PRIMARY schools could lose thousands of pounds of funding for disadvantaged children because of the Government’s new free school meals programme.

Since schools reopened this month, pupils aged between five and seven are receiving their school dinners for free.

But headteachers have said this means parents on lower incomes may now be less likely to officially register their children for free school meals.

If a child is registered as being eligible for free school meals because they come from a disadvantaged family that means the school then receives money under the Government’s “pupil premium” scheme. That has caused schools across the county to urge parents with eligible children to come forward.

The pupil premium is cash given to publically funded schools to help boost the performance of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Jon Gray of Cutteslowe Primary School said the school relies on the funding for about 10 per cent of its budget – or more than £100,000. The school currently has about 300 pupils, with more than a third eligible.

Mr Gray said: “Our main concern as a school which has a lot of pupils receiving free school meals is that where parents would normally apply, they no longer have the impetus to do so.

“But we need them to because the pupil premium money makes up a big part of our budget.

“At the moment we are trying to be proactive and talk to parents about it at the school gate and sending out letters.”

Lynn Knapp, headteacher of Windmill Primary School in Headington, also said her school was anticipating a fall in its number of signed up pupils this year.

Of about 540 pupils, she said about 18 per cent were eligible for the premium.

She said “We struggle every year to get parents to hand in the forms and I can’t see how this could not affect us.

“We have to try and get the message out to parents that it determines the school’s budget. The problem is why would they bother if you are going to get a free school meal anyway?”

Schools can claim a pupil premium from the Government for every child eligible for free school meals in the last six years.

Last year, according to the Department for Education, there were 8,230 primary school pupils, about 17 per cent, eligible out of 48,490 pupils in Oxfordshire.

That amounted to about £7.84m of funding, at £900 per pupil.

This year the Government has increased the amount available per pupil to £1,300.

Councillor John Howson, of Oxfordshire County Council’s education scrutiny committee, said: “It relies on parents filling out the forms, but the incentive must be that the school will get more money to educate their children.

“I would have thought that most parents would want their child’s school to have as much money as possible.”

Oxfordshire County Council was asked to provide the number of children who claimed free school meals, but it did not respond.

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