School Meals

Primary Set Menu – From September 2024 to July 2025, The Mayor of London’s funding expands free school meals so that every child in a state London primary school has the offer of a free lunch.

How to order school meals on Parentpay video. Click the link below.

How to order lunches on Parentpay.mp4

Reception, Year One and Year Two are free due to the universal free school meal entitlement. (This is not the same as Pupil Premium entitlement which is means-tested.)

If your child is joining Year 3 in September, then their entitlement to universal free school meals will end. If you are entitled to Free School Meals; you will need to re-apply. See the letter below.

Free school meals

Free school meals are a statutory means-tested benefit which provides a child or young person with meals at school for free. Parents in the borough who are eligible to claim free school meals for their children are not claiming their entitlement.

Taking up free school meals has benefits for everyone:

• Children can benefit from a healthy free nutritious meal
• Families entitled to free school meals could save more than £400 per child per year by claiming free school meals
• It’s anonymous for parents (because so much of the application process can be done online, a persons’ entitlement is mostly processed electronically)
• It’s anonymous for young people (thanks to the Street Base and Splash cards claiming free school meals is anonymous – cards are swiped in the same way as a paid for meal so nobody knows that it’s a free school meal)
• Schools can benefit directly by receiving money from the government. The government pays schools £430 for every child who registers for free school meals. Your school could benefit from hundreds of thousands of pounds

Who can claim

Claiming free school meals

If you are on a low income or receive Child Benefit and any of the following benefits, you could claim free school meals for your child:

• 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)
• 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
• 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 (earnings after tax and not including any benefits you get)

You may also qualify for free school meals for your child if:

• you are an asylum seeker
• you live outside Barking and Dagenham but meet the previous criteria and your child is attending a school in the borough
• your only or main income is one of the benefits listed

How to apply for free school meals

To apply for Free School Meals or the Pupil Premium please ask at our school reception for an application form.

Once you have completed the application form you can hand it in back to us. We will send it to the local authority on your behalf.

Here are some suggestions for healthy packed lunches.