As of January, just under 1.9 million children were eligible for free school meals.
However, the Child Poverty Action Group has warned that over one in three school-age children in England living in poverty, the equivalent of 800,000, still do not qualify for the support.
To be eligible for free school meals, parents of primary school children from Year 3 and upwards must be in receipt of benefits including universal credit, child tax credit, income support and Job Seeker’s Allowance. Those on universal credit must earn less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including benefits).
Separately, all children in Reception, Year 1 and 2 are eligible for infant free school meals.
CPAG and the National Union of Head Teachers (NAHT) are continuing to call for free school meals eligibility to be extended to all children in households receiving universal credit.
Last week, teaching unions and head teachers sent a letter to Chancellor and the education secretary urging them to extend free school meals as families struggle with the cost of living crisis.
The data on eligibility for free school meals is included within the DfE’s ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ report, published today (9 June), which also includes statistics on class sizes and the number of schools in the country.
Kate Anstey, head of the UK Cost of the School Day programme at Child Poverty Action Group, said, ‘We know families are being left to make impossible decisions, with many parents simply unable to afford lunches but desperately not wanting their children to go without. Food is vital to children’s health, wellbeing and learning, and the Government cannot continue to stand by while children in poverty go hungry at lunchtime. No other part of the school day is means-tested in this way – universal free school meals should simply be a fundamental part of going to school.’
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said, ‘Our members have described the rise in poverty in their schools’ communities over the past year as “shocking and stark”. It is clear that the combined pressures of Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis have driven more families and children into poverty.
‘The children who have newly become eligible for free school meals are disproportionately drawn from more disadvantaged areas and are largely those pupils who already needed more support, which schools are increasingly struggling to give with over stretched budgets and the erosion of the value of pupil premium funding since 2015.
‘Additional funding is urgently needed for both educational and pastoral support. Children who are hungry are not ready to learn. Teachers and school leaders are increasingly having to tackle the impact of poverty before they can even start teaching.’
The DfE has also published a new report on school leadership between 2010 and 2020, which the National Education Union (NEU) has argued highlights the ‘serious and deep-rooted teacher recruitment and retention problems.’
It shows a reduction in the number of newly-qualified entrants most years and an increase of teachers moving out of ‘service’.
Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the NEU, said, ‘The latest information confirms that the serious and deep-rooted teacher recruitment and retention problems remain. On a range of measures, it is clear that the problems are getting worse - even before the impact of the Government's plans to cut the value of teacher pay.
‘Pay cuts, and the failure of the Government to tackle excessive workload, are bound to intensify recruitment and retention problems that are already critical. This will cause serious damage to education, so urgent action to address these problems is vital for parents and young people as well as for teachers. Instead of planning to cut pay again, the Government must protect teachers and other educators by implementing fully-funded and inflation-proofed cost of living increases across all pay scales.’
