Record number of pupils now qualify for free school meals in Peterborough

A record number of pupils were eligible to receive free school meals in Peterborough during this academic year – but nearly a fifth of pupils are not not receiving them.

Department for Education statistics reveal 11,280 pupils qualified for free school meals across the city as of January.

This is an increase on the 10,375 recorded the previous year, meaning 27.6% of all pupils in Peterborough could receive free school meals.

Rather worryingly though, the figures highlighted a concerning issue - not every child eligible for free school meals actually received them.

Indeed, only 9,203 (82%) of the 11,280 eligible pupils were in receipt of free school meals.

This means nearly a fifth of Peterborough pupils who are eligible for free meals are going without.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) was keen to suggest that – due to limits on eligibility – the figures do not reveal the full scale of the problem.

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

“These shocking figures in themselves do not reveal the full extent of the problem,” he said, “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."

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

Action for Children, a charity which protects and supports children and young people, echoed Mr Barton’s concerns.

They 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 they believed hundreds of thousands of children in poverty across the country are missing out.

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."