Are you aware that claiming Free School Meals not only provides your child/children with a meal allowance each day of £2.40 but also brings in valuable additional funding to the school? For each child who is eligible for a Free School Meal and applies to the school to take this allowance, there is additional funding of £935 allocated to the school in the form of Pupil Premium. With budgets being ever reduced, it is really important that we attract as much funding as possible into the school to ensure that we are able to maintain a sufficient level of budget.

Your child is entitled to Free School Meals if you are in receipt of one of the following:

Changes to Free School Meal Entitlement Following a recent consultation by the Department for Education (DfE), there will be a new income threshold for all families receiving or going onto Universal Credit (UC). The new Income Threshold is £7,400 net (take home pay). This change means more low-income working families will be entitled. From 1st April 2018 a child will be eligible to receive free school meals if the parent/child are in receipt of any of the following:

• 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 guaranteed 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 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit – if you apply on or after 1 April 2018 your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get)

 During the roll out period of UC across the Country, (until March 2022), the DfE have also implemented a Transitional Protection for children currently receiving free school meals. The transitional protections will ensure that existing recipients of FSM will NOT lose their entitlement following the introduction of the new eligibility criteria.

• All children receiving Free School Meals under the old criteria will continue to receive Free School Meals until the end of the UC roll out in March 2022, and until the end of their current school phase. i.e. if in March 2022 they are in NCY 4, they will receive FSM until end of NCY 6, (end of Primary Phase). If a child in March 2022 is in NCY 9 they will receive FSM until end of NCY 11, (end of Secondary Phase)

 Applying for Free School Meals is really simple, just complete the form online at www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/freeschoolmeals  or download the Free School Meal Application Form here and hand it in to Reception.