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by Angus Holford and Birgitta Rabe
This follow-up project will investigate the impact of Universal Free School Meal (UFSM) programmes run in several local authorities in England since 2004 on children’s educational attainment, absences and bodyweight. Our previous Nuffield-funded research showed that the Universal Infant Free School Meals policy (UIFSM) which from 2014 makes a free lunch available to all infants in state-funded schools in England significantly reduces children’s bodyweights in Reception year and absences among infants. Evaluating the earlier and ongoing local authority schemes will add to this evidence and allow us to
a) assess longer-term impacts of UFSM on children’s outcomes at age 11;
b) estimate the causal effect of providing UFSM on children’s attainment as well as bodyweight and absences;
c) assess the programme features (such as the number of years free meals are provided and the ages at which they are provided) that are linked to positive outcomes for students, and how these differ by student background.
This will be achieved by comparing the outcomes of children in local authorities implementing such schemes with the outcomes of similar children for whom these were never available.
Our analysis will help establish if UFSM policies are, or could be adapted to be, cost-effective in terms of educational gains, future health and productivity of those receiving it. We expect these results to feed into ongoing policy discussions around the retention, expansion and further development of the UIFSM policy, as well as into the development of any local authority-based UFSM initiative.
The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance social well-being. It funds research that informs social policy, primarily in Education, Welfare, and Justice. It also funds student programmes that provide opportunities for young people to develop skills in quantitative and qualitative methods. The Nuffield Foundation is the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the Ada Lovelace Institute. The Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation. Visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org
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Team members
Research Fellow - ISER, University of Essex
Professor of Economics - ISER, University of Essex
