{
 "id": "fsm-eligibility-england",
 "title": "Pupils eligible for free school meals, England",
 "category": "education",
 "summary": "Percentage of pupils in state-funded and non-maintained special schools in England who are eligible for free school meals, from the January school census each academic year.",
 "unit": "percent",
 "chart": "line",
 "volatile": false,
 "status": "",
 "notes": [],
 "provenance": {
  "publisher": "Department for Education",
  "publisher_url": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/",
  "source_page": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics",
  "licence": "OGL-3.0",
  "licence_name": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T17:45:04Z",
  "raw_files": [
   {
    "name": "data.csv.gz",
    "url": "https://api.education.gov.uk/statistics/v1/data-sets/019e7404-df19-71ce-90a8-f2e3db7dd7fa/csv",
    "sha256": "4fdad989d719b1183a0d26bf7948df6c1070edfff872e51ac0ba49e83276ea5d",
    "bytes": 1469973,
    "content_type": "text/csv"
   }
  ]
 },
 "meta": {
  "counts": {
   "2015/16": 1142043.0,
   "2016/17": 1128403.0,
   "2017/18": 1106633.0,
   "2018/19": 1270941.0,
   "2019/20": 1440788.0,
   "2020/21": 1737598.0,
   "2021/22": 1897449.0,
   "2022/23": 2019509.0,
   "2023/24": 2094169.0,
   "2024/25": 2171916.0,
   "2025/26": 2214994.0
  }
 },
 "headline": {
  "label": "Pupils eligible for free school meals",
  "value": 26.5,
  "period": "2025/26",
  "note": "2,214,994 pupils"
 },
 "series": [
  {
   "name": "Eligible for free school meals",
   "points": [
    {
     "x": "2015/16",
     "v": 14.32
    },
    {
     "x": "2016/17",
     "v": 13.96
    },
    {
     "x": "2017/18",
     "v": 13.57
    },
    {
     "x": "2018/19",
     "v": 15.43
    },
    {
     "x": "2019/20",
     "v": 17.33
    },
    {
     "x": "2020/21",
     "v": 20.83
    },
    {
     "x": "2021/22",
     "v": 22.54
    },
    {
     "x": "2022/23",
     "v": 23.81
    },
    {
     "x": "2023/24",
     "v": 24.64
    },
    {
     "x": "2024/25",
     "v": 25.7
    },
    {
     "x": "2025/26",
     "v": 26.5
    }
   ]
  }
 ]
}