Guidance

Free breakfast clubs grant: methodology for September 2026 to July 2027

Published 8 July 2026

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 £80 million 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 September 2026 and July 2027. Further guidance covering the next academic year 2027 to 2028 will be available in due course.

2. Eligibility of the grant

Only schools who have been accepted for the free breakfast club programme and have confirmed their acceptance 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 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 free 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. Funding will be made in 3 tranches across the academic year although the amount of payments a school receives will depend upon when they began the programme:

1. A fixed payment will be made at the end of October 2026 for local authorities and the beginning of November 2026 for academies, to cover the daily flat rate to schools for autumn term – refer to section 4 for more details
   • schools already on the programme (such as schools participating in the early adopter scheme) will receive the arrears payment for summer term 2026 at this time - schools new to the programme will also receive the one-off start-up grant within their first grant payment. For illustration, if a school joins in September, they will receive this start up grant in the October/November payment.
2. A fixed payment will be made at the end of February 2027 for local authorities and beginning of March 2027 for academies, to cover the daily flat rate to schools for spring term. Schools will also receive an arrears payment for autumn term (based on the actual take up of pupils collected from schools).
3. A fixed payment will be made at the end of May 2027 for local authorities and beginning of June 2027 for academies, to cover the daily flat rate to schools for summer term. Schools will also receive an arrears payment for spring term (based on the actual take up of pupils collected from schools). Arrears for summer term 2027 and further funding will be paid in the next grant period.

4. Funding rates

There is a Free breakfast clubs from 2026 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 each 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 to the funding, to account for variations in the labour market. We have used the same area cost adjustments as the schools national funding formula for 2026 to 2027 and is published in the National funding formula tables for schools and high needs: 2026 to 2027.

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 September 2026 to July 2027 are:

• a flat rate of £25 per day. This will be multiplied by the number of days in the term (74 days for autumn term, 57 days for spring term, and 63 days for summer term)
• 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 for the first time 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 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 area cost adjustment. 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 be multiplied by the number of days in the term (74 days for autumn term, 57 days for spring term, and 63 days for summer term)
• 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 for the first time will receive a £1,000 one-off start-up grant to cover revenue costs associated with setting up the free breakfast club provision.

4.3 Free breakfast club champion schools

For schools that have been accepted as free breakfast club champions, the funding rates are a flat rate of £500 per day, subject to area cost adjustment.

Schools can claim up to 2.5 days per month (excluding August) upon receipt of documentation of work carried out.

This allocation will be paid as part of the free breakfast club grant.