Nursery Food: Training - A la carte

With more than one in five children overweight or obese as they start their school Reception year - according to the National Child Measurement Programme - all early years practitioners should be knowledgeable about healthy eating practices and responsible for modelling and actively promoting good nutrition to very young children, say early years professionals.

Jo Kinloch, owner and director of Mulberry Bush Nursery, Bury, says it is vital that every member of the nursery team is fully informed about the importance of healthy eating.

She explains, 'Obviously, every staff member will be food hygiene trained; that's just the base level. Then we look at team members whose strengths lie in this area - for us it is one of our senior managers, who is particularly interested in promoting healthy eating. We also make sure our chefs are valued members of our team. They attend all team meetings and have important input. And then we work with nursery nurses too, because they don't always have the healthiest diets themselves.

'We know we can't just talk the talk, so our staff sit down to eat with the children every day and discuss what they are eating and why. We want children to have healthy eating habits instilled from the very beginning.'

With this need in mind, the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) has partnered with CACHE and the Children's Food Trust (CFT) to develop a course for nursery chefs. The Level 2 Diploma in Food Production and Cooking in Early Years aims to provide learners who are already working or wanting to work as cooks in an early years setting with the knowledge and skills to provide nutritional hot and cold food in accordance with food safety regulations.

June O'Sullivan, chief executive at LEYF, says, 'There are approved qualifications for chefs working in hospitality, but not specifically for chefs working in childcare. The sector as a whole seemed keen to see something like this and we will be putting our own chefs through it. It's useful as a framework from a manager's point of view, and it also gives chefs status within a nursery environment.'

The importance of training chefs has also been noted by Busy Bees, which launched a 14-month Level 2 Intermediate Apprenticeship in Catering and Professional Chefs targeted at 16-year-old school leavers and tailored specifically to meet the dietary requirements of young children, including topics such as planning meals to help a weaning child.

Seventy people have already completed the company's six-month practical masterclass, devised last year to develop and expand the knowledge of the Busy Bees existing chefs. The masterclass focuses on creating nutritious meals for children and sharing this knowledge with parents. Busy Bees also plans to launch a Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship next autumn.

Mel Fox, senior catering manager at Busy Bees, says, 'It is becoming increasingly evident that providing children with a balanced diet is a vital part of delivering quality care. To do this, we need the support of our nursery chefs and managers, the people at the front of our involvement with children. The aim is that by the end of the course, Busy Bees chefs will support managers with clear, concise knowledge in an attempt to clear the minefield of information being given at present.'

MEETING THE CHALLENGES

Acting manager of Palace Day Nursery in Milton Keynes Tiffany Ukachi-Lois agrees that negotiating information is just one of many challenges facing early years practitioners in actively encouraging healthy eating. 'We are dealing with the McDonald's generation,' she says. 'You have to equip your staff to be good role models and try to help children see that healthy food can be as fun as a Happy Meal.'

For over two years now, the CFT's Eat Better, Start Better programme has aimed to help everyone involved in early years health and education to negotiate these challenges, breaking down guidance into a set of voluntary food and drink guidelines, and providing more than 1,400 cooking sessions to early years settings.

As well as providing a new advice service for schools as they prepare to deliver universal free school meals (see page 10), the CFT will deliver a new training schedule for several local authorities this autumn, helping local authorities to inform early years professionals about nutrition and encourage the spread of good practice among communities and families.

CFT senior nutritionist Claire Wall says, 'Despite tightening pressure on local authority budgets, our experience shows that the commitment is still out there to prioritise nutrition training for early years practitioners.

'We are working with local authorities around the country to provide their practitioners with training, and to support settings to evaluate and improve their approach to food. This is having a positive impact on the knowledge, skills and confidence of practitioners, and the food provided for children.'

AWARD SCHEMES

One popular form of training support provided by local authorities is award schemes. Bury Council's Golden Apple Award scheme aims to help settings improve the nutrition, hygiene and dental health of the children in their care. Among its criteria are snack and handwashing policies and educational input from an oral health team at least once a year.

The Nurturing Health Award in Staffordshire assesses menus, oral health provision and food-based learning activities. Participating nurseries must hold at least a rating of 3 on the Food Standards Agency national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme and a minimum Ofsted rating of satisfactory in all areas to qualify for the award, but free food safety training with an environmental health officer and nutrition training from a paediatric dietician are provided even to nurseries that are not eligible, and are also available to childminders.

Samantha Logan, health support officer at Stafford Borough Council, says, 'We offer the food safety and nutrition training free of charge to all the nurseries as we want to continue getting the message across to all early years providers that instilling healthy lifestyle behaviours from a young age will achieve a more positive outcome for later on in life.'

LOCAL PROFESSIONALS

Another training option for nurseries is to bring in outside help from dieticians and consultants.

Nourish is a nutrition consultancy providing dietary advice to nurseries, schools and workplaces in Oxford, Cheltenham and London. Co-founder Nelle Ferguson says it is particularly important that early years staff are given the skills to promote healthy eating in the face of a lack of similar provision in schools.

'Working with young children is crucial,' she explains. 'If you try to tell a teenager about diet their preferences are already formed, so you need to be able to go in to nurseries and help expose very young children to healthy food, explain how to set up breakfast clubs and introduce staff to little tricks like hiding vegetables in sauces to help more picky eaters.'

Palace Day Nursery employs dieticians to set menus and interact with staff. Ms Ukachi-Lois adds, 'It's great to have a dietician come in and put their name to a menu, but nursery chefs usually know what's best for the children, and knowledge and experience in childcare can play a big part. Some of the best training can be done through simply sharing information.

'Our healthy eating policy is decided by our directors, and at staff meetings our team will give feedback from articles, TV, YouTube clips and books to use with the children. We allow parents to come in and meet our chefs and liaise a lot with the chefs ourselves. This is "real-life" training and it hinges on communicating and sharing information.'

- Acorn, www.childcaretraining.co.uk
- CACHE, www.cache.org.uk
- CFT, www.childrensfoodtrust.org.uk
- City & Guilds, www.cityand guilds.com
- Edexcel, www.edexcel.com
- Golden Apple Award, www.bury.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=7542
- HENRY, www.henry.org.uk
- Infant & Toddler Forum, www.infantandtoddlerforum.org
- NDNA, www.ndna.org.uk
- Nourish www.nourishoxford.co.uk
- PACEY, www.pacey.org.uk
- PLA, www.pre-school.org.uk
- Nurturing Health Award, www.staffordbc.gov.uk
- Squash Nutrition, www.squashnutrition.org
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