Record number of pupils eligible to receive free school meals in Bedford

A record number of pupils were eligible to receive free school meals in Bedford this academic year, new figures show.

But the Association of School and College Leaders said the figures – which show the number of pupils able to have free school meals has risen to a record two million in England – do not reveal the full scale of the problem due to limits on eligibility.

Department for Education figures show 6,331 pupils were eligible for free school meals in Bedford as of January – up from 5,719 the year before.

It meant 20.2% of all pupils in the area could receive free school meals.

The number of eligible children across England has increased every year since January 2018, when there were 1.1 million (13.6%). This year, the figure rose to 23.8%.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL, said the high level of free school meal eligibility should be a "wake-up call about the appallingly high levels of childhood poverty in England".

Mr Barton said: "Yet these shocking figures in themselves do not reveal the full extent of the problem because there are many more families who are struggling but who do not qualify for free school meal provision as eligibility is limited to those whose household income is less than £7,400 a year."

He urged the Government to extend free school meals to all families receiving Universal Credit.

Action for Children said the figures "significantly understate the scale of the problem of children being too hungry to learn because many children in working poor households are not eligible for free school meals". They added that hundreds of thousands of children in poverty are missing out.

The figures also showed not every child eligible for free school meals actually received them.

In fact, in Bedford, out of the 6,331 eligible pupils, just 4,745 (75%) were in receipt of free school meals.

A Department for Education spokesperson said it had extended eligibility "several times to more groups of children than any other Government over the past half a century".