Food and Drink Statement of intent
Bampton Pre‐School regards snack times as an important part of the setting’s session/day.
Eating represents a social time for children and adults and helps children to learn about healthy
eating. The Pre‐School learning Alliance promotes healthy eating through their campaign
‘Feeding Young Imaginations’.
Aim
At snack times, we aim to provide nutritious food which meets the children’s individual dietary
needs. We aim to meet the full requirements of ‘The National Standards for Day Care on Food
and Drink’ (Standard 8).
Methods
• Before a child starts to attend the setting, we find out from parents their children’s
dietary needs and preferences, including any allergies.
• 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 sign the up‐dated record to
signify that it is correct.
• We display current information about individual children’s dietary needs 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 provide nutritious food at 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.
• 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, 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 and make
every effort to ensure Halal meat or Kosher food is available for children who require it.
• 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 snack times so that they are social occasions in which children and staff
participate.
• We use snack times to help children to develop independence through making choices,
serving food and drink 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 session/day.
• In accordance with parents’ wishes, we offer children arriving early in the morning –
and/or staying late – an appropriate meal or 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 have rules about children sharing
and swapping their food with one another.
• For children who drink milk, we provide whole pasteurised milk.
• For each child under two, we provide parents with daily written information about
feeding routings, intake and preferences.
Packed Lunches
At Bampton Pre‐School we proved a Lunch Club where children are provided with packed
lunches by their parents/carers.
We
• Ensure perishable contents of packed lunches are refrigerated
• Inform parents of our policy on healthy eating
• Inform parents of whether we have facilities to microwave cooked food brought from
home
• Encourage parents to provide sandwiches with a healthy filling, fruit and milk based
deserts such as yoghurt or crème fresh where we can only provide cold food from
home. We discourage sweet drinks and can provide children with water or diluted fresh
fruit juice
• Provide children bringing packed lunches with plates and cups and cutlery
• Ensure staff sit with children to eat their lunch so that the mealtime is a social occasion.
