A record number of state school pupils in England are receiving free school meals, according to official figures that also reveal soaring numbers attending special needs schools and rising teaching vacancies.
The figures showing that more than 2 million pupils qualified for free lunches, an increase of 75,000 in the past year, were described as “chilling” by Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU).
“Today a quarter of pupils take free school meals, that is 2.1 million children. In 2015, it was one in seven,” Kebede said. “Schools do all they can to alleviate the problems children and young people face through poverty, but this should not be happening in the first place. These inequalities do not start and end at the school gates.
“An incoming government must address child poverty by immediately scrapping the two-child limit and ensuring every child has a free school meal.”
According to the data from the Department for Education (DfE), 24.6% of state school pupils are eligible for free school meals (FSM) this year, up from 23.8% last year. Children are eligible if their parents or carers receive benefits or universal credit and their household’s after-tax income is below £7,400.
Child poverty campaigners said the FSM figures understated the true level of need among children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The charity Child Poverty Action Group said its analysis suggested up to a further 900,000 children were living in poverty but ineligible for FSM because of the government’s restrictions.
There was also concern about the number of pupils and young children with caring responsibilities. Last year, when the DfE started collecting the data, 39,000 pupils identified as young carers. This year the number has risen to 54,000, including 21,000 primary school children.
Andy McGowan, a policy manager at the Carers Trust, said the real figure was likely to be far higher.
“It is estimated there are actually two young carers in every class. This shows whoever forms the next government needs to urgently prioritise improving young carer identification and support. With persistent absence rates for young carers nearly twice as high as their peers, this is a group of pupils who cannot be ignored,” McGowan said.
The figures from the DfE’s school census in January found that the numbers attending schools for special educational needs had also increased rapidly.
This year 157,000 pupils attended state-funded special schools in England, compared with 105,000 in 2015-16, coinciding with the growth in children with education, health and care plans.
But the government continues to struggle to keep teachers in state schools – the teaching workforce grew by just 259 as the numbers quitting the profession remained high and fewer trainees were recruited.
Meanwhile, the number of teacher vacancies has jumped since the Covid pandemic, from 1,098 full-time posts unfilled in 2020 to 2,800 in 2023, as the pupil population increases.
Despite reports that the numbers of children attending private schools had fallen – before a Labour government applying VAT to school fees – the DfE’s figures showed a yearly increase of 1,500 to 593,000.
