1.20 Food and Drink

 

Promoting health and hygiene

 

1.20 Food and Drink

 

 

Policy statement

Cullompton Pre-School regards snack and meal times as an important part of the day. Eating represents a social time for children and adults and helps children to learn about healthy eating. We promote healthy eating using a range of resources and materials. At snack time we aim to provide nutritious food, which meets the children’s individual dietary needs and we support parents to provide healthy lunch boxes.

 

Procedures

We follow these procedures to promote healthy eating in our pre-school:

  • Before a child starts to attend, we find out from parents their children’s dietary needs and preferences, including any allergies. (See the Managing Children with Allergies policy.)
  • We record information about each child’s dietary needs in her/his registration record and parents sign the record to signify that it is correct.
  • We regularly consult with parents to ensure that our records of their children’s dietary needs – including any allergies – are up-to-date. Parents complete an ‘Allergies, Food Intolerances and Special Dietary Requirements’ form if this is required for their child.
  • We display current information about individual children’s dietary needs and allergies so that all staff and volunteers are fully informed about them.
  • We implement systems to ensure that children receive only food and drink that is consistent with their dietary needs and preferences as well as their parents’ wishes.
  • Parents are made aware of the typical foods we offer at snack time and a daily menu is displayed showing specific items available for snack.
  • We provide nutritious food for all snacks, avoiding large quantities of saturated fat, sugar and salt and artificial additives, preservatives and colourings.
  • We include a variety of foods from the following food groups:
  • dairy
  • grains, cereals, starch vegetables
  • fruit and vegetables
  • We include foods from the diet of each of the children’s cultural backgrounds, providing children with familiar foods and introducing them to new ones.
  • We do not provide food containing nuts or nut products and are especially vigilant where we have a child who has a known allergy to nuts.
  • Through discussion with parents and research reading by staff, we obtain information about the dietary rules of the religious groups to which children and their parents belong, and of vegetarians and vegans, and about food allergies. We take account of this information in the provision of food and drinks.
  • Staff show sensitivity in providing for children’s diets and allergies. Staff do not use a child’s diet or allergy as a label for the child or make a child feel singled out because of her/his diet or allergy.
  • We organise lunch and snack times so that they are social occasions in which children and staff participate.
  • We use lunch and snack times to help children to develop independence through making choices, serving food and drink and feeding themselves, using cutlery to eat and scissors to open packets.
  • We provide children with utensils that are appropriate for their ages and stages of development and that take account of the eating practices in their cultures.
  • Children have access to water at any time during a session.
  • We inform parents who provide food for their children about the storage facilities available in the setting.
  • In order to protect children with food allergies, we discourage children from sharing and swapping their food with one another.
  • For children who drink milk, we provide semi-skimmed milk at snack time.

 

Packed lunches

We:

  • make parents aware of our policy on healthy eating;
  • do not accept food that requires re-heating;
  • encourage parents to provide sandwiches with a healthy filling, fruit, and milk based desserts such as yoghurt. We discourage sweet drinks and ask parents to provide children with water or squash;
  • do not allow fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate bars or nut-based products;
  • provide children bringing packed lunches with plates, cups and cutlery;
  • ensure staff sit with children to eat their lunch so that the mealtime is a social occasion.

 

 

 

Legal Framework

  • Regulation (EC) 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the hygiene of foodstuffs

 

Further guidance

  • Safer Food, Better Business (Food Standards Agency 2011)

 

This policy was adopted at a meeting of Cullompton Pre-School name of setting
Held on 18th May 2011 (date)
Date to be reviewed May 2012 (date)
Signed on behalf of the management committee  

Emma Jones

Name of signatory Emma Jones
Role of signatory (e.g. chair/owner) Chairperson

 

This policy has been amended to a two yearly review period and, as such, will be reviewed and signed off at a management committee meeting of Cullompton Pre-School each year, as shown below.

 

 

Previously reviewed on:- 18th April 2012

 

by

 

Jo Fellows

 

Previously reviewed on:- 10th June 2013

 

by

 

Michael Hall

 

Previously reviewed on:-

 

11th May 2015

 

by

 

Sarah Lush

 

Previously reviewed on:-

 

27th February 2017

 

by

 

Jen Keenor

 

 

Reviewed by Staff on:

 

25th February 2019 (AJ, MW)
Reviewed by Committee on:

 

27.03.19
Date of next review:

 

February 2021
Signed on behalf of the Management

Committee:

A Fox
Name of Signatory (printed):

 

Alex Fox
Role of Signatory (e.g. Chairperson)

 

Chairperson