Managing Free School Meals (FSM) Eligibility

Applies to: England 

From Autumn 2026, the Department for Education is changing how Free School Meal eligibility is handled. Eligibility now splits into Targeted FSM and Expanded FSM, with an Other FSM option for local funding schemes such as the London Mayor's FSM. Schools must also re-verify each student's eligibility once a year, within set dates, to keep their funding.

Adding FSM eligibility in Arbor allows you to stop charging students for meals and certain clubs and trips, and to report eligibility in your census (you can see errors that may flag in your census for FSM here). Arbor doesn't include a built-in eligibility checker. You'll need to use another system (for example, a file from your Local Authority or the DfE's Eligibility Checking Service) to confirm whether a student should be logged as FSM before recording it here.

DfE guidance: Free school meals: guidance for local authorities, local -authority-maintained schools, academies and free schools

Permissions

You'll need one of the following permissions to add or edit FSM eligibility from a student's profile:

• Student Profile: Background: Administer All Students — for all students
• Student Profile: Background: Administer My Students — for students assigned to you

If you can't see the option to add or edit FSM, ask your administrator to check your business roles.

Existing FSM records

Existing Free School Meal (FSM) records have been migrated over to the Targeted FSM category while you complete your verification checks. Once you’ve confirmed a claimant's eligibility under this new "Targeted" category, please remember:

• Keep the record open: Do not add or close the record - do not add an end date.

• Protect the start date: Keep the original FSM start date exactly as it is. Changing it will impact your Pupil Premium and Ever 6 funding.

Understanding the FSM categories

Your existing records have already been migrated to Targeted FSM.

Please note:  Only Targeted FSM contributes to Pupil Premium funding and the Ever 6 cohort. Recording a student as Expanded or Other FSM will not attract Pupil Premium.

Targeted FSM 

• This is the traditional means-tested entitlement (e.g., Universal Credit thresholds) and is the category to which pre-Autumn-2026 records were migrated. This category counts towards Pupil Premium / Ever 6.

Expanded FSM 

• This is the wider entitlement available from 1 August 2026 in England. It is eligible for meals only and does not count towards Pupil Premium / Ever 6.

Other FSM 

• This refers to locally funded initiatives, such as the London Mayor's Free School Meals scheme. This category does not count towards Pupil Premium / Ever 6.

Adding a brand new FSM eligibility from a student's profile

Go to the student's profile and scroll to the Background section. Click +Add and choose Add Free School Meal Eligibility.

Complete the slide-over:

• FSM Category — required. Defaults to Targeted FSM. Use the tooltip if you need a reminder of which category to choose.
• Start date — when this period of eligibility began. 
• End date — when the eligibility ended, if known. Leave blank for current, ongoing eligibility.
• Last verified date — the date the eligibility was last confirmed with the DfE's checking service or your local authority.
• Next check date — auto-populated to one year after the Last verified date. You can edit this if you need to bring the next check forward.
• UK Country — defaults to England. Set this if the original claim was issued in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
• Primary Guardian Claimant (optional) — pick the guardian whose eligibility supports this claim, so the verification only shows against that guardian on the Guardian FSM Status page. Leave blank if you don't need to attribute it or don't know who they are.

Click Add Eligibility to save.

💡 Tip: If the student already has an open FSM period eg Targeted and you change it Expanded category, Arbor will automatically close the previous period by setting its End date to the day before the new Start date. You'll see a message reminding you of this.

A few things Arbor will check for you

• Expanded FSM records must have a Start date on or after 1 August 2026 — this is when the expanded entitlement begins.
• Last verified date must be on or after 1 June 2026 for Targeted or Expanded FSM, because annual re-verification only began at that point.
• Expanded FSM is England-only. If you set UK Country to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, you'll be asked to choose a different category or add an End date.
• One ongoing period at a time. Only the most recent FSM record should be left without an End date.
• Migrated Start dates are protected. If you edit a Targeted FSM record that was migrated from a pre-Autumn-2026 claim, Arbor will keep the original Start date so the student's Ever 6 history stays unbroken.

Transferring a student to a different FSM category

Use this when a student's eligibility moves from one category to another — for example, a Targeted FSM student who later becomes eligible for Expanded FSM, or a student moving from Expanded back to Targeted after a means-test reassessment. You don't need to add a brand-new record from scratch; Arbor handles closing the old period and opening the new one for you.

In the student's Background section, click the existing FSM entry to open the slide-over. Then:

• Change FSM Category to the new value.
• Set the Start date for the new period (this is the day the new category takes effect).
• Enter or update the Last verified date if the new category requires a fresh check.
• Click Save.

💡 Tip: When you change the FSM Category, Arbor automatically closes the previous period by setting its End date to the day before the new Start date. You'll see a confirmation message before you save - you can amend that end date if you wish.

Important warning

Changing the FSM Category on an existing record will automatically end the current claim and create a new claim under the new category. This keeps the student's history accurate, so each category appears as its own period in your records and census.

A few things Arbor will check during a transfer

• Expanded FSM records must have a Start date on or after 1 August 2026. You can't backdate a transfer to Expanded before that.
• Migrated Start dates are protected. If you're transferring a student whose original Targeted record was migrated from a pre-Autumn-2026 claim, Arbor will keep the original Start date on the closed period so the student's Ever 6 history stays unbroken.
• No overlapping periods. The new Start date must be after the original period's Start date — Arbor will block a transfer that creates an overlap.

Ending a claim when a student is no longer eligible

Use this when a student loses FSM eligibility entirely, for example, a family's circumstances change and they no longer qualify. You're not transferring to a different category; you're closing out the existing record.

In the student's Background section, click the FSM entry to open the slide-over. Then:

• Enter an End date — the date eligibility stopped.
• Leave all other fields as they are.
• Click Save.

The record stays on the student's profile with its original Start date and category, so it still counts towards historical reporting (including Ever 6 where applicable) and appears correctly in the census.

Deleting a claim entered in error

Use Delete when the FSM record shouldn't exist at all, for example, it was added to the wrong student or recorded by mistake. If the student was genuinely eligible and has since stopped, set an End date instead (see the section above) so the history is preserved.

In the student's Background section, click the FSM entry to open the slide-over. Click Delete and confirm.

Warning: Deleting an FSM record removes it from the student's history. If the deleted record was Targeted FSM, this may reduce the student's Ever 6 count and affect Pupil Premium funding. Double-check before confirming.

Re-verifying eligibility each year

From Autumn 2026, the DfE requires schools to re-verify every student's FSM eligibility once a year, within the dates set out for each census term. Your dashboard will show a To-Do reminder ten weeks before any student's verification is due to expire, with a link straight to the Bulk Update FSM page so you can re-verify in one go.

For full guidance on re-verifying in bulk, see our article on the Bulk Update FSM page.

FAQs

What happened to my school's existing FSM records?

They've been automatically migrated to Targeted FSM, keeping their original Start dates, so Pupil Premium and Ever 6 history is preserved. You don't need to do anything to migrate them, but you'll need to add a Last verified date before the next Autumn census.=