1. Introduction

The Autumn Budget 2024 included over £33 million for 2025 to 2026 to support the breakfast club early adopter scheme and continuation of the National School Breakfast Club Programme next year. The early adopter funding will be split between the 750 early adopter schools selected from those that volunteered to be part of the scheme. Early adopter schools will be selected  to ensure a wide range of representation across different school types, sizes and geographical areas. We want to test and learn with as many different types of schools as possible before implementation of national roll-out. 

This guide explains how we calculate the breakfast club provision funding for the early adopter schools for the period between April 2025 and July 2025.

2. Eligibility of the grant

Only breakfast club early adopter schools are eligible to receive this funding. These schools cover an appropriate range of schools from those eligible in the national roll-out of the scheme (that is, academies, alternative provision academies, maintained schools, non-maintained special schools, pupil referral units). This funding stream is to cover this scheme’s breakfast club provision for primary aged pupils, defined as those in reception to year 6, in those early adopter schools.

3. Paying the grant

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

• an upfront fixed payment will be made at the end of April 2025 for local authorities and beginning of May 2025 for academies, this  includes the set-up payment (one-off payment), and a lump sum to cover administration and start-up staffing costs

• the remaining funding, which includes the basic per-pupil and per-pupil  deprivation funding will be paid in arrears at the end of November 2025 for local authorities and beginning of December 2025 for academies (based on the actual take up of pupils collected from the early adopter school)

4. Funding rates

4.1 State-funded mainstream schools

• one off, initial set-up cost
• a lump-sum paid to all schools, regardless of pupil number
• a basic additional per-pupil factor
• a per-pupil deprivation factor for pupils who are recorded as having eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years (FSM6)

We apply an area cost adjustment (ACA) to the funding (except for the initial set-up payment which is just a flat rate of £500), to account for variations in the labour market. We have used the same ACAs as the schools national funding formula for 2024 to 2025 which is published in the area cost adjustment for national funding formula 2024 to 2025: technical note.

The initial set-up and lump-sum amount is paid to all schools, regardless of the pupil number. The lump-sum amount covers the fixed administration and start-up staffing costs of the scheme, the basic per-pupil amount covers the provision of the food and basic staffing costs. The deprivation factor ensures extra funding for schools with a higher proportion of pupils with additional needs.

The funding rates for April to July 2025 are:

• initial set up cost £500 (one off)
• a lump sum of £1,099 for the 22 April to July period
• basic additional rate provided per-pupil of £0.60 per day of breakfast club attendance
• an FSM6 additional rate provided per-pupil of £0.78 per day of breakfast club attendance

The basic per-pupil rate will be multiplied by the actual number of pupils taking up the breakfast club provision which we will collect from the early adopter schools. We will then use the rate of FSM6 pupils, amongst primary aged pupils, at the school to estimate the number of FSM6 pupils taking up the breakfast club provision.

4.2 Special and AP schools

The funding rates are:

• one off, initial set up cost
• a lump-sum paid to all schools, regardless of the pupil number
• basic additional per-pupil factor

For the same reasons as the mainstream schools, we apply an area cost adjustment (except for the initial set-up payment) but using the high needs ACA. Similar to mainstream schools, this includes an initial set-up cost, the lump-sum cost and the basic per-pupil cost. Due to the additional needs of these pupils the basic per-pupil cost is higher and so a separate deprivation factor is not included.

The funding rates for April to July 2025 are:

• initial set up cost £500 (one off)
• a lump sum of £1,099 for the 22 April to July 2025 period
• basic additional rate provided per-pupil of £3.23 per day of breakfast club attendance

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