Montessori nursery popularises free milk initiative

Mace Montessori School, which also uses the scheme in its two Hammersmith nurseries, encouraged the local council to work in partnership with leading school supplier Cool Milk to provide all PVI nurseries in Camden with free milk.

Every child aged under five attending nursery for two or more hours a day is entitled to a 189ml serving of milk.

Cool Milk pays and arranges for dairies to deliver the milk and deals with any problems with the supplier.

The initiative, now running in 70 local authorities, aims to save nurseries time and administration costs. Previously settings have had to pay for milk in advance and wait up to four months to be reimbursed.

Mace Montessori held a School Milk day last week with special milk-themed entertainment and activities.

Jon Lloyd, development manager for the nursery, said, 'The result of our effort is the scheme is being rolled out in Camden, benefiting all under-fives. The team are very proud of this achievement and are pleased to have helped put something in place to benefit the whole community.'

John Sedgwick, managing director of Cool Milk, said, 'We are delighted to be working with Mace Montessori and want to ensure that all children under the age of five in Camden and surrounding boroughs take advantage of the free milk scheme. Our admin-friendly milk scheme is designed to reduce the input required by the nursery or pre-school to a bare minimum.'

The nursery hopes to expand the scheme to Lambeth where they opened a nursery last summer.