Free school meals by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025 (2026 format)
On this page
Data set details
- Theme
- Pupils and schools
- Publication
- Special educational needs in England
- API data set ID
- 019df85d-6c83-73fa-9482-734b58f8dc61
How do I use this ID? - Release
- Academic year 2024/25
- Release type
- Number of rows
- 1,206,285
- Geographic levels
- Local authority, National, Parliamentary constituency, Regional
- Indicators
- Count of pupils
- Percentage of pupils
- Filters
- Phase type of school
- Primary type of need
- Pupil eligibility for free school meals
- Time period
- 2015/16 to 2024/25
Data set preview
| time_period | time_identifier | geographic_level | country_code | country_name | region_name | region_code | old_la_code | la_name | new_la_code | pcon_code | pcon_name | phase_type_grouping | sen_provision | sen_primary_need | fsm_eligibility | pupil_count | pupil_percent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 202425 | Academic year | National | E92000001 | England | Non-maintained special school | Education, health and care plan | Autistic spectrum disorder | Total | 1539 | 100 | |||||||
| 2 | 202425 | Academic year | National | E92000001 | England | Non-maintained special school | Education, health and care plan | Autistic spectrum disorder | Eligible for free school meals | 429 | 27.87524366471 | |||||||
| 3 | 202425 | Academic year | National | E92000001 | England | Non-maintained special school | Education, health and care plan | Autistic spectrum disorder | Not eligible for free school meals | 1110 | 72.12475633528 | |||||||
| 4 | 202425 | Academic year | National | E92000001 | England | Non-maintained special school | Education, health and care plan | Down syndrome | Total | 9 | 100 | |||||||
| 5 | 202425 | Academic year | National | E92000001 | England | Non-maintained special school | Education, health and care plan | Down syndrome | Eligible for free school meals | 2 | 22.22222222222 |
Variables in this data set
| Variable name | Variable description |
|---|---|
| fsm_eligibility | Pupil eligibility for free school meals |
| phase_type_grouping | Phase type of school - Phase (primary, secondary, special, PRU (AP school), independent) |
| pupil_count | Count of pupils |
| pupil_percent | Percentage of pupils |
| sen_primary_need | Primary type of need - (ASD, HI, VI…) |
Using this data
Download the underlying data as a compressed ZIP file
View or create your own tables
View tables that we have built for you, or create your own tables from open data using our table tool
Using the API
API documentation
This data set is available via an API, follow the link to get all the information to get started. The documentation provides full guidance and examples on how to make the most from our data sets.
Building API integrations
To support building integrations on top of the explore education statistics API, software development kits (SDKs) are provided to streamline common tasks and communication with the API.
API data set details
- API data set name
- Free school meals by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025 - 2026 format
- API data set ID
- 019df85d-6c83-73fa-9482-734b58f8dc61
- API data set version
- 1.0
Download data set as CSV
Get familiar with the data. The CSV response will render its categories and column headers in a human-readable format (instead of machine-readable IDs).
Guidance: Download data set as CSV
Data set metadata
Look up human-readable labels and their corresponding machine-readable IDs to help you create data set queries.
Guidance: Get data set metadata
Query data set using GET
Quickly test the machine-readable IDs in a range of basic queries.
Guidance: Query data set (GET)
Query data set using POST
The POST endpoint is recommended for production level pipeline queries. POST requires a query to be built and supplied in JSON format using third party software such as Postman and Insomnia or programming languages such as Python, R, etc.
Guidance: Query data set (POST)
Get data set summary
API data set version history
API data set updates come in 3 forms: Major, Minor and Patch.
- Major update (e.g. 1.x.x to 2.0.0): a breaking change meaning the removal of columns or rows from the data set.
- Minor update (e.g. 1.1.x to 1.2.0): non-breaking changes made as part of a new release (likely with new / additional data).
- Patch update (e.g. 1.1.0 to 1.1.1): a non-breaking change made as part of a release amendment (e.g. data corrections).
More detailed information on versioning can be found in our Versioning - Explore education statistics API.
Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Free school meals by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025 (2026 format) statistics and data:
Special educational needs statistics team
Email: sen.statistics@education.gov.ukContact name: Ricardo Hayward