Guidance

Guidance for completing and returning the 14 to 16-year-old pupil premium and free school meals form for the 2025 to 2026 academic year

Published 4 November 2025

Applies to England

1. Introduction 

This guidance helps you complete the form for pupil premium and free school meals for 14 to 16-year-olds. 

Use this form to report the number of 14 to 16-year-old students in your institution who are eligible for free meals, pupil premium, and service pupil premium in the 2025 to 2026 academic year. 

Further education and sixth-form colleges can enrol students aged 14 to 16 on a full-time study programme and receive funding from the Department for Education (DfE). Such programmes include the study of technical qualifications, alongside general qualifications, including English and mathematics, within the key stage 4 curriculum. 

For the purpose of this guidance, references to colleges do not include academies for 16 to 19-year-olds, as these are outside the scope of this provision. 

More information on pupil premium for 14 to 16-year-olds is detailed in the guidance on  full-time enrolment of 14- to 16-year-olds in further education and sixth-form colleges. 

2. Who is this publication for

The guidance is for further education and sixth-form colleges. 

3. When to complete your submission  

You can complete your online form for the academic year 2025 to 2026 now. 

The deadline for submitting your form is 5pm on Friday, 28 November 2025. 

You can amend your submission up until the deadline. It will not be possible to grant any extensions to the deadline. 

4. Accessing the form

Access the free meals and pupil premium digital form to complete your return.  

4.1 Before you start  

Make sure you have: 

• a DfE Sign-in account 

• the total of 14 to 16-year-old students enrolled by your institution as on 1 November 2025 

• the number of 14 to 16-year-old students who are eligible for pupil premium, free school meals, the service premium, and who are care leavers

4.2 DfE Sign-in 

Sign in to  your  DfE Sign-in account 

To access the form through your DfE Sign-in account: 

1. Access the online form and select ‘Start now’. When prompted, enter your DfE Sign-in credentials (your account email address and password) for authentication.

2. If a multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled on your account, you’ll need to enter a verification code to login. To send the verification email with code you need to click on ‘Email code to [your email address]’ on the ‘Verify your identity page’ you were directed to after entering your email and password.  

3. After clicking on ‘Email code to [your email address]’ you’ll progress to the next page ‘Enter code’. Copy the code from the verification email and paste it into the box. Then select ‘Verify’.

4. Choose the organisation you are completing the form for – this is only required if your account is linked to several organisations.  

5. The next page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed in. This will show the name, address and unique identifier of the organisation, as well as the name and email address of the person who signed into the form. 

6. If these details are correct, select ‘Continue’ to go to the next page.

To complete the form, your DfE Sign-in account must be connected to the organisation you are completing the form for. You do not need to add any services in DfE Sign-in; it is used only  for authentication. 

If you  do not have a DfE Sign-in account  

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account, you will need to create one by completing steps 1 to 7 below:  

1. Access DfE Sign-in page and select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’.

2. Enter your email address. You must use a valid business email address that contains your name – we are unable to accept generic emails, such as ‘admin’ or ‘info.’ You cannot use a personal email address.

3. We will send you an email to verify your email address. Copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page.

4. Create a memorable password of 8 characters and contains 3 out of: lowercase characters, uppercase characters, numbers, symbols. Enter your given name and surname. 

5. Sign in using your new credentials.  Request your multi-factor authentication (MFA) verification email by clicking on ‘Email code to [your email address]’ on the Verify your identity page. 

6. We will send you an MFA email to verify your identity. Copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page. 

7. Follow the next step instructions outlined in ‘Adding an organisation to your DfE Sign-in account’ below.

Adding an organisation to your DfE Sign-in account 

To add a new organisation to your DfE Sign-in account, follow steps 1 to 6 below: 

1. Login to your DfE Sign-in account. 

2. Select ‘Organisations’ from the tab at the top of the page.

3. Select ‘Request access to an organisation’ from the ‘Related actions’ on the righthand side of the page. 

4. Enter the name of the organisation you wish to add. 

5. Select the organisation.

6. Select ‘Confirm.’ 

Your request will be sent to the approver(s) of your organisation. If you do not already have an approver your request will be actioned by the DfE Sign-in support team. 

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined under already have a DfE account to complete the form.

You may have noticed the term ‘approver’ when setting up your account. An approver is someone at your organisation responsible for controlling who has access to DfE Sign-in and the services within the system. It is usually a senior person, such as a manager. 

For security reasons, you will need authorisation from one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form.

4.3  If you need further assistance 

For problems using the DfE Sign-in service, use our DfE Sign-in help service to request assistance. When raising a support request, select ‘Other.’  

If you are having problems accessing the form collection, you can contact us through our Customer Help Portal. 

5. Completing the form  

 Access the 14-16 free meals and pupil premium digital form and select ‘Start now’.  When authenticated through DfE sign-in, you will find a ‘Save and continue’ button on each page of the form. If you have to sign out of a form, or your form is opened for an extended period before submitting it, you can resume your submission when you sign back in. 

Once you have submitted your form, you will be advised of the next steps and will receive an email confirmation of your submission with a link to download a PDF copy of your submission. This link will expire after 6 months, so we recommend you download a copy as soon as possible.

You can edit and resubmit your form until the submission deadline.   

Selecting ‘Save and continue’ on each page will take you through the form. You must click ‘Submit’ on the final form page to send your completed data return to us. 

5.1  Your details 

We will show you the information we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed into your DfE Sign-in account.

5.2 Total students 

14 to 16-year-old students are defined as those who were aged 14 or 15 on 31 August 2025 and are enrolled at the college directly. 

This will not include 14 to 16-year-olds enrolled at a school or other institution studying at the college for some of their provision nor will it include 14 to 16-year-olds who have achieved a level 2 qualification and have chosen to enrol on a level 3 programme. 

5.3 Free school meals students 

This includes those students recorded in the October 2024 school census who are known to have been eligible for free school meals since May 2019 (known as ‘ever 6’).  This also includes those first known to be eligible as of October 2024.

5.4 Care leaver students 

This includes students recorded in the January 2025 school census and alternative provision census who were looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted. 

This also includes students who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order). 

5.5 Pupil premium students 

Students that are eligible for pupil premium are: 

• entitled to free school meals. This will include those students recorded in the October 2024 school census who are known to have been eligible for free school meals since May 2019, as well as those first known to be eligible as of October 2024 

• no longer eligible for free school meals but have claimed free school meals during the past 6 years (known as ‘ever 6’) 

• in care, or have left care through adoption or other formal legal routes such as a child arrangements or special guardianship order

If a student is eligible under more than 1 category, then they must be counted only once. 

Your answer must be less than or equal to the total of free school meal and care leaver students provided. 

5.6 Service premium students 

Students eligible for the service premium are those who were recorded in the October 2024 school census and have been eligible for the service child premium since the January 2019 school census. 

Those students recorded as a service child for the first time on the October 2024 census should also be counted. 

Institutions should also include any student whose parent has died in service, where they are now in receipt of pensions under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) or the War Pensions Scheme (WPS). 

5.7 Declarations page 

Once you have completed all relevant data entries you must complete all mandatory declarations. You will not be able to submit your form without fully completing this section. You will need to tick each statement box to confirm your agreement. 

5.8 Submission summary 

The summary page allows you to check your answers before submitting your form.    

You can change your answers using the ‘Change’ link that appears next to each data entry. 

You can also save this summery, by selecting ‘Save summary as PDF’ before you submit.  

You must select ‘Submit’ at the bottom of this page and receive a unique reference number for your submission to be processed. 

5.9  Confirmation  

The final page confirms your form has been successfully submitted. You will receive a unique reference number against your submission, followed by an explanation of what happens next. 

You will also receive an email confirming successful submission. This email will contain a link to download a PDF copy of your submission, which is valid for 6 months from the date of your submission. 

It is important that you make a note of your unique reference number as we will not include this information in your confirmation email. 

5.10  Amending your submission 

You can make changes to the form and resubmit until 5pm on 28 November 2025. To do this, you will need to sign back in to access your form, make your amendments and resubmit it. 

You will be unable to amend your data after the submission deadline. All previous versions will be disregarded. 

You will receive a new unique submission reference for an amended submission. 

6. Enquiries  

If you have read this guidance and have any questions, contact us through the Customer Help Portal. 

7. Feedback 

We are committed to enhancing our user experience and improving our digital forms. We therefore welcome and encourage user feedback.