The number of pupils eligible for free school meals has risen by more than 300,000 since the first national lockdown, new government data reveals.

Figures released by the Department for Education show that 302,397 pupils became eligible for free school meals between 23 March and October 2020, compared with an increase of 208,525 pupils during the same period in 2019.

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In total, nearly one in five (19.7 per cent) - of pupils were eligible for free school meals at October 2020, an increase from 17.3 per cent in January 2020.

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This amounts to 1.63 million children, an increase from 1.44 million in January 2020.

The increase suggests that Covid has had a significant impact on the circumstances of many pupils and their families and is likely to fuel fears about the financial impact this will have on schools.

A change to the way pupil premium funding is being allocated this year means that the government will calculate the number of children attracting pupil premium funding from April based on a census from last October, and not in January, leaving some schools with considerable gaps in their finances.

The change will leave multi-million-pound holes across the education budgets in many areas, wiping out funding for Covid recovery, local authorities have warned.

A statement from the DfE accompanying today’s statistics says: “The percentage of pupils with free school meals had been increasing prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, with increases from 13.6 per cent in January 2018 to 15.4 per cent in January 2019, and to 17.3 per cent in January 2020.

“The increase from January 2020 to October 2020 is higher than each of these previous year-on-year increases.”