Free School Meals

There are two types of Free School Meals:

• Income based free school meals
• Universal free school meals

To qualify for free school meals a parent must:

• Have a child attending a Sheffield school or maintained nursery, accessing education.
• Have a school aged child or nursery age child, attending before and after lunch sessions at a nursery school or Local Authority maintained nursery.
• receive any of the following qualifying benefits:

Qualifying Benefits

• Universal Credit (provided they have an annual net earned income of no more than £7,400, as assessed by earnings from up to three of their most recent assessment periods)
• Income Support
• Income based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income related Employment Support Allowance
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit – with a yearly household income of less than £16,190 (as assessed by HM Revenue and Customs) and do not get Tax Credit
• Working Tax Credit run on (paid for 4 weeks after someone stops qualifying for Working Tax Credit)

Children who get any of the above benefits in their own right (i.e. they get benefits paid directly, instead of through a parent or guardian) can also get free school meals.

Universal Free School Meals

If a child attends a state funded infant school and is in Reception/Key Stage 1, they are entitled to ‘universal infant free school meals’ regardless of their parent/carer’s income.