Age: 42
Role: Nursery cook
Qualifications: Basic Food Hygiene, levels 1 and 2/Safer Food, Better Business/5 a Day Certificate/Caring for Tiny Teeth 8.30am - Arrive at work, change into uniform, put on hat and ready to start. Fridge and freezer temperatures are recorded to ensure they are in good working order; equipment and hygiene checks are made.
8.45am - Collect numbers of children from each of our five rooms.
Today's menu is:
Snack: Buttered crumpets
Lunch: Sweet and sour chicken and rice; Apple sponge and custard
Tea: Buttered tea cakes; Fresh fruit
Babies' tea: Vegetable casserole and mashed potato (with tea cakes for finger food)
8.50am - I cut up the 20 chicken breasts, add water to cover, add mushrooms, peppers and onion and leave to start to boil. Weekly shopping arrives now, so fridge and freezer items need putting away immediately.
9am - Start crumpets for snack - 60 to do. While each batch is toasting, I can now start to clear breakfast pots. I remember to save a crumpet for a little boy who cannot have the same butter.
9.45am - Made it on time, snack is served to each room, children in rooms rush to sink to wash their hands as they see me come through the door ... As I go into Primrose room the little boy with his own butter asks if the one on the plate on its own, is his.
10.15am - Snack pots are returned to kitchen for me to wash and replace in each room's own box ready for lunch.
10.30am - A large pan of rice is put on to boil. Between now and 11am, I replace all crockery and cutlery into each room's box, and put on a trolley to give to each room before lunch. Custard is thickening up nicely, rice is now on the boil and apple cake is cut into portions and plated up for each room, with a piece of fruit for the little girl who cannot have eggs.
11.10am - The rice is drained and rinsed and served up into bowls for each room, and foiled to keep hot. A separate jug for the baby room, because this needs blending down. Sweet and sour chicken is thickened slightly, and also put in bowls for each room and foiled. The sweet and sour vegetables for vegetarians are name tagged.
11.30am - Lunch is served at 11.30am. Off I go with my trolley, passing each room their trays, and collecting their almost empty boxes. Children sit waiting patiently for their lunch and cheer when I walk in the room.
1pm - 60 plates, 60 dishes, 60 cups, 45 plastic bibs, 105 spoons, 15 knives, 60 forks, four large pans, a large bowl, ten serving spoons and five jugs, are clean, dry and put back in boxes, ready for their next journey. My kitchen assistant Chris Swift starts at 12.30, so she helps with last few pots coming back. While I'm having my break, she peels and chops two large pans of potatoes, and six large leeks, which are refrigerated in preparation for tomorrow. A smaller pan of potatoes, and a pan of vegetables are then prepared for the six babies.
2pm - Afternoon snack - another eight crumpets for those children who are at nursery in the afternoon.
3pm - My day is done. Chris sweeps and mops the kitchen floor and takes tea down to the rooms at 3.30pm.
4.30pm - Chris finishes, but first she records fridge and freezer temperatures again, and does checks that everything is turned off and closed.
WHAT IT TAKES
Being a nursery cook, or chef, is a rewarding and demanding job, requiring an ability to work in sometimes quite hectic conditions, under considerable time pressures. Producing nourishing meals for a wide age range requires a knowledge and understanding, not just of good food preparation and presentation, but also the relationship between food, nutrition and children's healthy growth and development.
The role requires an ability to promote healthy eating with attractive and balanced meals and snacks, as well as working in safe and hygienic conditions and being able to relate well to young children. Essential, too, is a knowledge of the varied needs of children with food allergies, and the ability to plan and organise ingredients, equipment, time, menus and procedures.
Good team working skills are important. Cooks often work as part of the management team in the nursery.
A qualification required for the job is a level 2 or 3 Basic Food Hygiene Certificate, and additionally it is preferred that a certificate or diploma in Professional Cookery has also been achieved. A qualification in early years and childcare can also be a very complementary training to this type of work.
It also must be stated that anyone working in a nursery is required to have a Criminal Record Check (CRB).
There is a natural career pathway from this into working more holistically with children, by becoming a nursery nurse, early years practitioner or childminder. This would combine understanding of health, well-being and nutrition with children's care, learning and physical development. Another option would be a school cook, doing similar work in a larger environment, often with a team.
- Tina Jefferies, managing director of training provider The Red Space Company, www.redspacecompany.com
