Free School Meals, Uniform Grants and Pupil Development Grant for Kinship Carers in Wales

School costs add up fast when you are raising a relative's child in Wales — uniforms, PE kit, school shoes, trips, and daily meals. Wales offers several devolved education grants that kinship carers can access, but many families miss out because the grants are administered by different bodies and nobody tells you about all of them in one place.

Free School Meals (eFSM)

Wales provides universal free school meals to all primary-age pupils in maintained schools. By the 2024/25 academic year, all primary pupils at state-funded maintained schools in Wales were entitled to a free school meal regardless of household income. If the child you are caring for attends a maintained primary school, they should already be receiving free meals.

For secondary-age pupils, free school meals remain means-tested. The child qualifies if the household receives:

• Universal Credit with a net earned income below £7,400 per year
• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guarantee element of Pension Credit

Apply through the local authority where the child goes to school — the school can usually point you to the right form. Even though all primary pupils receive universal free meals, check eligibility for means-tested free school meals because this separately establishes access to other support.

From September 2026, households receiving Universal Credit can apply for free school meals without the £7,400 net-earnings limit for pupils in Years 7 and 8. The limit still applies to other secondary pupils who qualify through Universal Credit.

The Pupil Development Grant (PDG)

The Pupil Development Grant (PDG) is additional funding for schools, not a direct cash grant to every family. Its separate PDG-CLA strand is intended to support looked-after children, adopted children, and children who left care under a Special Guardianship Order. The funding is distributed through local authorities for educational support. Ask the school or local authority what support is available for the child.

School Uniform Grant

The School Essentials Grant helps eligible families with school uniform, equipment, and activities. For 2026/27, the grant is £125 per learner in Reception to Year 6 and Years 8 to 11, and £200 for a learner entering Year 7. Families whose children qualify for means-tested free school meals can apply, and children in local authority care also qualify. Universal Primary Free School Meals alone do not establish eligibility for this grant.

Applications for 2026/27 opened on 1 July 2026 and close on 31 May 2027. Apply to the local authority where the child goes to school.

How These Interact With Your SGO Allowance

The Welsh Government says the School Essentials Grant does not affect tax or other benefits. An SGO allowance follows your local authority's published financial policy, so ask the council how it treats this grant in its calculation.

However, your council will expect you to claim all available benefits (including eFSM, which passports to other support) before assessing your allowance. If you have not registered for eFSM, you may be missing out on both the meals and the grants that follow from it.

For a complete checklist of every benefit, allowance, and education grant available to kinship carers in Wales — and how they fit together — the Kinship Care in Wales guide walks through each one with Welsh-specific application details.

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