Free School Meals - New System hosted by DFE

Hertfordshire County Council (HCC)will be introducing a new Free School Meal System (FSM) from December 2025 (planned go live is 09.12.25). The system has been trialled by 35 schools since April 2025 with a positive reaction from these schools. The system is hosted and operated by Dept of Education(DfE).

The attached is an introduction that was sent out to schools, via school bulletin 22.09.25. There will be various other communications sent to school over the coming weeks, informing how to sign up to the system, how to navigate and how to use the system, as well as drop-in sessions at time of go live for schools to ask questions.

All current eligible applications will be migrated over to new system before the December go live so no actions, other than sign up to the system, are required by school. New applicants will apply as at present via HCC FSM web page once the system has gone live.