Guidance

Free breakfast clubs grant: methodology for April 2026 to July 2026

Published 20 November 2025

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The government remains committed to deliver on its pledge to provide a free breakfast club in every state-funded school with primary-aged children. This will ensure every child, regardless of circumstance, has a supportive start to the school day. 

Following the success of the early adopter scheme, as the first phase of national rollout, we are investing a further £80m into the programme to fund an additional 2,000 schools between April 2026 and March 2027.

This guide explains how we calculate the free breakfast club provision funding for schools for the period between April 2026 and July 2026. Further guidance covering the next academic year 2026 to 2027 will be available in due course.

2. Eligibility of the grant

Only schools who have submitted an expression of interest and been accepted for the free breakfast club programme are eligible to receive this funding. These schools cover a range of schools from those eligible in the national roll-out of the programme (such as: academy schools, alternative provision (AP) academies, maintained schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units). This funding stream is to cover this programme’s free breakfast club provision for primary-aged pupils, defined as those in reception to year 6, in those schools.

3. Paying the grant

The breakfast club funding will be paid to schools either directly from the Department for Education (DfE) for academies or through their local authority for maintained schools. Schools will receive their funding in 2 tranches:

• a fixed payment will be made at the end of May 2026 for local authorities and the beginning of June 2026 for academies, to cover the daily flat rate to schools – see Section 4 for more detail

  • schools new to the programme will also receive the one-off start-up grant at this time
  • schools already on the programme (such as schools participating in the early adopter scheme) will receive the arrears payment for spring term 2026 at this time

• the remaining funding will be paid in arrears at the end of October 2026 for local authorities and beginning of November 2026 for academies (based on the actual take up of pupils collected from schools)

Funding for autumn term 2026 and spring term 2027 will be paid in a similar way, with the daily rate paid as a lump sum payment and the per pupil rate paid in arrears (including the arrears payment for the summer term which will be paid within the next grant period beginning in September 2026). Payment schedules for these terms will be shared in due course.

4. Funding rates

There is a ready reckoner tool available which can help schools to calculate the funding amount they are likely to receive.

4.1 State-funded mainstream schools

State-funded mainstream schools will receive:

• a one-off start-up grant for schools new to the programme
• a daily flat rate paid to all schools, regardless of the pupil number attending free breakfast clubs to cover administration and fixed staffing costs for summer term (for example, staff to set up or clean the club and prepare or serve food)
• a per pupil rate based on the number of pupils attending the free breakfast club each day

We apply an area cost adjustment (ACA) to the funding, to account for variations in the labour market. We have used the same ACAs as the schools national funding formula for 2025 to 2026 and is published in the area cost adjustment for national funding formula 2025 to 2026: technical note.

The daily flat rate is paid to all schools, regardless of the pupil number. This amount covers the fixed administration and staffing costs of the programme not dependent on the number of pupils that attend (for example, a staff member to prepare and serve food). The per pupil amount covers the provision of the food and staffing costs that vary depending on the number of pupils attending the club.

The funding rates for April 2026 to July 2026 are:

• a flat rate of £25 per day. This will be multiplied by the number of days in the term (£1,575 in summer term based on 63 days).
• a per pupil rate of £1 per day of breakfast club attendance, paid in arrears.

The per pupil rate will be multiplied by the actual number of pupils taking up the breakfast club provision which we will collect from the free breakfast club schools.

In addition, schools joining the programme from April 2026 will receive a £1,000 one-off start-up grant to cover the cost of equipment (for example, food storage or play equipment), training (for example, food hygiene), infrastructure and systems (for example, booking systems) or other revenue costs associated with setting up the free breakfast club provision.

4.2 Special and alternative provision (AP) schools

The funding rates are:

• a daily flat rate paid to all schools, regardless of the pupil number attending free breakfast clubs to cover administration and fixed staffing costs for summer term (for example, staff to set-up or clean up the club and prepare or serve food)
• a per pupil rate based on the number of pupils attending the free breakfast club each day

For the same reasons as the mainstream schools, we apply an area cost adjustment but using the high needs ACA. Similar to the mainstream schools, this includes the daily flat rate and per pupil cost. Due to the additional needs of these pupils, the basic per pupil cost is higher.

The funding rates for April 2026 to July 2026 are:

• a flat rate of £18.95 per day. This will multiplied by the number of days in the term (£1,193 in summer term based on 63 days).
• a per pupil rate of £3.23 per day of breakfast club attendance, paid in arrears.

The per pupil rate will be multiplied by the actual number of pupils taking up the breakfast club provision which we will collect from the free breakfast club schools.

As above, schools joining the programme from April 2026 will receive a £1,000 one-off start-up grant to cover revenue costs associated with setting up the free breakfast club provision.