Good food is one of the pleasures of life, and good eating habits in early life can help children develop into adults with a healthy attitude to, and a good appreciation of, delicious food. Our approach is that the children are given appropriate amounts, encouraged to try foods they haven’t had before, but never forced to finish.
We have an experienced cook, Sue Hayes, who has a real passion for food. To make sure our food has the best flavour and nutritional content, she uses fresh ingredients and cooks the food we serve from scratch wherever possible.
We have our own vegetable patch where we grow some of our own vegetables, fruits and herbs. The children help to pick and prepare these – it’s exciting for them to be making a contribution.
We avoid processed food and artificial additives altogether, and keep the amount of salt we add to a minimum, enhancing flavours instead with spices, herbs, lemon juice, stock, garlic and ginger (as well as Sue’s superlative cooking skills!). We also keep refined sugar to a minimum, substituting it with honey and fruit sugar.
Children develop their knowledge and understanding of the world through the smashing range of foods offered on the menu.Ofsted Report
All our lunches have at least 5 different fruits or vegetables, either within the main dish or to accompany it, and we cook them at a high temperature for a short time to maintain as many vitamins and minerals as possible, and use the cooking water as stock.
More detailed information is available in our Cooking Guidelines.
