Statistics on free school meals in schools in England as collected in the October 2020 school census.
This page provides a range of routes to access data from within this statistical release to suit different users.
This includes all data sets, guidance files and any supporting files
Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by users and can be adapted to switch between different categories.
Data sets: download or create tables
Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.
Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.
Alternatively use our data catalogue to search and filter for specific data sets from this release or our entire library, providing full data summaries, data previews and access to API data sets.
Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by some users (such as local councils, regional government or government policy teams) and can be adapted to switch between different categories (such as different geographies, time periods or characteristics where available).
Percentage of pupils who are eligible for free school meals in each region in England, Spring 2019/20 and Autumn 2020/21
Number and percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals, Spring 2018 to Autumn 2020
Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.
Local authority, National, Regional
Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units by free school meal eligibility. Also includes number of pupils who have become eligible for free school meals since March 23rd, up to census day (October 1st 2020).
Local authority, National, Regional
Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units by free school meal eligibility, from Spring 2015/16 to Autumn 2020/21
Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.
This guidance describes the data included in the Free school meals: Autumn term ad hoc statistics release. The release methodology, available on the release web page should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data source, coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.
This release provides information on the number of schools and pupils in:
The information is based on data collected via the pupil level autumn school census.
This dataset has not had suppression applied.
The following convention is used throughout the underlying data.
‘:’ Not applicable.
If you have a specific enquiry about Free school meals: Autumn term statistics and data:
If you have a media enquiry:
Telephone: 020 7783 8300
If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:
Phone: 0370 000 2288
Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)
Don't include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.