Free School Meals / Uniform Grant Videos and Guidance

You can request a Proof of Benefit letter if you are in receipt of one of the following:

• Income Related Employment and Support Allowance;
• Guarantee Element of State Pension Credit;

You should request a Proof of Benefits letter now via Get a proof of benefit letter. It will take at least five days to be sent to you. Once you receive the letter keep it securely and then upload a copy of the letter when you apply for Free School Meals and Uniform.

The images below are an example of a Universal Credit Claimant Statement. If you are applying for Free School Meals and Uniform Allowance under the Universal Credit criterion, you must upload to your application all pages of your most recent Universal Credit Claimant Statement, which can be found by logging into your Universal Credit account and clicking on your most recent payment details where you will be shown the breakdown of all payments and deductions of how your Universal Credit has been calculated. 

The relevant pages which you must upload to your application need to include your full name and address; the dates and amounts of payment and all entitlements and deductions. 

This will ensure you provide us with all of the necessary information with your application.

If applying under Universal Credit, please ensure you take screen shots of your most recent Universal Credit Claimant Statement and upload them to the application form.

Please ensure that the screen shots contain all the following information: name, address, payments, and deductions.

To access your Universal Credit Claimant Statement:

1. Log onto your Universal Credit account.
2. Go to Payments.
3. Statement
4. View Statement by date.
5. Click on the link for your latest payment at the top of the list and the detailed document will open.
6. Screen shot all pages of the Claimant Statement, ensuring that you capture your name/address, the full payment breakdown and all of the deductions.
7. Upload the images of your Universal Credit Claimant Statement to the application form. Or follow steps 1 to 5 and then for some documents, as the file size may be smaller if you can save the document as a pdf file.
8. Go to Print option on top right-hand side of screen, in your latest Claimant Statement.
9. Click print this statement.
10. When page opens, at top of page select icon
11. Choose to save to files as PDF
12. Upload file containing your Universal Credit Claimant Statement to the application form.

You can upload a maximum of 10 documents and no document should exceed 15MB. Please upload one page/ document at a time and allow sufficient time for the upload to be processed.  For some documents, the file size may be smaller if you can save the document as a pdf file.  

Once you have uploaded your documentation, save your application. Under Add Documentation, your documents should be uploaded and ready to preview.

Make sure you submit the application once it is complete.

If you require further support, contact the Meals and Uniform Service.