Guidance

Guidance for completing and returning the 14 to 16-year-old pupil premium and free school meals form for the 2024 to 2025 academic year

Updated 4 November 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

This guidance helps you complete the return for pupil premium and free school meals for 14 to 16-year-olds.

Use this form to report the number of 14 to 16-year-old students in your institution who are eligible for free school meals, pupil premium, and service pupil premium in the 2024 to 2025 academic year.

Further education and sixth form colleges can enrol students aged 14 to 16 on a full-time study programme and receive funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Such programmes include the study of technical qualifications, alongside general qualifications, including English and mathematics, within the key stage 4 curriculum.

For the purposes of this guidance, references to colleges do not include academies for 16 to 19-year-olds, as these are outside the scope of this provision.

More information on pupil premium for 14 to 16-year-olds is detailed in the guidance document ‘Full-time enrolment of 14 to 16-year-olds in further education and sixth form colleges’.

2. Who is this publication for

The guidance is for further education and sixth form colleges.

3. When to complete your submission

The deadline to complete your return is 5pm on Friday, 29 November 2024.

4. Accessing the form

Access the free meals and pupil premium digital form  to complete your return.

4.1 Before you start

Make sure you have:

• a DfE Sign-in account
• the total of 14 to 16-year-old students enrolled by your institution as on 1 November 2024
• the number of 14 to 16-year-old students who are eligible for pupil premium, free school meals, the service premium, and who are care leavers

4.2 DfE Sign-in

Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account

Follow the below steps to access your DfE Sign-In account:

1. Access the free meals and pupil premium digital form. When prompted, enter your DfE Sign-in credentials (your username and password) for authentication.

2. Choose the organisation for whom you are completing the form for – this is only required if your DSi account is linked to several organisations.

3. 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 URN or UKPRN of the organisation, as well as the name and email address of the person who signed into the account.

4. If these details are correct, select ‘Continue’ to go to the next page.

5. If you believe these details are incorrect, please contact the Customer Help Portal and we will investigate. You can still proceed with your submission.

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 for authentication only.

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account

You will need to create one by following steps 1 to 5 below:

1. Select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’ the DfE Sign-in page.

2. Enter your name and email address (use a valid business email address that contains your name).

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 at least 14 characters. A good way to create a secure and memorable password is to use 3 random words. You can use numbers, symbols and spaces.

5. Sign in using your new credentials, and request access to the organisation for which you would like to submit the form.

Adding an organisation to your DfE Sign-in account

To add a new organisation to your account, follow the steps below:

1. Login to your DfE Sign-in account.

2. Select ‘Organisations’.

3. Select ‘Request access to an organisation’.

4. Enter the URN or UKPRN of the organisation you would like to add.

5. Select the organisation from search results.

6. Select ‘Confirm’.

Your request will be sent to the approver of that organisation.

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 an administrator or a senior manager.

For security reasons, you will need the authorisation of one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form.

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined under the ‘Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account’ section to complete the form.

4.3 If you need further assistance

For problems using the DfE Sign-in service, use our DfE Sign-in help service to request assistance. When raising a support request, select ‘other.’

For problems accessing the form, use our Customer Help Portal.

5.  Completing the form

Once you have authenticated through DfE Sign-in and are in the form, you will find a ‘Save and continue’ button on each page which will take you to the next page. The form will remember information you have saved if you sign out or if you leave it open for an extended period. You can resume your submission when you sign back in.

Once you have submitted the form, you’ll be advised of next steps and will receive an email confirmation of your submission. This email will contain a link to download a PDF copy of your submission – this link will expire after 6 months so you should download a copy as soon as possible.

You can edit and resubmit your form until the submission deadline.

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.

5.2 Total students

14 to 16-year-old students are defined as those who were aged 14 or 15 on 31 August 2024, and are enrolled at the college directly.

This will not include 14 to 16-year-olds enrolled at a school or other institution studying at the college for some of their provision nor will it include 14 to 16-year-olds who have achieved a level 2 qualification and have chosen to enrol on a level 3 programme.

5.3 Free school meals students

This includes those students recorded in the October 2023 school census who are known to have been eligible for free school meals since May 2018 (known as ‘ever 6’).

This also includes those first known to be eligible in the October 2023 school census.

5.4 Care leaver students

This includes students recorded in the January 2024 school census and alternative provision census who were looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted.

This also includes students who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order).

5.5 Pupil premium students

Students that are eligible for pupil premium are:

• entitled to free school meals - this will include those students recorded in the October 2023 school census who are known to have been eligible for free school meals since May 2018, as well as those first known to be eligible as at October 2023
• no longer eligible for free school meals but have claimed free school meals during the past 6 years (known as ‘ever 6’)
• in care, or have left care through adoption or other formal legal routes such as a child arrangements or special guardianship order

If a student is eligible under more than one category, then they must be counted only once.

Your answer must be less than or equal to the total of free school meal and care leaver students provided.

5.6 Service premium students

Students eligible for the service premium are those who were recorded in the October 2023 school census and have been eligible for the service child premium since the January 2018 school census.

Those students recorded as a service child for the first time on the October 2023 census should also be counted.

Institutions should also include any student whose parent has died in service, where they are now in receipt of pensions under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) and the War Pensions Scheme (WPS).

5.7 Declarations page

You must complete the declarations. You will not be able to submit your form without completing this section fully.

5.8 Submission summary

The summary page allows you to check your answers before submitting the form. You can change your answers using the ‘Change’ link that appears next to each data entry.

You can also save this summary by selecting ‘Save summary as PDF’ before you submit. Alternatively, you can download it by following the steps below.

1. On the summary page, select ‘File’ and then ‘Print’. A new window will open.

2. From the dropdown, select ‘Save as PDF’.

3. Select ‘Save’.

We cannot accept a PDF summary of your answers as proof of submission. You must still submit the form.

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

5.9  Confirmation

The final page confirms your submission and shows a unique reference number. You should make a note of this reference number.

You will then be sent a confirmation email to the email address that you logged into DfE Sign-in with. This will contain a link to download a PDF of your submission, which is valid for 6 months from the date of your submission.

5.10 Amending your submission

You can make changes to the form and resubmit until 5pm on Friday, 29 November 2024. To do this, you will need to sign back in and resubmit your form.

You can amend your data until the deadline. We cannot grant any extensions to the deadline.

If you submit your form and then make any subsequent submissions, we will take the details of your most recently  submitted form and disregard previous versions.

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

6. Enquiries

If you have read this guidance and have questions, contact us via the Customer Help Portal.