Every year we encourage parents to check whether they are eligible for free school meals as this brings in additional funding for the school and allows your child to receive a free school meal.

In order to do this, we work with Wigan Council by using their ‘Free School Meals Eligibility Checker’ and this involves parents completing a Free School Meal Eligibility application form. The form is used to check eligibility with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and should be downloaded from our website (see below), completed and returned to school as soon as possible.

This is so that we can check if your child is eligible to receive a free school meal or not. In most cases, we should already know this; however there have been cases recently where families have been unaware that their child is eligible for free school meals. If your child already receives a free school meal, then you do not need to complete this form. If you are in receipt of certain benefits or on a low income you are encouraged to complete this form.

You can apply for free school meals if you or your child receives any of the following:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The Guarantee element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit, provided they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual income of £16,190 or less
• Working Tax Credit ‘run-on’ – the payment someone may receive for a further four weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit – your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get).

There are also other benefits to receiving a free school meal. For every child who is eligible, the school will receive additional Pupil Premium funding which can be used to provide further support for your child.

By completing and returning this form to us you will allow DWP to check and then subsequently advise us if your child is eligible to receive a free school meal. The school will then be able to claim for Pupil Premium funding.

Important: If you require any further information or help in completing the application form please contact school. If you do not wish to claim a free school meal Wigan Council will still share the eligibility status with us to enable us to claim Pupil Premium funding.

Please note that by completing the form, the School or Wigan Council will NOT be able to access information about your benefits or financial circumstances. The checks are completed by DWP and they will only share whether you are eligible or not.

We would be really grateful if you could complete the details on the form in full and return this to school.

Yours sincerely,

Mr P Davies

Headteacher