Nursery Food: Training - Sense of adventure

Many of us grew up being told not to play with our food, but a very different approach has been developed at Redcliffe Children's Centre in Bristol. The children are being actively encouraged to investigate all the sensory aspects of food - what it looks like, how it feels, smells and how it tastes.

Rather than following a recipe, the nursery children are given the freedom to experiment with their own food combinations with practitioners observing and supporting them. The focus is mainly on vegetables, fruits and herbs - with raw meat avoided for safety reasons.

This approach been so successful in developing children's confidence and a healthy interest in food that the centre - which has National Teaching School Status - has developed an accredited Level 1 Experimental Cookery course aimed at giving practitioners the skills to start a food project of their own (see box).

Experimental Cookery began as a research project, based on the Reggio approach to young children's creativity, with centre head Elizabeth Carruthers taking a special interest in food as a creative medium. It launched in 2006, co-ordinated by chef-in-residence Jo Ingleby, an experienced chef who won the BBC Cook of the Year 2015 in the Food and Farming Awards for her work at the centre.

Underpinning Experimental Cookery is the ethos of following children's interests and documenting their enquiries, and the 120 under-fives who attend the centre all take part in sessions at least once a week. Many of the children living in the high rise flats that surround the nursery grow and harvest fruit, herbs and vegetables in their grounds and at nearby Windmill Hill City Farm. Then they wash, chop and cook with the produce in their food sessions or eat them for lunch, prepared on site.

Ms Ingleby says that linking food sessions to growing outdoors is important, as is including ingredients in lunch that the children will recognise from their explorations. It encourages them to eat a greater variety of food, with parents reporting that children are requesting meals such as salad at home.

Daily life

Instead of being a one-off project or specific focus on healthy eating, Experimental Cookery has become part of the daily life of the centre with involvement from all the staff. Practitioners are now trained as food apprentices, giving them new kitchen skills and enabling the smooth running of food sessions, lunches and tea club.

The centre has a purpose-built kitchen with child-height worktops, sink and induction hob. Children are taught knife skills and shown how to use graters and peelers so that they can safely prepare ingredients.

'The sessions are child-led and it's not so much teaching as learning with them,' says Ms Ingelby, who tries to avoid baking with children because she finds it needs to be more precise and is not as free and experimental, resulting in children getting bored quickly.

She reports the excitement when children find worms in bunches of carrots from the farm, that many enjoy washing up and that they love the texture of crunchy produce and strong-smelling herbs. She finds that children are more likely to try new flavours in the relaxed sessions. 'We don't go into the food sessions with an expected outcome, which may feel uncomfortable for some practitioners at first. We allow children to investigate the seasonal produce we have grown or bought locally,' she explains.

'Left to explore, the children are focused and we avoid stepping in and asking leading questions. We've noticed that young children are led by texture and colour as they experiment, which has resulted in interesting combinations such as blueberries and sprouts - which actually worked in a weird way and tasted quite nice. Strawberry pizza was a successful surprise too. The children are always proud of what they have made.'

Experimental cookery: Becoming a food project leader in your school and early years setting - what the course involves

The three-day course, including a day at a city farm, is run by Jo Ingleby along with staff from the centre. It is aimed at practitioners working in a leadership role and chefs to enable them to find out more about Redcliffe's food project - linking growing produce to exploring ingredients and cooking - and develop one at their own setting.

'Some practitioners have found the course quite emotional as they have discovered a different way of working with food with children,' says Ms Ingleby. 'Previously they have often make cakes, with children taking turns with measuring and stirring. We try to enable them to be led by the produce rather than a recipe and involve children at every stage.'

Key aims include:

- Understanding the ethos and benefits of experimental cookery with young children.

- Following children's multi-sensory exploration rather than recipes.

- Developing confidence working with children and food and the role the adult plays.

- Understanding the importance of documentation and observation.

- Gaining cookery skills, such as knife skills, and confidence in the kitchen.

- Providing a safe environment for experimental cookery.

- Understanding the importance of linking food and growing.

Case study: Mary Reed, pre-school graduate lead, Becket Hall Day Nursery, Bristol

'I attended the Experimental Cookery course earlier this year soon after starting to work at Becket Hall. At my interview for the job I spoke about how important it is for children to participate in everyday life experiences such as cooking. I believe that if children are allowed to be involved in food preparation and to be creative with food combinations then they become more comfortable with food and less likely to develop food aversions. It's an area that the manager is also passionate about and wanted to expand in the setting.

'I have a Steiner background and want to introduce children to things that are natural and fresh. This course has given me the opportunity to do that. I'd highly recommend it because, along with being informative, it was fun and inspirational. There were five of us on the course and it was very participatory. Rather than being lectured to we learned through discussions and by doing, such as visiting the city farm. It got everyone enthused to make changes at our settings.

'Since attending the course my nursery has purchased a low, child-friendly hob and scheduled more hands-on time with food and cooking. We now encourage the children to explore a variety of produce, such as mooli - a type of giant radish - and papaya fruit. The nursery already had a herb garden, but now we pay more attention to it and use the herbs more - they are great for the children to explore with all their senses. We discuss where food comes from, for example we baked bread today and spoke about wheat. I have a wish list to take the children to a farm, flour mill and bakery.

'The children are often amazed by their food explorations. They love being involved in real-life experiences. Instead of playing with plastic fruit or vegetables or in a mud kitchen, they want to put aprons on, chop up ingredients and prepare food that they can actually eat.'

Food training courses

Acorn Childcare Training: one-day and half-day courses including Level 1 Food Safety for Home-Based Childcare, Level 2 Food Safety in Catering, Food Safety in Childcare Settings and training on allergy and intolerance.

CACHE: Level 2 awards in food safety and nutrition and food production and cooking in the early years.

Children's Food Trust: courses and online training for early years practitioners, including advice on the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Years Settings in England and the skills and knowledge to set up and run cooking sessions with families.

HENRY: Healthy Families - Tackling Childhood Obesity, a suite of practitioner training courses accredited by the Royal Society for Public Health including core training to prevent child obesity, group facilitation training to work with parents, and A Healthy Start in Childcare, providing practical advice on nutrition for young children.

National Day Nurseries Association: training for practitioners, including cooks and chefs, on food hygiene and menu planning.

PACEY: training and advice for members, tailored to suit home-based childcare settings including Level 2 basic food hygiene and advice on cooking with young children and tips for catering for children with allergies.

Pre-School Learning Alliance: training and advice including the one-day workshop Promoting Healthy Eating in Early Years Settings in partnership with the British Nutrition Foundation.

Squash Nutrition: Creative Food and Environmental Well-Being Training, in Liverpool, offers ideas to encourage people to eat a healthy diet and engage with the natural environment.

More information

Redcliffe, www.redcliffechildrenscentre.co.uk

Acorn, www.childcaretraining.co.uk

Alliance, www.pre-school.org.uk

CACHE, www.cache.org.uk

CFT, www.childrensfoodtrust.org.uk

HENRY, www.henry.org.uk

NDNA, www.ndna.org.uk

PACEY, www.pacey.org.uk

Squash, www.squashnutrition.org

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