Apply for free school meals

Free School Meal eligibility

• Children of parents/carers who work might still be entitled to free school meals, dependent on income.
• There are two different types of Job Seekers Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance. These are income-based, and contribution-based. Only those in receipt of income-based Job Seekers Allowance are eligible for free school meals.
• If your child is eligible for free school meals but the school hasn’t been providing a meal, you should contact the school to make sure your child is showing on their free school meal list. If your child is not on the free school meals list, please contact the free school meals team.

Application process

• Free school meals applications should be submitted to the local authority your child’s school is in, even if you live in another local authority.
• If your child has moved to a Warwickshire school from another local authority and was getting free school meals at their previous school, you need to reapply through Warwickshire County Council. Unfortunately, details are not automatically transferred between local authorities.
• Once the application is successful, your child will continue to receive free school meals, even if household income changes, or a child moves school, until at least the end of the 2025/26 school year. At this point, the Department for Education are changing the eligibility criteria for benefits-related free school meals, and all applications will be re-assessed periodically. Warwickshire County Council will inform you of any changes to your child's free school meal status at this point.

Benefits and support

• Even if you don’t want to take the meals, making a claim will mean your child will get access to the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme and their school will get extra funding to support children.
• Benefits will not stop or be reduced if you apply for free school meals.

Food options

Sandwiches and cold food options are often available as well as hot food, check with your school to see what they offer.

Backdating

Free school meals cannot be backdated to cover the cost of unpaid dinner money, or to refund dinner money paid before the date of a successful application.