Free school meals (FSM) help support low-income families. We want to make sure that all entitled children in Devon don\u2019t miss out on receiving these meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pupils can receive free school meals if their family meets certain eligibility criteria set by government<\/a>. Currently, families must apply for this support. In Devon, the quickest and easiest way to do this is through our Citizen Portal<\/a>– where you\u2019ll get an instant result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But some families don\u2019t apply. This may be because of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means families miss out on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve introduced an \u2018opt-out\u2019 rather than \u2018opt-in\u2019 system that uses existing public sector and county council records to automatically identify and register entitled children for free school meals. Families will no longer need to apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process uses government and county council benefits-related data to identify families who qualify for free school meals. We then check if they\u2019ve already registered, and if not, we can register them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Families can still choose not to take part (this is called opting out). But if they do nothing, their child will be included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More details about how this works are below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our first implementation of auto-enrolment in October 2025, successfully identified over 1,000 pupils eligible for Free School Meals who weren’t already claiming<\/a>. \u00a0The benefits for our schools and families have been wide-reaching, including:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are five main steps in our new auto-enrolment system:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have implemented the opt-out process into our day-to-day practices. Our intention is to now identify new auto-enrolled pupils when the DWP data is received during the academic year. We will share details of newly identified pupils as this is processed, to ensure the best outcomes for schools and families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Families will be contacted at the beginning of each month if we have identified their child as part of this process. However, if you feel that you are eligible and have not been contacted you can still apply as normal through our Citizen Portal<\/a>\u2013 where you\u2019ll get an instant result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Free school meals (FSM) help support low-income families. We want to make sure that all entitled children in Devon don\u2019t miss out on receiving these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2891,"featured_media":0,"parent":630,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-70934","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 18:26:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70934"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73148,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70934\/revisions\/73148"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/children-families-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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What\u2019s changing?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why are we doing this?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What\u2019s the process?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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We\u2019ve brought together i information from government and county council held records (such as the School Census and Local Welfare Provision) to help us find pupils who may be entitled to free school meals, but aren\u2019t yet registered.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
We carefully review the combined data and look for families with school-aged children who receive certain government-specified benefits<\/a>, as these pupils may qualify for free school meals.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Then, we send schools and other education settings a list of eligible pupils and ask them to send a letter to each family explaining what free school meals are, and that we plan to register their child for the support. The letter also let\u2019s families know that if they prefer that we didn\u2019t do this, they can opt out by filling in a short online form.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Once the opt-out period ends, we remove the records of those families who opted out and register the rest up for the support through the usual Department for Education process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\nTimescale<\/h2>\n\n\n\n