Free School Meals

If you think your child might be entitled to Free School Meals please use the LGfL ‘Free School Meals / Pupil Premium Service’ www.fsm.lgfl.net

This website provides a quick and easy way to check eligibility for free school meals and, if eligible, also gain welcome additional funding for your child’s school, known as ‘Pupil Premium’. If eligible, you are not obliged to accept the free school meals for your child if you wish to make other arrangements, but we do want to encourage applications as the additional funding gained would still benefit education provision at the school.

What the service does for parents:

After entering essential details into the website, the online application process links to the Department for Education system for checking eligibility and gives an immediate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response and will notify the school. This system is being provided to encourage parents to apply and take advantage of free school meals while at the same time increasing the benefit to schools from Pupil Premium funding, a substantial amount of which does not reach schools because not all parents who are eligible apply for free meals for their child. By way of a ‘thank you’ to parents for taking part, and regardless of individual outcomes, The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) would like to provide parents of children attending LGfL-connected schools with Sophos Anti-Virus software, free of charge, to protect the computers used by pupils at home. To gain access to this software there is a short registration process which will also give you access, if required, to other LGfL services and benefits that are available to your child’s school. Please be assured there is no catch, no cost, and no advertising. LGfL (a UK education charity set up in 2001 and owned by London’s 33 local authorities) exists to support education and is leading this initiative to make it easier for parents to apply for free school meals and to encourage the drawdown of unclaimed Pupil Premium.

What the service does for schools:

As the government has now introduced free school meals for all children in Key Stage 1, it is more important than ever for schools to know the number of pupils for whom they can claim Pupil Premium funding. These funds enable schools to take on additional staff and invest in additional equipment, resources, and activities to benefit all children. Please visit www.fsm.lgfl.net enter the necessary details and support this worthwhile initiative.

Pupil Premium

Richard Challoner School is allocated a sum of money to support students who are deemed disadvantaged. Currently, the government allocates this money to schools based on the number of pupils that are known to have been eligible for free schools meals at some point over the last six years, or pupils who have been a looked-after pupil for 1 day or more, or pupils that have been adopted from care on or after 30 December 2005, or pupils that may have left care under a special guardianship order or a residence order. This fund is called ‘The Pupil Premium Grant’ or ‘PPG’.

Please click on the following links for further details of the funding we receive and how it is allocated…