Commentary on Sections PART 5 – WELFARE OF CHILDREN Section 106: Provision of free school lunches
430.This section amends Part 9 of the Education Act 1996 in relation to the provision of school lunches. It ensures that all state-funded schools – both maintained schools and Academies – have an obligation to provide free school lunches on request for all pupils in infant classes (i.e reception, year one and year two). It also creates an enabling power for the Secretary of State to extend this obligation to other school year groups or to children in maintained nursery schools and other state-funded early years settings.
431.For maintained schools, this new obligation will sit alongside the existing statutory obligations imposed on them in respect of the provision of school lunches. For Academies, the section inserts a new provision requiring all future Academies (where funding agreements are entered into after this amendment comes into effect) to have a provision in their funding agreement that mirrors the school lunch obligations placed on maintained schools; and all funding agreements entered into before this section comes into effect must be read as if they included this requirement.