Free School Meals
Did you know that much of a school’s funding is based on the number of pupils eligible for Free School Meals? Help your family and our school by applying for Free School Meals. This page explains how you can claim this meal allowance
To be able to claim Free School Meals for your child / children you will need to be in receipt of the following
Income Support
Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance
Support Under Part V1 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
Child Tax Credits: Provided that you are not in receipt of Working Tax Credit and have an income exceeding £15,675 (as assessed by HM Revenue & Customs)
The Guaranteed element of State
Pension Credit
What you need to do next?
At this school we carry out our own administration, therefore to guarantee that your child/children receive this meal allowance you will need to provide us with up to date proof of income from either the DWP or The Inland Revenue (the date of the proof should be no more than 3 months old).
Please be aware that we are unable to accept bank statements as proof of payments of benefits. Only statements on DWP or Inland Revenue Headed Paper will be used.
We ask that either you or your child bring your copy of proof into school where it will be photocopied ( the original will be returned immediately) and placed on our files for reference purposes.
The administration of this system is carried out twice a year, September and February, letters will be sent home to remind you.
Please remember that without your renewal of proof we will be unable to renew your child/childrens's entitlement. Also, should your circumstances change and you find that you are no longer in receipt of these benefits you must inform the school immediately of these changes.
At Cornelius pupils use a cashless system using swipe cards for lunches. Cards are identical for pupils paying cash for meals and those in receipt of free meals. The swipe card removes any discrimination. It shows the pupil's ID number so that the card cannot be used by anybody else. Pupils qualifying for free school meals have their swipe card automatically credited with a meal allowance daily. This allowance may only be used at lunch time and not break time as many pupils think, please ensure that you explain this to your child/children. This can be used for hot or cold meals and sandwiches etc.
Even if your child doesn't want to actually use the daily meal credit it would still help the school immensely if you applied for free meals.
Please feel free to call Mrs B Jones here at school (ext 160) if you have any queries regarding this.
Additional Information
Free School Meals Help and Advice Leaflet
