Guidance

Breakfast clubs early adopters: data return for autumn term 2025 to 2026 guidance for completing the digital form

Updated 17 November 2025

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The government is committed to offering a free breakfast club in every state-funded school with primary aged pupils in England (the new breakfast club offer).

Early adopter schools have been selected to inform the roll-out of breakfast clubs on a national scale and bring the new breakfast club programme to their schools early. 

Schools that became early adopters must complete the digital form as part of their grant conditions.

The data submitted to us will assist with monitoring and assuring the grant, as well as providing data on take up. The amount of funding early adopter schools receive from the Department for Education (DfE) in arrears will be based on the number of children attending the breakfast club as submitted through this digital form.

2. Who this publication is for

This guidance is for schools who received the breakfast clubs early adopter grant funding in the 2025 to 2026 academic year. These schools represent a suitable cross-section of institutions eligible for the national roll-out of the scheme, including academies, alternative provision academies, maintained schools, non-maintained special schools, and pupil referral units.

This funding stream is to cover this scheme’s breakfast club provision for primary-aged pupils, defined as those in reception to year 6, in those early adopter schools.

3. When to complete your submission 

You must complete and submit your return on or before 11:59pm Friday 5 December 2025.

You can edit and resubmit your return until this date. We will use your most recent submission to calculate your recovery amount.

4. Accessing the form 

Access the breakfast clubs digital form to complete your return. 

4.1 Before you start  

Make sure you:

• have a DfE Sign-in account that is linked to your organisation. If you have not used DfE sign-in before you will need to create an account, please see section ‘If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account’ below.
• know the start date of both your 2025 autumn term, and free breakfast club 
• know the first date of your count week (this is the 10th November for most schools)
• know how many pupils attended your free breakfast club each day
• know how many pupils eligible for free school meals at any time in the last 6 years (FSM6) attended breakfast club each day
• know how many pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan attended breakfast club each day
• know how many pupils planned to attend your free breakfast club each day, if you have a booking system
• know about your free breakfast club offer (such as how it meets school food standards, duration, parent fee structure, and if you use a private, voluntary and independent (PVI) provider

All pupil counts should be taken during the week of 10 November 2025 (count week), unless you have a previous agreement with DfE.

View the conditions of grant for more information on the minimum requirements.

4.2 DfE Sign-in

Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account

Follow the below steps to access the form:

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

2. If multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled on your account, you will need to enter a verification code to login. To send the verification email with the 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 will 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 for whom 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.  If you believe these details are incorrect, contact us via the Customer Help Portal and we will investigate. However, you can still proceed with your submission.

To complete the form, your 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 are also unable to 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 that is a minimum 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 MFA verification email by clicking on ’Email code to [your email address]’ on the ‘Verify your identity’ page.

6. We will send you a 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 an approver(s) within your organisations.  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

If you need help with DfE Sign-in, use our DfE Sign-in help service where you will be able to request further assistance. When raising a support request, select ‘Other.’

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

5.  Completing the form 

Access the form and select ‘Start now’.  When authenticated through DfE Sign-in, you will find a ‘Save and continue’ button on each page which will take you to the next page of the form. If you sign out of a form, or leave your form opened for an extended period before submitting, you can resume your submission when you sign back in.

Once you have submitted your form, you will be advised of next steps and will receive an email confirmation of your submission. This e-mail will contain 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 Autumn term and breakfast club start dates

If your breakfast club did not start (or restart) on the first day of the autumn term, then you will be asked to confirm the dates.  Select your autumn term 2025 start date and start date of your early adopter breakfast club in the autumn.  If you are asked to type your dates, the date order should be ‘dd mm yyyy’ (for example, 28 4  2025).

You will then be asked to confirm if your school collected breakfast club during count week (week commencing Monday, 10 November 2025).  If not, you will be asked to confirm the count week that you used for data collection.  Reporting for a different week is only permitted if this has been previously agreed with DfE.

5.3 Actual attendance

Provide the figures for the total number of eligible pupils who attended your breakfast club early adopter offer each day during the week of 10 November 2025 . Reporting for a different week is only permitted if this has been previously agreed with DfE. 

You must only report for primary-aged pupils. This includes children in reception through to year 6. 

If you report that pupils attended your breakfast club, you will then be asked follow-up questions about attendance of children in receipt of free school meals (FSM) and with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Of the pupils that attended your early adopter breakfast club, you will separately be asked to enter the number of children with FSM, and with SEND across count week.

You must count each pupil for every day they were present, even if they attended multiple days.

Enter 0 (zero) if no pupils attended.

You will also be asked if there are pupils with SEND who want to access your club but are unable to.

5.4 Planned attendance

You will only see this section if you have selected the option of operating a booking system. You will be asked to confirm how far in advance you close your booking system and the number of pupils who planned to attend your early adopter breakfast club.

Provide the relevant information to your breakfast club early adopter offer for each day during the week of 10 November 2025. Reporting for a different week is only permitted if this has been previously agreed with DfE.

You must only report for primary-aged pupils. This includes children in reception through to year 6.

You must count each pupil for every day they planned to attend, even if this was for multiple days.

Enter the number of pupils who planned to attend, regardless of whether they attended or not.

Enter 0 (zero) if no pupils planned to attend.

5.5 School food standards

Food served at breakfast must be compliant with the school food standards practical guide.
These food-based standards specify which types of food should be served at school and how often. The school food standards: resources for schools page contains a helpful checklist for school food other than at lunch which sets out what should and should not be served across the school day, including at breakfast clubs.
Your answer to this question will be used to inform policy direction only, and will not affect any funding decisions.

5.6 Private, voluntary, or independent (PVI) providers and childminders

For information on registration requirements for private, voluntary, or independent provider (PVI) providers and childminders, refer to the designing breakfast clubs section of the breakfast clubs early adopter guidance for schools and trusts in England.

You can check if childcare is registered on the Ofsted website.

Your answer to this question will inform policy direction only, and will not affect funding decisions.

5.7 Duration of your breakfast club

Select the total duration of your breakfast club from the available options, including time funded by other sources like the wraparound childcare programme, or parent and carer charges.

5.8 Charges to parents and carer

You will only see this section if the duration of your breakfast club was more than 30 minutes. Select the option that relates to your breakfast club charges and if the cost for longer breakfast clubs has been reduced for parents since the introduction of the early adopter offer.

5.9 Declarations page

Once you have completed all relevant data entries you must complete all declarations before you can submit your form. You will not be able to submit the form without fully completing this section. 

You will not be able to submit your form without agreeing to the declarations. To do this, you will need to tick each statement box to confirm your agreement. 

5.10 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 a breakdown of the form information, by clicking ‘Save summary as PDF’ before you submit.

We are unable to accept a PDF summary of your answers as proof of submission.

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

5.11  Confirmation 

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

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

Make a note of your unique reference number as we will not include this information in your confirmation email.

5.12  Amending your submission

You can make changes to the form and resubmit on or before 11:59pm Friday 5 December 2025. To do this, you will need to sign in and resubmit the form. 

You will be unable to amend your data after the submission deadline. We will use your most recent submission to calculate your recovery amount.

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

6. If you need further assistance  

If you have read this guidance and have further questions, contact us at our 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.