The proportion of children eligible for free meals increased by 17.3 per cent in the 10 months between January and October last year, the statistics show.
Some 1,633,698 pupils were eligible for free school meals in October last year - a jump of 302,397 since 23 March 2020 when lockdown restrictions were first introduced.
Over the same time period a year previously, 208,525 children became eligible for free school meals.
The figures reveal that almost a fifth (19.7 per cent) of all school pupils are now eligible for free school meals - an increase of 2.4 per cent compared with January last year.
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