Two more families from Corpus Christi Primary School in Middlesbrough have begun receiving free school meals after submitting a simple form to the local authority.

The school’s child and family welfare lead Andrea Hurt says it’s a “very straightforward process” and the council responded on the same day.

“We had a couple of families who weren’t on our list for free school meals but thought they were eligible, so we put in new claims for them,” explained Andrea, whose role includes looking at safeguarding and being the first point of contact to support parents with issues such as housing, benefits, free school meals and even behaviour problems with their children.

“You just need to fill in details like name and address, you and your partner’s National Insurance number and the children’s date of birth and the school does the rest, faxing it over to the council’s free school meals department.

“You don’t have to show any other evidence at that point. We send it off to the council and they get straight back in touch – in the case of the two families in our school it was on the same day.

“One parent was immediately eligible and the other just had to take a photograph to show they had been claiming Universal Credit for three months.”

Nicholas Postage Catholic Academy Trust is keen to make sure families whose circumstance have changed due to the coronavirus crisis do not miss out.

For more details of eligibility and to download the form, click here.