Next stage of universal free school meal roll-out in Wales

The Welsh Government has announced £70 million in funding to support the next stage in the expansion of free school meals in all primary schools in Wales.

All primary school children and more than 6,000 nursery-age pupils attending a maintained school will be eligible for free school meals by 2024.

The next phase of the expansion to provide free school meals to all pupils in primary school will begin in September 2023, with the offer growing to include the majority of learners in years three and four. The programme will then expand further in April 2024, reaching years five and six. Where local authorities are able to reach these year groups ahead of these milestones they have been funded to do so. £260m has been committed to implement the programme over three years. This included £60m of capital funding for local authorities invested over the last two years to support improvements to school kitchen facilities, including purchasing equipment and updating digital systems.

The first year of delivery has focused on building the capacity for schools to deliver the increased offer. These efforts have ensured a swift rollout of the offer during the first phase, with the majority of learners across Wales in Reception, Year one and Year two benefitting from the offer of a free school meal since the start of the summer term.

Minister for Education and Welsh Language, Jeremy Miles said: “We are working at pace to ensure that every primary school child benefits from a nutritional school meal and that no child goes hungry.

“We know how difficult it is currently for families during the cost of living crisis. Universal free school meals provide significant financial help to families, while providing a nutritional meal to help children concentrate on learning.

“I would like to thank local authority teams across Wales who are working hard to rollout universal free school meals quickly.”

A new report by the Education Policy Institute, in partnership with Renaissance, shows that the pandemic is still having an adverse effect on pupils’ learning. This new analysis uses Renaissance’s Star Reading and Star Maths Assessments to create a large sample. It shows that mathematics outcomes for primary aged pupils remain below pre-pandemic levelsamounting to just under 1.5 months’ worth of learning by the end of the autumn term. Outcomes for younger year groups are even further behind pre-pandemic norms. More positively, average outcomes in reading have largely been recovered in primary schools, this is consistent with results from national assessments last summer.

The gap in reading outcomes between primaries with the highest levels of socioeconomic disadvantage and those with the lowest is still around six per cent wider than at the start of the pandemic. This suggests that pupils in disadvantaged areas have suffered bigger adverse learning effects than those in more affluent areas.

Jon Andrews, Head of Analysis at the Education Policy Institute, said: “For many children, their time in education has been hugely damaged by the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. Schools have been working hard to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, but it is clear that those effects are still being felt, particularly in maths and for children in more disadvantaged areas.

“The Prime Minister has set out a bold ambition for all young people to study maths up to age 18. There are many obstacles to meeting that ambition, and this analysis highlights that among them is the fact that younger children have fallen behind in their maths as a result of the pandemic. There is a risk that government focus on education recovery is waning, and this analysis is a wake-up call that there is still much work to be done.”

Joan Mill, group managing director of Renaissance International said: “We know how much is being done by teachers on education recovery and supporting all pupils through effective in-school interventions will remain critical in the months and years ahead.

“This analysis, made possible through robust data from the millions of Star Assessments administered annually, shows that while maths outcomes remain a cause for concern, it is equally important that reading recovery is maintained. That is why Renaissance is also supporting teachers and leaders with additional resources and personalised practice to help accelerate learning for all students.”

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