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Food and Drink Policy
The Wonder Years regards snack and meal times as an important part of the setting’s day. Eating represents a social time for children and adults and helps children to learn about healthy eating. At snack and meal times, we aim to provide nutritious food, which meets the children’s individual dietary needs. The organisation will observe current legislation regarding food hygiene, registration and training.
Procedures
We follow these procedures to promote healthy eating in our setting:
- Before a child starts attending the setting, we find out from parents their children’s dietary needs and preferences, including any allergies. (See the Managing Children with Allergies policy.)
- Parents record information about each child’s dietary needs on her/his registration record.
- We consult with parents every six months to ensure that our records of their children’s dietary needs – including any allergies – are up-to-date. Parents sign the updated record to signify that it is correct.
- We display current information about individual children’s dietary needs, in the kitchen, 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.
- We display the menus of snacks for the information of parents.
- We provide nutritious food for all snacks, avoiding large quantities of saturated fat, sugar and salt and artificial additives, preservatives and colourings.
- 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.
- Are setting is a nut free environment and we take care not to 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.
- We provide a vegetarian alternative on days when meat or fish are offered.
- We require staff to 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 meal and snack times so that they are social occasions in which children and staff participate.
- We use meal and snack times to help children to develop independence through making choices and feeding themselves.
- 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.
- We have fresh drinking water constantly available for the children. We inform the children about how to obtain the water and that they can ask for water at any time during the day.
- In accordance with parents’ wishes, we offer children arriving early in the morning – and/or staying late – an appropriate snack.
- We inform parents who provide food for their children about the storage facilities available in the setting.
- We give parents who provide food for their children information about suitable containers for food.
- In order to protect children with food allergies, we discourage children from sharing and swapping their food/drinks with one another.
Packed lunches
When children bring packed lunches, we provide information in our prospectus:
- for parents/carers on providing an ice/cool pack to keep lunches cool and safe.
- to inform parents of our policy on healthy eating;
- to encourage parents to provide sandwiches with a healthy filling, fruit, and milk based desserts such as yoghurt or crème fraîche where we can only provide cold food from home.
- to discourage packed lunch contents that consist largely of crisps, processed foods, sweet drinks and sweet products such as cakes or biscuits.
Staff work towards ensuring that mealtimes are a social and enjoyable experience for the children. All opportunities will be taken to promote the children’s own understanding of healthy eating.
Food Hygiene
We maintain the highest possible food hygiene standards with regard to the purchase, storage, preparation and serving of food. We are registered as a food provider with the local authority Environmental Health Department.
- The designated Health and Safety Officer for the Boddler (Community), Preschool and Extended School groups understands the principles of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) as it applies to their business. This is set out in Safer Food Better Business. The basis for this is risk assessment as it applies to the purchase, storage, preparation and serving of food to prevent growth of bacteria and food contamination.
- All staff follow the guidelines of Safer Food Better Business.
- Basic guidelines will be displayed in the kitchen area.
- All staff will work towards holding an in-date Food Hygiene Certificate, at least one staff member will hold an in-date Food Hygiene Certificate each session as a minimum requirement.
- The person responsible for food preparation and serving carries out daily opening and closing checks on the kitchen to ensure standards are met consistently. (See Safer Food Better Business.)
- We use reliable suppliers for the food we purchase.
- Food is stored at correct temperatures and is checked to ensure it is in-date and not subject to contamination by pests, rodents or mould.
- Food preparation areas are cleaned before use as well as after use.
- There are separate facilities for hand-washing and for washing up.
- All surfaces are clean and non-porous.
- All utensils, crockery etc are clean and stored appropriately.
- Waste food is disposed of daily.
- Cleaning materials and other dangerous materials are stored out of children’s reach.
- Children do not have unsupervised access to the kitchen.
- When children take part in cooking activities, they:
- are supervised at all times
- understand the importance of hand washing and simple hygiene rules
- are kept away from hot surfaces and hot water
- do not have unsupervised access to electrical equipment such as blenders etc.
Legal Framework
- Regulation (EC) 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the hygiene of foodstuffs
- Food hygiene regulations 2006
Further guidance