The number of children who receive free school meals (FSM) is a misleading indicator of a school’s socio-economic composition, Catholic academics have said.
The figure is often used by campaigners to accuse Catholic schools of not taking a fair share of poor pupils.
But researchers at St Mary’s University, Twickenham have shown that data from the Department for Education only include the number of children actually receiving free meals, rather than all those who are eligible but may not have signed up for them.
