TwitterIn England a free school meal is a statutory benefit available to school aged children from families who receive other qualifying benefits and who have been through the relevant registration process.
On 17 September 2013 the Department for Education announced that all infant school pupils (pupils in reception and years 1 and 2) in state funded schools in England will be eligible for a free school meal from September 2014.
This statistical release estimates the number of children in relative and absolute poverty by free school meal entitlement in the current system and looks at the impact on this of the announced extension to all infant school pupils for 2014 to 2015. In addition, this release presents analysis of the number of families currently on free school meals in relative and absolute poverty which would stand to benefit from being able to increase working hours without losing free school meals following the increase in entitlement.