Half of pupils below poverty line get no free school meal

Headteachers are to call for an overhaul of the school funding system after figures revealed that half of pupils living below the poverty line are not qualifying for free school meals. It has emerged that about a million pupils from poor homes do not qualify for a free meal, meaning their schools also miss out on vital funding.

The number getting a free dinner is a key measure of poverty, used in schools' funding allocations.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "We've always recognized that free school meals are a very poor proxy for socioeconomic disadvantage, and a bad basis on which to base funding and accountability systems.

"The system needs an overhaul to find a better definition of disadvantage so that schools can be given the resources they need to do the job."

Overall, about 14% of pupils in England get free school meals, but 25% are living below the poverty line.

Data compiled for the Guardian have revealed the gap between the proportion of children in families without work - the best available measure of poverty - and the proportion getting free school meals.

It has been found that London has some of the worst-hit local authorities. In Barking and Dagenham 18% of pupils get free schools meals but 38% of the children come from workless homes. Newham, Lewisham and Brent are similarly affected, as are several areas in the Midlands, such as Leicester, Wolverhampton and Sandwell. Sheffield, Gateshead and Wakefield are badly affected, while the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, and Richmond, have got far fewer children missing out, as have Oxfordshire, Windsor and Surrey.

Free school meals are factored in to league tables that measure how well schools do in test results, taking into consideration pupils' social and economic disadvantages.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, who exposed the figures via a parliamentary question, said: "Many performance indicators also focus on the achievement of children entitled to free school meals. Now that we know half of the poorest children aren't included it is clear that many of the government's targets are deeply flawed."

The government has already put the school funding mechanisms under review.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats are each proposing "pupil premiums" whereby schools are paid extra for every child they admit from the poorest homes, using measures of deprivation by postcode.

Campaigns for universal free school meals are bearing some fruit. They are being introduced in Scotland for the first three years of primary school, and ministers have announced pilots in three local authorities in England. In two areas, every child will get a free meal, and in a third the proportion who qualify will be expanded. But there is no firm commitment to expand the pilot nationally.

Jackie Schneider, a teacher who has campaigned in London on school dinners, said the argument for universal free meals in schools was growing as the recession set in, pushing more families into poverty.

There were separate suggestions yesterday that the definition of poverty was flawed. Sam Freedman, head of education at the thinktank Policy Exchange, said: "Poverty is defined on income and doesn't take into account whether people have savings ... so not all people below the poverty line are strictly poor."