National Child Measurement Programme: operational guidance
Guidance on running the National Child Measurement Programme, which collects the height and weight of reception and year 6 children across England every year.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) collects the height and weight of reception and year 6 children in about 17,000 eligible schools across England each year.
The programme provides valuable information that local authorities can use to plan for and invest in services, to ensure all children have the opportunity to be healthy. It can also engage parents by promoting healthy lifestyle advice and support.
This page contains guidance for local authority commissioners and service providers on running the NCMP, as well as example letter text for local authorities to use. This includes:
- NCMP operational guidance, which is for commissioners and providers involved in delivering the programme
- example pre-measurement letter text to send to parents, headteachers and primary care practitioners before measurements are carried out, with information about the programme
- example letter text to parents of children unable to be measured unaided, to send to parents whose child is unable to participate in the programme
- example parent feedback letter text, to send to parents after their child’s measurements have taken place with feedback and healthy lifestyle advice
We have also published NCMP information for schools, which is for headteachers and school staff on planning for the next measurement year.
Updates to this page
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Updated the 'Pre-measurement letter text for primary care practitioners' to correctly reference the evidence for statements about excess weight in childhood.
Update history
2025-12-09 16:10
Updated the ‘Pre-measurement letter text for primary care practitioners’ to correctly reference the evidence for statements about excess weight in childhood.
2025-07-17 11:37
Updated with new information for 2025 and updated letter templates. Moved the information for schools guidance to a separate publication.
2024-10-01 15:03
Updated ‘NCMP and data protection regulations: advice for schools’ section of ‘National Child Measurement Programme: information for schools 2024’ to clearly set out the role of schools as it relates to pupil personal information sharing under the NCMP regulations, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
2024-07-18 15:37
Updated operational guidance with new information about child oral health, the mental wellbeing of pupils and recording sex and gender identity of children. Also, added links to an animation that explains the NCMP process and why it’s important, a video on talking to a healthcare professional about weight, a video on talking to your child about weight and child oral health resources.
2023-12-19 10:11
Replaced ‘Specimen feedback letters to parents’ with an updated version called ‘Parent feedback letter templates’, and updated the operational guidance document to reflect the name change. The NCMP ‘Parent feedback letter templates’ have been updated using new research on weight feedback communication, expert opinion on communicating to parents about weight and feedback from a wide range of stakeholders including parents whose children have been measured.
2023-11-16 17:30
Replaced out-of-date references to clinical commissioning groups with ‘integrated care boards (ICBs) and sub-ICB geographies’. Updated PHE and NHS Digital references to OHID and NHS England.
2023-08-17 13:30
Added links to 2 external resources: ‘NCMP pre-measurement leaflet: school height and weight measurements’ and ‘NCMP post-measurement leaflet: top tips to keep your family healthy and happy’.
2023-07-20 17:14
Annual update to the operational guidance document and accompanying resources to reflect: the NHS Digital merger with NHS England; updated definitions; additional guidance; and new resources, research and data analysis from the past year. The changes are specified in detail at the start of the operational guidance document.
2023-02-06 14:32
Replaced ‘Specimen pre-measurement letter to parents’ with latest version.
2022-07-14 14:19
Replaced the following documents with newly updated versions for 2022: NCMP operational guidance; NCMP information for schools; 5 NCMP specimen letters.