Do I have to pay for the supervision lunch charge if my son (4y.o.) is eligible for free school meals?

[reablaz]

Hello,

Do I have to pay for the supervision lunch charge if my son (4y.o.) is eligible for free school meals?

I have applied for free school meals recently, and received an email saying my child is eligible for free school meals.

The school charges parents £382 per academic year for the supervision at lunch time between 11:30 and 12:15 every day (45min), which is £2 per day (£10 a week, £382 per year in total); doesn't not matter if a child eats school meals (free or not), or bring their own lunch boxes with home food (schools still have to supervise and charge for it).

Google AI says if a child is eligible for free school meals, parents do not have to pay for supervision charge. We also receive 30 free hours.

Google/AI:
"Yes, if your child is eligible for free school meals, the supervision charge during lunchtime is typically covered, as the school is required to provide proper facilities and supervision for all pupils to eat their meals safely, regardless of whether they pay for lunch or not; this includes children receiving free school meals."

Government website:
"Facilities to eat the food that they bring to school must be provided free of charge for pupils not taking school meals. As a minimum these facilities should include accommodation, furniture and supervision so that pupils can eat food they have brought from home in a safe and social environment."

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england/school-food-in-england#:~:text=Facilities%20to%20eat%20the%20food,a%20safe%20and%20social%20environment.

I am confused, do we have to pay for the supervision or not?

Is it allowed by law for the school to charge for the supervision?

I am looking for calm and relevant answers with no criticism, arrogance, sarcasm or irony. If it is not the right place, please let me know, if there are any communities, forums, groups where I can ask these questions; or possibly, should I call to my district council, school itself or citizens advice?

Thank you.

Not sure what you are asking but support staff in a school have unpaid breaks

Can you post a link, or attach the file for your screenshot? Is it from the government website?

@reablaz

This is taken from the statutory guidance on gov.uk

'Charging
A1.32 Government funding is intended to deliver 15 or 30 hours a week of free, high quality, flexible childcare. The 15 or 30 hours must be able to be accessed free of charge to parents. There must not be any mandatory charges for parents in relation to the free hours.'

The last sentence makes it absolutely clear.

Please contact your local authority funding team and discuss it with them.

@reablaz I posted a screenshot but it's still under review by Mumsnet.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2/early-education-and-childcare-effective-from-1-april-2025

How the school would it change then?

1. Allow me to pick up my son after 14:30 (hours at school 8:30-14:30)?

or

1. Leave it how it is 8:30-15:15, and won't charge for 55 min in between?

or

1. Bring my son later, 9:15-15:15?

Wouldn't it interrupt the classes/sessions, if I bring my child later in the morning, or pick him up earlier in the afternoon?

Would it be fair towards other children? Other children would stay longer at schools, parents would pay for supervision lunch charge, but my son would leave/start earlier?

You need to speak to the local authority.

The school are not going to change their arrangements for 1 child.

So actually I don’t believe it does make it clear as it says ‘no charges in relation to the free hours’ so a school cannot charge a top- up as they do in private nurseries eg £2.5 per funded hour. In this case they are charging for time which they are saying is outside of the funded hours

This is a discussion to have with the local authority. It’s then their job to speak to the school.

But... This guidance starts from 1st of April 2025, so I assume, this guidance is not relevant yet for 1 month until 1/4/25. Or am I wrong?

The school are paying their staff from 830-315 (they will likely take their unpaid 20 min break on rotation) so all options will leave them out of pocket so it doesn’t really matter. It may mean they have to change their opening hours so they only have children onsite for the 6 hours and parents with older children will have to wait to drop off

@Daisymae23 the following section relates to enforced/artificial breaks...

'Local authorities should ensure that children are able to take up their free hours in continuous blocks if they wish to, and there should be no artificial breaks in the entitlement hours. For example a provider should not offer 10am to midday and 1pm to 3pm as entitlement hours and offer only private paid hours in between.'

It's also taken from the statutory guidance.

So

1. There shouldn't be artificial breaks.
2. There shouldn't be mandatory charges related to the 30 hours.

Honestly, the guidance is really clear cut in the OPs case.

She needs to talk to the LA funding team. They will investigate and deal with it on her behalf if necessary.

@reablaz this is the same as in the previous guidance. Other parts have changed, but these haven't.

There is statutory guidance that is current which instructs providers that they can’t put up barriers to access to the funded entitlements.

Can I ask, are you using either Tax free childcare or claiming childcare costs from Universal Credit for the fees you currently pay?
do you need full days childcare to enable you to work?

If he was 4 in December he is in nursery not Reception.
Reception is the year when they have turned 4 before 1st September.
You've applied for school so he will be starting reception in September as I believe it.
I would query the 30 hours and how they justify the break in between. School nurseries, if the child is entitled to 30 hours usually last 6 hours per day making it 30 hours per week.
Hope you get sorted!

Is your child school age or not? If you don't answer this it's impossible to answer your query. Is he in full-time school.

@Viviennemary this has been sorted out. The child is in nursery

I’ve no idea about the free lunch (as in food) during the nursery year (I thought it was only from Reception but I seem to be wrong). However, I thought I could explain some of the abbreviations and terminology in case they help you in future. I can imagine some of it isn’t easily explained.

Academic years in England generally begin at the start of September.

Rising threes - those children that have started in a nursery in the academic year they turn 3. They won’t begin until the term after the are 3. For example, if born in December, they could attend in the January after they are 3.

Foundation Stage (or FS). This is broken down into two academic years. FS1 is also known as Nursery (the children in FS1 are the ones who will turn 4 during that academic year). FS2 is also known as Reception. Children in Reception turn 5 during that academic year.

Key Stage 1 or KS1 is the year following Reception and the year after that. So Year 1 and Year 2.

FS and KS1 are often referred to as Infants.

Key Stage 2 or KS2 is Years 3, 4, 5 and 6.

KS2 is often referred to as Juniors.

The whole period of time from the beginning of FS1 until the end of KS2 can be referred to as Primary.

After Primary they move into Secondary which generally run from Year 7 until Year 11. KS3 is Years 7, 8 and 9. KS4 is Year 10 and 11 (when most sit their formal GCSE exams).

Some secondary schools have Sixth Form Colleges attached to them - Years 12 and 13. However other schools end after Year 11 but there are separate colleges about.

There are some specialist schools about that take children from start of Year 10 until end Year 13 (one near you i can think of from top of my head is the performing arts place called BOA in Birmingham) and of course all of the above is not necessarily true for all. Some Local Authorities (LAs) run a three tiered system where the year groups in which you move school are different ( Redditch which isn’t a million miles from you is one LA who does this) and some children don’t start in the Year group they “should” (my school has two children currently in the year below they would ordinarily be in). There are also Grammar Schools which cater for children from age 11 (tested via something called the 11+Exam usually in the September of Year 5).

I hope some of that is useful and good luck navigating it all.

I am father, working full-time 9am-5pm, my wife is a full-time student, and is self-employed. I applied for 30 free hours, and we received the code. For lunchtime supervision charge we paid last year from my salary. I don't know how the calculations work, but we were eligible, and still are. We receive UC as well.

Is your child school age or not? If you don't answer this it's impossible to answer your query. Is he in full-time school.

He posted the child's exact date of birth hours ago.

I run a state nursery and 30 hours should not have a break. We gave parents the choice of 9-3 (normal school hours are 8.45-3.15) or pay the lunch charge. All chose 9-3 but tried to drop off early and collect late at the same time as siblings so I can see why nursery just do the charge. It's hard to stand at the door and not let little Jimmy in at the same time as the others when he is stood out in the rain... Staff are having their break so we have to pay for extra staff to supervise the 30 hour children and that money has to come from somewhere. We no longer offer it as we were losing money.

You can get FSM if you earn over the threshold - my daughter gets them. Well
she doesn’t actually eat them because the reason she is eligible is because she has a statement of SEN and a medically required diet, which unfortunately the school caterer can’t provide, so she is just on the FSM list so the school can get the money for that. My other daughter isn’t eligible.

Would you consider having a chargeable session 8.45-9.15 and then the funded hours 9.15-3.15? That's what we do at the setting where I work. All the parents with siblings in the school pay for the additional 45 minutes. If a child is EYPP, we can use it to fund the extra session.

If you are working full time I am not sure why you’d be entitled to free school meals anyway. You can only earn up to something like £7/8k.

But when your child starts school, they will get free meals anyway just like any other child in that year because theyre free for all kids of that age.

What I would say is that how do you expect the nursery to be able to supervise your child over lunch if you’re not paying? They won’t be receiving money for that hour. Who will pay for the staff? The charge isn’t compulsory because they’ve offered for you to be able to pick them up. If they changed it to the start or end of the day, all that will happen is you’ll have to pay for that.

You’re already getting free childcare . I would be careful. Some providers have now limited the number of funded places they offer (as they don’t have to offer it if they don’t want to!) when parent have complained over tiny charges like this. They will offer it to someone else who is quite happy to pay a couple of quid for quality childcare all day!

The setting is not adhering to the statutory guidance in the way it is administering the funded sessions. They could have the charged session at the beginning or end of a 6 hour day which gives parents the choice of whether they pay it or not. By having it in the middle of the day, with an artificial break, they are forcing parents to pay in order to access their funding entitlement. This is not allowed.