Autumn term 2020/21

Free school meals: Autumn term

Data guidance

Published 30 March 2021

Description

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.

Coverage

This release provides information on the number of schools and pupils in: 

• state-funded nursery schools
• state-funded primary schools 
• state-funded secondary schools 
• special schools, including state-funded special schools and non-maintained special schools 
• pupil referral units, including free school alternative provision and academy alternative provision 

The information is based on data collected via the pupil level autumn school census.

File formats and conventions

Rounding 

This dataset has not had suppression applied. 

Conventions 

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

‘:’ Not applicable.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Free school meals - number of FSM eligible pupils - Spring 2016 to Spring 2020 plus Autumn 2020

• Filename: fsm_time_series.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2015/16 Spring term to 2020/21 Autumn term
• Content:

  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

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
fsm_eligible	Number of FSM eligible pupils
fsm_eligible_percent	Percentage of pupils eligible for FSM
headcount	Headcount (all pupils)
phase	School type - Filter by school type

Footnotes

1. Data for Autumn 2020/21 combines State-funded special school and Non-maintained special schools under a single heading of Special school. For previous years these are presented separately.

Free school meals - number of FSM eligible pupils and new eligibility from 23rd March

• Filename: fsm_new_starts_autumn20.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2019/20 Autumn term to 2020/21 Autumn term
• Content:

  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).

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
fsm_eligible	Number of FSM eligible pupils
fsm_eligible_percent	Percentage of pupils eligible for FSM
headcount	Headcount (all pupils)
new_fsm_eligible	Eligible since March 23rd
phase	School type - Filter by school type

Footnotes

1. Includes all state-funded special schools, plus non-maintained special schools
2. Includes all pupils who are eligible for free school meals at census day (October 1st 2020, October 3rd 2019) and have become eligible since 23rd March of that year. This includes pupils who may have been eligible for free school meals previously but their latest spell has started since this date. This also includes pupils who have joined the reception class, who would not otherwise have been eligible for free school meals prior to the start of the new school year.
3. Children may be eligible for free school meals in nursery if in a nursery class or nursery school and attending for full days