New Free School Meal Enrolment System Saves York Families

A new system for enrolling pupils for free school meals has saved families in York more than £21,000.

The initiative, which is a collaboration between the City of York Council and ‘Fix our Food’ (a University of York based programme), aims to encourage a more sustainable food system and increase the supply of healthy food for children.

The council say the system’s success has come from introducing a toolkit to help auto-enrol pupils for free school meals, ensuring more children receive the hot meals they are entitled to.

Since it was founded at the start of last year, York Community Fund’s York Hungry Minds Appeal revealed that it has now served over 50 thousand meals to children across the city

The appeal was set up in hopes of addressing disadvantage and offsetting the impact of the cost-of-living crisis - with evidence suggesting that providing children with healthy, nourishing food can make a significant difference to school attendance, concentration and learning and their physical and mental wellbeing.

In England, school lunches are available free of charge to all key stage one (KS1) pupils, and children in key stage two (KS2) are currently eligible if they live in a household which meets government criteria around income.

The council said this excluded many children at the KS2 level - Years 3 to 6 - whose families are experiencing financial hardship.

Councillor Bob Webb, the council’s Executive Member for Education, Children and Young People, said that the decision to introduce this auto-enrolment followed the success of other 'forward-looking councils' who had done so.

He said: "Fix our Food has introduced a toolkit to help local councils to auto-enrol pupils for free school meals, meaning many more take up the hot meals each day they are entitled to, which is great news.

Read more here: New free school meal enrolment system saves York families | York Press