School census day dinners

[birdling]

I think it is census day today. As usual the school have asked for as many children as possible to have school meals.
My ds has just gone up to juniors and is now paid school meals rather than the universal free ones. I'm happy to pay for him to have one, but does anyone know if the paid school meals have any bearing on the funding, or is it just the free ones?

I think it's all dinners, DD's school used to swap the menu so a popular dish was on that day! Although if the Junior school is separate to the infants it may not have a bearing.

I think its everyone, my DCs school used to break away from the regular menu and do pizza as it was always the most popular meal.

It's everyone. Ds's school dresses it up as a special themed day. Even so, most juniors take a packup anyway. I think they think school dinners are uncool.

Yup deffo all of them. It's obviously census day where we are tooas they are having a 'favourites' day.

I'd never heard of school dinner census until recently. DH was a governor on the finance team and was explaining it to me

What is census day?

Schools have to submit all sorts of data on census day: number enrolled, numbers of SEN, free school meals, EAL. Not sure why the number of children taking school meals matters, but census day is important as it is used for allocating funding to schools.

Never heard of it. It wasn't a thing at my children's school.

It’s an easy way for parents to support the finances of their child’s school. (No of course you shouldn’t have to etc etc but this is where we are currently).

I didn't know about this. My kids have a cross country competition this afternoon so have a packed lunch so they can get done quickly and leave for the race. So they won't be contributing to the numbers today!

The funding is around who is taking up UFSM and those on pupil premium rather than all children having a school lunch-the test is number of bums on seats today and the makeup of that for SEND, PP etc for school contextual information

The number of children eligible for free school meals affects the amount of funding the school gets. Schools can occasionally get additional support from the local area too, so well worth doing!