Most of our meals are prepared and cooked in our own professional kitchen (Environmental Health Five Stars). Parents are welcome to inspect our kitchen whenever they wish. All our meat is purchased fresh from our local butcher and is completely traceable to local sources.
Alternative menus
We provide all alternative menus as requested by individual parents. Therefore, the Nursery caters for a very wide range of special diets, regardless of whether this is for medical, religious, ethical or any other reason. Please just let us know your requirements.
Babies and toddlers
The Nursery provides all formula milk free of charge. We support mothers who want to continue breastfeeding and we will ensure arrangements are in place to keep your breast milk refrigerated until it is required.
Similarly, with weaning, our policy is to work in partnership with parents. We support all methods of weaning, including baby led weaning. Our staff team can offer advice and support to parents throughout the weaning process. We work very closely with parents and will only introduce new foods as and when parents request this. When any child is beginning the weaning process, or is partway through it, our kitchen staff will work closely with staff and parents to ensure that the appropriate foods are being provided.
We involve our children
Not all our food is prepared in our main kitchen. We believe that learning to prepare, cook and enjoy a meal in a social setting with others is an invaluable life skill. Therefore, children in our Pre-School bake bread most days and are involved in both making and serving their own food both for themselves and to others. Our Pre-School is fitted with a child height food preparation area, as well as having a child height sink and also an oven where children can watch the food they have prepared cook/bake.
Younger children are also involved in making and serving their own meals on a regular basis, whilst all our children can now even do this in the fresh air outside in our Outdoor Learning Area. Food children have prepared here can then be cooked by our staff in our own outdoor wood-fired oven, whilst children watch.
We believe that children should sample and taste as wide a variety of different foods as possible. Therefore, we often organise activities that provide our children with the opportunity to experience tasting foods with widely different colours, flavours and textures, including fruits, fish and vegetables. We also believe that children should understand where the food they eat comes from. Hence, our children often take a trip to the local shops or to other places including Halifax market where they purchase their own ingredients to bring back to Nursery. Back at Nursery they prepare, cook, serve and eat their purchases together.
Our future
We are also in the process of developing the Nursery Forest School in Denholme, where we are constructing two commercially sized polytunnels, so that children can help sow, grow, harvest, prepare and cook their own food and to provide the Nursery with a source of fresh organic produce. We believe passionately that giving children an understanding of how to grow, prepare and make their own food will help and encourage them make healthier choices as they grow older.