Healthy Eating

Healthy eating is not just about what we put on the plate. It is about educating the children and giving them the knowledge and independence to make healthy choices that will stand them in good stead for the future. We also want mealtimes to be happy, social occasions where they learn and enjoy as they share a meal together.

Many of the children at nursery eat up to ten meals at nursery a week, making this the majority of their weekly nutritional intake. For us, this is a huge responsibility and we want to ensure that everything the children eat is of the best quality, the menus are balanced and the children enjoy their food. We worked with the Children’s Food Trust to pilot their guidelines for healthy eating in nurseries.

We are lucky to have talented and passionate people working with us to create these fantastic meals for the children. See a sample Menu in the Downloads section.

Children enjoy very nutritious, well balanced meals and snacks that are freshly prepared each day by the nursery cook. The excellent food hygiene standards and practices ensure that the food prepared for the children is healthy and planned to meet their individual dietary needs. There are excellent systems for ensuring that children who have allergies do not come into contact with any foods that may cause an adverse reaction, which include the child’s photo and a brief description of what each individual is allergic to. Children are helped to manage their own food needs through self serving their snack and lunch. This helps the children to develop their independence in this area and enables them to take responsibility, and this is a priority of the staff team, who support the younger children to achieve.

Children very successfully manage their own food intake under the careful supervision of the staff. The children’s mealtimes are vibrant and sociable; they thoroughly enjoy chatting to staff and friends as they eat together.’ (OfSTED 2008)