Nursery Food for the 2-5 year Group

The lunch menu for the week is displayed in the main hallway and is supplied by a specialist caterer – Early Years Catering. Children have the cooked lunch from the menu and have fresh fruit in place of the dessert in line with our no sugar policy. Vegetarian diets are catered for. Meals are delivered to us at lunchtime - ready to serve - having been freshly prepared that morning. For more information please see www.earlyyearscatering.co.uk. Please note: If your child requires a special diet we can provide this for a small additional fee. Alternatively you can provide your child’s own food.

Afternoon and morning snack is usually a small Organix rusk or rice cake for the younger group and a cracker or fruit for the older 0-2 year group. Snacks given are only those suitable for the age group. Drinks are either full-fat organic milk or water, and are offered throughout the day not just at snack and meal times.

Tea time is given from 4.00 to 4.30pm. At tea time we offer a variety of crackers, wholemeal bread, cold meats, cheeses, salad, dried fruits/fresh fruit.

We recommend to all parents that children, regardless of age, or how well they may have eaten on a nursery day, be offered food again in the evening. It is a long time for a child to have to wait to be offered food again at breakfast the following day - even if they did eat well during their nursery day.

Questions and Answers about Meal times for the 2-5 years Group

Some frequently asked questions are:
How much food is offered at a mealtime?
What do we do if the food is refused?

Eating and mealtimes are an important part of our day and time and care is taken to make these happy and social occasions for the children. There is always plenty of food and the children are offered a second bowl. Some children will regularly eat two bowls and others have a small appetite and take their time.

We recognise that all children at the nursery, regardless of age, have varying needs with their eating. All of the children are assisted with their food and where needed given encouragement also. No young child is left to feed themselves.

Our experience is that at some point or another, children have times when they will eat and times when they will not. For this I have no explanation but I can say it usually does not last more than a few days. Also there will be times when they will eat a lot more than usual and can't seem to get enough food. This will often occur as they become more mobile and active, and also simply from the rapid growth of this age group. If a child is not eating well we will talk to you to see if you can help us with information about the things you may do at home for us to try.