No such thing as a free lunch? Exploring the consistency, validity, and uses of the 'Free School Meals' (FSM) measure in the National Pupil Database

This working paper discusses and synthesises existing literature on correspondences between attribution of Free School Meals (FSM) status in the National Pupil Database (NPD) and family income-level and other circumstances. It then presents new descriptive comparisons of FSM status as recorded in the Reception year of primary school, and other recorded child, national, and area-level factors. Compounding known issues with patterns of under-recording in the NPD of FSM-entitled children, changing criteria for entitlement to FSM, and fuzziness in definition and usage – in terms of what recorded FSM status is assumed to represent – findings here indicate that the compositions of the FSM vs non-FSM-ascribed groups have changed over time. They suggest moreover that the relationships between area-level factors and FSM attribution may also have altered over the past decade, and point to increased under-ascription of children from low-income families / families living in poverty. The potential consequences of these findings for mapping of ‘gaps’ in time series comparing FSM and non-FSM-attributed children and for evaluation (and perhaps formulation) of targeted policies and interventions are discussed. Implications of differential attributions of FSM status within a system where ascription is not straightforward nor entirely ‘accurate’ but where it is deterministic of experiences and outcomes begin to be explored, laying the foundations for further research.