To think that this is wrong and on par with benefit fraud?

[littleplasticinedinosaur]

School that my child goes to has asked in the newsletter that every parent who is entitled to free school meals applys, even if they don't need it or they continue to bring sandwiches, because the school will receive a large sum of money each year.

I think that this is totally wrong, and the school shouldn't be profitting in this way. The money is supposed to be there to ensure that children living on the poverty line get a meal. And if the parents don't want or need it then the money should go back into the pot for something else.

I'd agree that the school trips issue is a problem since there's tremendous peer pressure to attend. The non curriculum crazy priced trips are separate of course but some schools have very sophisticated funds for supporting these trips. I myself have organised two curriculum related trips and have spent (and am currently spending) hours and hours and weeks and weeks of my life trying to get it just right for the kids: the exact right mix between curricular, beyond curricular into merely cultural and beyond or below that into fun. At every single point of the way I'm trying to ensure maximum value for money consistent with safety and ease. Really, it's no mean feat! Ordinary travel agent led trips tend to be more expensive and less rich, culturally and educationally: I'm not convinced parents are aware of just how much work and thought goes into the best of these trips.

FSM does not just trigger additional money via the pupil premium, but it is also a key component in establishing the school's "contextual value". If 2 schools are showing similar pupil progress, but one is full of middle class children and no FSM-ers, and the other has a high FSM-rate, then the latter will have a higher CVA score, indicating it is a better school. I teach in a special school with a very high rate of FSM (over 50%); in our case the FSM rate brings no extra money, as this set on a student-by-student basis, according to need; but with OFSTED looming, the effect on CVA is very important.

Until recently, children in Secondary paid for school meals in cash, except for FSM-ers who had to declare themselves at the till. This meant that a lot of children who were entitled to FSM did not want the stigma of being "povvo" so did not take up the entitlement. Now that nearly all schools have some kind of cashless system, those on FSM no longer stand out, and schools are keen to boost the take-up of entitlement, for PP & CVA reasons.

As for OP's concern that the school's are in on some kind of benefit fraud, it does not happen quite like that. Regardless of how many children are entitled to & registered for FSM, the school can only claim money for meals actually eaten. School meals are pretty much sold at cost, so (excepting deliberate fraud) even a very high uptake of FSM only has a marginal effect on the amortization of overheads.

My understanding of it is that it is not actually anything to do with the food- schools receive additional funding for 'deprived' families. Its quite a large amount of money which is why often schools in mainly deprived areas seem to have a lot of money and support. DSs school used to have under 5 children eligible and financially it was quite hard really.

The school are not doing anything wrong at all.

I'm not convinced that the organisers of these trips take on board the fact that most parents have limited resources and many parents will have children at more than one school. I have 3 children at 3 different schools and so far this term I have had to shell out >£200 on curriculum based trips (no choir tours or skiing here). And of course there's all the extra curricular stuff which has to be paid for. and things like school buses. Yet schools all think that now is a great time to run trips.

Also, in my experience they don't feed the vegetarians so I think we should be getting discounts.

Melons of course schools are acting wrogly if a child entitled to FSM is persuaded to actually claim and the school then gets several hunded pounds on the back of it and the individual child in question sees absolutely not a single jot of difference in its provision.

And yes of cours the CVA shoots up too. It's called win win.

Obviously I realise I've derailed the thread. Sorry. It was just the mention of trips that got me going. :(

Wrongly, not wrogly, sorry.

Free School Meals is also the measure that Government uses to asses how much money is given to a Local authority areas in respect of many other grants, for children's and adult services, for Health, and for many other areas of general welfare.

If your area, like many, is only raising around 10-14% of its total money through Council Tax, then do the maths.

Sorry - I was told the claim is nothing to do with the free school meal - it is a claim for the families who meet the criteria. Of course it is ABSOLUTELY wrong if the school do not use the money for what it is intended but they are not acting wrongly in asking parents to claim in the first place.

I may be completely wrong about that information and what I was told may be incorrect!

I can't speak for any other organiser Mordion but ths organiser certainly does. And any organiser who doesn't have the imagination to cater for all spectrums of dietary need should not be in charge. Off the peg trips may be different but there are some where huge amounts of thought are given to the trip by those with no profit motive at all, particularly the impact of cost on ordinary middle income parents who can't seek additional support.

yellowtip- if the pupil premium is used to buy in an extra teacher to take out the 6 most disruptive children from a class to do small group work, none of whom happen to be on FSM, can you not see how children on FSM benefit, albeit indirectly from that spending?

Just because the money has not been spent directly on a FSM pupil does not mean that pupil has not seen a 'single jot of difference'. Money spent that benefits the school in some way benefits all those who attend.

If the money is used to run a breakfast club so that when 30 children enter the classroom they are fully fueled, ready to go for the morning, that benefits all in the class, not just those who attended.

If the money is spent to replace an 8yo IT suite do you not think that would help raise achievement for pupils on FSM (and those not on FSM)?

Direct spending on pupils may be what is needed in some cases, but not all. How insulted would you be by the suggestion that your child must be struggling (and therefore require extra tuition for example) because they are on FSM? Some pupils on FSM will be way above the curve, and not require any additional support academically or socially (because you know believe it or not some parents that are eligible for income support do actually give a shit about their children's development and education!).

And 'plugging a hole in the budget' might actually be a good thing- schools I know well have been pissing their money up the wall on fripperies such as behavioural support, SEN support, nurture groups etc.

OP, it is great that your savings are so huge that you don't have to claim any benefits. However, having worked in a school, I can reveal that some children who take a packed lunch to school are actually packing just a lunchbox of boiled rice or an apple or a packet of crisps. And nothing else. There are really poor people out there who are too proud to claim for fsm, but are fully entitled to them. So, by sending out this letter, the school is trying to get them to see the bigger picture, swallow their pride, and claim what they are entitled to, and, in turn, the school can claim pupil premium to help educate those children whose poverty affects them in lots of ways. YABVU.

Han almost all of what you suggest would be plugging holes. The Pupil Premium needs to be used to benefit FSMers more than the children of the pretty well off.

I wouldn't be in the least offended by the suggestion that my DC must by definition be struggling because the evidence suggests that the overwhelming majority on that income are, but I would argue that the provision of the Pupil Premium is based on precisely that premise and so should be used accordingly, not to upgrade the whole class's IT.

We got a similar letter last week.

But I believe you can only claim if you are not earning more than £16,000 and/or you must be on some other benefit, e.g. job seekers allowance.

So those who are entitled should be glad of having free meals, however, I know a family whose DS is very picky and will only eat certain things, so they may decide to keep sending a lunch box.

And, extra cash for the school is great, it may buy another teacher/TA or equipment which would be advantageous for all children.

Ah yellow school IT. Another thorny issue. This really is the 'demand money with menaces' term at every school I am involved with. :(

My point is that FSM figures affect ALL of the governent grant that comes into your town or city or area - the more FSM, the more money for your area, for everything that your council needs to provide.

We are talking millions. Billions overall. (Not even including the actual dinners, and the pupil premium.)

For the teachers I know personally (who do not in fact teach at the schools my kids attend. Well, actually, 3 of them do but those aren't the ones I'm talking about) it's the OFSTED metrics they are most concerned with, not the pupil premium. The county I live in - and the city I live in - has a chronic under-declaration of FSM. Apparently. This has an impact on how good the schools are perceived to be using the formulae they use for these things. And it's something that nobody feels they can afford to go with the flow in any more (particularly since there are some other issues with the schools here which mean the vultures A&E circling like, well, vultures).

It's slightly dodgy that it isn't ring fenced. My understanding is that theoretically it could go on a Ming vase for the Head's study...

...but yes, absolutely correct for school to encourage all eligible students to apply so that they can maximise the money available.

I believe we spend a large chunk of ours on targetted one-to-one support in English & Maths. It doesn't exclusively go to students on FSM (one of my jobs is to identify & recommend struggling students for help in English, & I have to provide a breakdown re: FSM, gender, ethnicity & SEN) but it's certainly made good use of.

And if schools maximise the number of eligible FSM claims, the LA will also receive a larger overall budget and be required to palm off fewer responsibilies onto schools in respect of SEN.

As an ex school govenor I can tell you that the grant is nothing to do with the food.

fsm are used as an indicator of poverty. The idea being that children entitled to fsm are more likely to be in need of support in other ways and there is some statistical evidence that there is a correlation between receiving fsm and poor acheivemnet (don't shoot me, I am just telling you what the official line is)

Therefore if you want to support a school who may be struggling with a difficult intake, in comparison wiht a school down the road who has 'easier' children then on way is simply to say how many kids get fsm and then give extra money.

From the school's perspective, it is therefore a huge advantage to have as many children registered as possible. From the grant perspective it is irrelevant whether they eat school dinners or pack lunch, it is used as a measure to see how much extra money the school might need.

It is important because it is not always obvious. We had a village school in a very posh cotswold village that had a very high number of fsm. There were also a lot of childrne who needed support in one way or another, and very few of them were 'bad' enough to qualify for paid SEN support. The fsm money was used to fund extra TA time to give extra input for those children

yes please claim if your eligible

As steppemum says it hugely valuable to schools that people would assume didn't have many disadvantaged pupils.

Your DC may not need extra support the pupil premium fund provides, but I know a little girl who does.

the interesting thing about this is that we are eligible but wouldn't claim for them, so I am not following through on my own argument!
We have low income, so could claim some benefits, includinf fsm but we have a low income by choice as we work for a charity. We feel that as we could go out and find a higher paying job, and it is our choice to do what we do, we shouldn't expect the state to support us, hence no claim.

its the government's new system of allocating funding to pupils who really need it.

free school meals are taken as an indication of poverty. pupils living in poverty achieve less in school than pupils from more comfortable backgrounds (generally, according to the government, ours don't follow the trend). government wants to bridge the attainment gap by putting more money up to support children who are living in poverty.

so, if a school has a lot of children on free school meals, it has a lot of children living in poverty, who are entitled, under government rules, to extra funding.
the school can only claim the funding if the family claim the free school meals.

if you are entitled to a fsm, you must claim, for money to be allocated to the school for your child's benefit.

many of our families who are entitled to fsm do not claim, because the entire family don't eat lunch. eating lunch at school would make children want lunch at weekends and in the holidays, and families can't afford three meals a day so they all go without. so they don't claim. schools are saying 'we won't force your child to eat the fsm, but do claim because the money can pay for one-to-one tuition, extra teaching assistants, resources etc that will help your child.'

its not a fraud. its trying to get people in need to work with the system, even though they don't fully understand it.

Oh the please contact is for any help with trips the help is 10% of here . So trip of £600 save £60 which yes helps but then still have the other 540 to find which puts it out of reach for many

There is no help with buying the gcse text books at all that was over £150 !!

Oh and I do understand the Claim and funding why form in for all of mine but other than dd on a Friday they all take packed lunches rest if the time