Huntingdon Nursery School Food and Drink Policy
PANCO (Physical Development and Nutrition Co-ordinator) : Amy Padget
Policy reviewed : November 2012
Rationale
Food has a significant part to play in determining health and well-being, establishing social roles and reflecting and shaping the Nursery’s ethos and individual’s values.
Our food and drink policy will have a positive influence on school attainment, behaviour, punctuality and concentration/attention levels.
It meets the welfare requirements of the EYFS
Aims:
· To develop healthy eating and drinking activities in the Nursery that benefit children, staff, parents and others associated with the Nursery.
· To maintain a co-ordinated response to food and drink
· To give quality of access and participation for all
· To be sustainable through planned action and training for staff
· To provide opportunities for children and adults to share food as a way to celebrate cultural diversity.
· To improve the health of children, staff and families by helping to influence their eating habit/drinking habits by increasing their knowledge and awareness of food issues and what constitutes a healthy diet.
· To ensure that food provision in the nursery reflects the ethical and medical requirements of staff and pupils e.g. religious, vegetarian, medical and allergenic needs.
Development and implementation of the policy
The Nursery PANCO has completed an audit as part of her training with a range of Nursery staff. This has been used to identify areas for further development and has given us the opportunity to look at our practice alongside the changes and future plans for the Nursery. It reviewed the existing policy and identified areas for action planning.
Discussions have been held with the school governors, SMT and at staff meetings.
We have looked at ways of engaging parents in our discussions and capturing the views of the children.
The policy will be available on the Nursery website. It will be added to the parent booklet ( revised April each year) hard copies are available at reception and through a dedicated notice board giving parents access to health related information.
When and who the policy applies to:
· The policy applies to how we serve and organise the food that is provided through CCS – (Cambridge catering services). It applies to all food provided through the free school meals scheme. To food provided for curriculum delivery in the classrooms and for food purchased for children cooking activities. It does not apply to any food provided by parents for children’s birthday celebrations.
· The policy applies to all staff working at the Nursery
· The policy is reviewed annually, staff are given the opportunity to read and acknowledge that they have read the contents of the policy at the beginning of each school year or through the induction process.
Food and Drink provision
Fresh drinking water is provided in the classroom learning area children can access this from the water machine at any time during the Nursery session.
Water and milk are offered during snack time.
Water is available for staff in the classroom and in the meeting room
Food is provided:
At breakfast club- A healthy breakfast is available for children attending breakfast club. Breakfast is served between 8am and 8.40am each day.
At snack time- Nursery participates in the Fruit and Vegetable scheme. Fruit and vegetables are provided on a weekly basis to the Nursery (at the moment there is no charge for this provision).
Other foods are tried and tasted which are linked to curriculum delivery these are provided by or cooked/prepared by the staff and children.
Snack is offered between 9.15 and 9.45am and between 2.50 and3.20pm each day
At lunch time-
CCS (Cambridge catering services) provide the Nursery lunches – they offer a 3 week rolling menu and Nursery staff make a choice from the menus which are offered as a set meal to the children. The meals meet the nutritional standards (refer to CCS meals file).
Menus are changed seasonally and rotate every 3 weeks.
Lunches are served between 11.45 and 12.30pm each day.
Communication with children and families
The parent booklet explains how snack time operates and what is available on a daily basis for the children
Notices on the parent/ cloakroom boards explain what the range of food and when food is eaten at nursery
Menus showing the selection of food are displayed in the Red/Blue parent notice boards outside the entrance.
Lunch slips record the meal each individual child has been offered and records the quantity/portion size of food eaten. Slips are sent home for parents information.
Information about celebration food for special events is communicated to parents by e-mail or letter in addition to the above.
Providing food for all
Children with cultural or religious elements to their diet are provided for. The lunch menu is adapted to take into consideration these requirements and families are informed through the lunch slip of what has been offered.
Classroom staff make note of children that cannot participate in some celebrations or partake of some foods and make alternative arrangements with parents in advance so that all children can participate in some way.
Children with identified allergies – have their details recorded and staff are made aware of the allergy/response. A protocol recording the nursery response to allergy is written for individual children and shared with staff. This is to ensure that appropriate steps can be taken to reduce the chance of reaction and to provide alternatives food items.
Children who are reluctant to eat are encouraged to try foods.
Portion size is adhered to for children that are highly motivated by food and for children who are not yet self regulating the amount of food they require.
Encouraging all children to eat healthily: Amy to complete
Food brought in from home
Playscheme
Packed lunches are sent in from home for children who attend playscheme for full days.
Packed lunches are monitored and suggestions made to parents if there is too big a quantity of food in the packed lunch and to give feedback as to what has been eaten and where possible suggest a healthy alternative to some food and drink sent in.
Future action : to put more information in the playscheme literature about what to provide in the lunch boxes. Parents will be guided to the healthy meals courses that are offered by the children’s centre.
Learning about and through food
This is an integral part of our approach to helping children to learn and understand about healthy eating. Staff link food and drink opportunities closely to active learning, physical development and play
Prime Areas
PSED
Meal times offer our children experiences to taste different foods, overcome dislikes and learn how to share. Cooking activities offer opportunities for learning through working with others and increasing self-esteem.
Physical Development
Fine and gross motor skills can be developed through activities such as gardening, using knives and forks, preparing food, and washing up. Mealtimes can be used to help children to make healthy food choices.
Communication and language
Sitting together to eat food is a good way to teach conversation and social skills such as thinking about each other. Talking about feelings and important events.
Specific areas
Literacy
Many stories involve food. We use these to talk about ingredients, where food comes from and about food for special occasions/different cultures. Language can be developed and senses explored through discussing and describing taste, texture, size, look and smell of food.
Mathematics
Activities such as counting out spoons and pieces of fruit for snack time are used to support numeracy skills. Sorting and matching foods into different types can help promote organisational skills and reasoning. Opportunities to use scales and weigh ingriedints
Understanding the World
Food tasting activities teach children about ingredients, the seasons and where food comes from including food from different cultures. Growing food helps us to understand life cycles and look after things. It is a good form of physical activity.
Expressive arts and design
Art activities can engage children with food/pictures/photographs/colour/shape. Role play, imaginative and culturally specific play activities create many opportunities to reinforce knowledge and understanding.
Cooking with children
· Nursery recipes involve mixing, combining and assembling activities – dips, muffins, fruit salad
· Cooking involves several children and the cooking/dishes made are often shared in groups
· Safe and correct peeling and chopping techniques are taught
· Staff prepare and check that they have everything before they start cooking so that they do not leave the room when they helping children to cook.
· Long hair is tied back, sleeves are rolled up and hands are washed thoroughly. Children and adult wear aprons.
· Ample time is allowed so that children can do as much of the work as possible.
· Children are supported to wash ingredients/stir mixture, chop food etc. They are shown how to do it and given appropriate equipment for the task.
· A variety of foods are made so that the emphasis is not always on baking.
· Picture recipes are used as much as possible so that children can sequence the process.
· Recipes are often sent home so that parents can talk about what the children have been doing, try the recipes for themselves and reinforce the learning.
· Safety messages are reinforced at every opportunity
Food Safety and Hygiene
All staff have Level 2 Food Hygiene qualification – this is renewed every 3 years
Food is stored, prepared and presented in a hygienic environment.
Opportuniies to explain hygiene routines are used so that children develop their understanding about keeping safe and healthy.
Measures are in place (food management and safety policy)to show what we do to make sure the food we provide is safe to eat.
Those responsible for the preparing and handling of food are competent to do so.
The Nursery abides by the requirements of the Food Safety Act
Environmental health officers make regular checks of the food preparation areas.
Sustainability – future Key worker meetings will develop this area of our practice.
Discuss
Waste food
Locally sourced food
Cooking oils not made from palm oil
Products with minimal packaging- visits to the farmers market etc.
Growing food – planting herbs, sensory garden
Protecting Children’s Health
All nursery staff have a responsibility to protect children’s health. We help children to make healthy choices. We quickly become aware of children who are gaining weight too rapidly or who are growing too slowly and if appropriate link in to a health professional who can offer dietary advice.
The Healthy Weight Pathway is promoted through the health visiting service and can be linked into where there is concern. Use of the Change4Life materials in activity weeks.
Evaluation
Display board to provide healthy life style information and where parents can go to for advice and information – to include the Early years Code of Practice for Food and Drink
The Code of Practice check list is used to evaluate further development and this feed into the School Development Plan
From the Code of Practice audit and action plan is developed.
Actions will be identified and plans developed and shared with all staff. Outcomes will be passed on to parents/governors who will be involved in reviewing the changes/outcomes. Feedback will inform next steps and future developments.
Draft policy November 2012
www.childrennsfoodtrust.org.uk