For the Outstanding Clockwork Day Nursery and After School Club, the development of a healthy eating ethos has been much more than a culinary adventure. An emphasis on good nutrition now underpins every aspect of its practice and management, and has been embedded across all learning areas of the EYFS. With its stated belief that ‘every child deserves the best’, a focus on food is seen as essential to raising outcomes for all individual children, and it is something that the 34-member staff team fully supports.
Gail Smith, manager of the Ashton-under-Lyne-based setting, says, ‘We are passionate about ensuring that all meals are freshly prepared, include all the required nutrients each day, offer variety and, most importantly, are tasty. We source fresh produce from local suppliers to ensure our children are getting the best ingredients. Menus are devised seasonally and rotate on a three-week basis, while fresh fruit is provided every morning and afternoon, and only water or milk is served at mealtimes.’
Clockwork believes its 122 registered children, aged between three months and 12 years, are embarked on a learning journey about food that will enhance their long-term well-being.
CO-ORDINATION, CONCENTRATION, CONTROL
Preparing, weighing and measuring ingredients enables children to practise physical co-ordination and control, including both gross and fine motor skills. As cooking and baking activities follow children’s own interests, they are motivated to concentrate and persevere with tasks. Children initiate cooking activities linked to what they may have done at home, as well as festivals and multi-cultural experiences.
‘Children have the opportunity to explore ingredients and what measures and weights are required to make bread, biscuits, smoothies, fruit cocktails or pies,’ says Ms Smith. ‘Fully equipped baking boxes are readily accessible for them to use for any baking activity, either planned or spontaneous. Our staff place orders for food or messy play items with our catering manager on a weekly basis, and children enjoy the process of making and preparing meals from scratch and seeing the end result, and of course eating it. They use their taking turns and sharing skills and can also make the links with what they eat at home.’
Ms Smith reports that ‘real’ food in the home corners allows children to explore textures and role-play family experiences in their home kitchen. During festivals or special events, staff will plan activities with food linked to these. Babies enjoy exploring food textures and smells using a variety of food products through messy play activities. Circle times are used as an opportunity to discuss and learn about food.
The nursery’s focus on growing food helps children to understand healthy choices and be excited by fresh produce. Ms Smith says, ‘Our children have cared for a growing area, producing carrots, potatoes and herbs, which are used in nursery meals. The babies have a herb garden area in order to explore the smells and textures when in the outdoor environment.
‘Pre-school children have visited local allotments to see growing on a larger scale and what can be grown in the soil and learn how this links to what we eat. Other outings have included a visit to the local supermarket where the children could see the food cycle of making bread and preparing food for sale. We have also focused on food life cycles, using fertilised eggs from the farm and using our own incubator to hatch the eggs into chicks.’
SELF-CONFIDENCE AND AWARENESS
Conversation flows at Clockwork’s meal and snack times. Sitting down to enjoy good food provides opportunities for children to develop their social skills, involving taking turns to speak and listen to others as they sit in a sociable group. This also helps them to develop a positive sense of themselves and understand appropriate behaviour in groups.
Ms Smith says, ‘Meal and snack times are a happy, social occasion where children can enjoy home-cooked, nutritionally balanced meals with their friends and carers. Eating with their friends provides an excellent opportunity for them to develop social skills and behaviours associated with mealtimes.
‘Staff model behaviour to promote good table manners, while children learn to share food and discuss what they are eating.’
Children certainly develop a sense of achievement in mastering cutlery and the ability to serve themselves. ‘Mealtimes assist them in developing these abilities,’ says Ms Smith. ‘All feeding equipment is age-appropriate to the needs of individual children. Older children are encouraged to self-serve at snack times to promote their independence.’
She adds, ‘As children make positive associations with food and sociable eating, we believe this will set them up for good habits throughout their lives.’
WORKING WITH PARENTS
Discussion and collaboration with parents around healthy eating has proved a great way to cement positive partnerships with families.
Ms Smith says, ‘As well as verbal communication, we provide a written food diary each day for parents of younger children and also provide these for some older children who may struggle more at mealtimes. This is a way of ensuring parents are aware of what their child has eaten each day.’
Providing free recipe packs for parents each time the menus are changed promotes healthy eating at home. ‘We encourage them to join us to sample our menus through Food Taster workshops, and provide dietary information for meals and ideas for home,’ says Ms Smith. ‘These are occasions that everyone really enjoys.’
The nursery’s Family Breakfast is another popular event, and at the request of parents this has now become termly. This is a special time for parents and siblings to enjoy breakfast with the children, where healthier options are promoted.
Ms Smith adds, ‘We have also established the Clockwork Kitchen take-away food service, which was developed at the request of parents and has proved very successful. This service offers a nutritious home-cooked meal for minimal cost of £2 for busy parents.
‘Again, the feedback we have received has been fantastic, with parents commenting on how convenient this service is and how they are able to offer a healthier balanced meal rather than an alternative that wouldn’t be as nutritionally good for their child.’
MORE INFORMATION
Clockwork Day Nursery was highly commended in the Food category of the Nursery World Awards 2016. It works in partnership with its local Children’s Nutrition Team (Stockport NHS Foundation Trust) to meet the guidelines set by the Children’s Food Trust and its recommendations for ‘Eating well for under fives’. See www.clockworkchildcare.co.uk
Children’s Nutrition Team Stockport, www.stockport.nhs.uk/documents/PIL/41428_TG11.pdf
Children’s Food Trust, www.childrensfoodtrust.org.uk/childrens-food-trust/early-years
