Free school meals for all infant pupils

2nd October 2008, 10:09am

The Scottish Government has today announced that all school pupils in primaries one to three are to be entitled to free school meals following successful pilot schemes.

Pilot schemes ran across five local authorities (Fife, East Ayrshire, Glasgow City, West Dunbartonshire and the Scottish Borders) and involved 35,000 children between October 2007 and June 2008.

Uptake of meals among P1s to P3s rose from 53% to 75%.

Within the target group of P1-P3 pupils not registered for free school meals, uptake increased from 41% to 69%.

Ms Hyslop said: "The Concordat between the Scottish Government and COSLA stated that if the evaluation of the trials were positive legislation would be introduced to allow extension of the nutritious free school meals to all children in P1 to P3.

"The pilot was a success with pupils, parents and schools and I have therefore introduced an Order to the Scottish Parliament today which will allow all local authorities to provide free school meals for P1 to P3 pupils.

"This Government has made it a priority to help children in their early years and this initiative does just that, providing every child with a free school meal in their first years at primary school."

John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland and a leading member of the Free School Meals Campaign, said: "This is a massive step forward in the campaign to ensure every child, whatever their home circumstances, gets a healthy meal at school."

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