Free School Meals – Auto Award Project

Published: 13 March 2024

Derby City Council will soon be initiating a Free School Meals Auto Award Project.  This has been done by many other Local Authorities and has helped to increase free school meals take-up for children and maximise Pupil Premium for schools.

The Process:

• We will write to parents we believe are eligible for free school meals advising them of this.
• Parents can opt-out if they so wish by emailing freeschoolmeals@derby.gov.uk 
• Any children whose parents have not opted out will be checked for eligibility and awarded free school meals if appropriate.
• For schools that process their own free school meals:
  • We will send a list of all eligible children to check against their own records.
• For schools who take our sold service for free school meals:
  • We will award free school meals for all eligible children found by our data matching.
  • Once awarded, the new free school meals children will appear on the free school meals online portal.
• We will write to parents advising them if we have awarded free school meals for their children.

Please contact freeschoolmeals@derby.gov.uk if you would like any further information on this.

Education