The Children's Kitchen, a collaborative project between Bristol Early Years, Feeding Bristol and food educator Jo Ingleby, was judged ‘a stand-out winner’ in the Health & Well-Being category at the Nursery World Awards 2022 for its work providing opportunities for children in maintained nursery schools, Children's Centres and schools to grow and explore fresh produce.
Ingleby was also an Award winner in 2016 with the Food Project at Redcliffe Children's Centre and Nursery School. After budget cuts saw the Food Project come to an end, Ingleby left with what she describes as ‘a renewed confidence that this was an amazing approach which worked’, inspiring her to take the idea citywide, focusing on areas of food insecurity.
The Children's Kitchen, set up in 2019, works with 16 settings across Bristol where rates of child obesity and poor dental health are high. It aims to help children create growing spaces and give them a term-based planting plan to learn about food ‘from plot to plate’. It is free and offers CPD opportunities and webinars for practitioners, helping them improve their approach to food through regular hands-on food sessions, training and mentoring, all focused on improving their understanding of healthy food and the importance of developing tastes and confidence at an early age.
Settings are encouraged to examine their food practice, give children opportunities to gain independence through chopping their own food for snacks, and expand the choices served at lunchtimes, focusing on fresh produce. Ingleby says, ‘We don't ever make cakes. If you are talking to families about not eating too much sugar but also making cakes, that can give mixed messages.’
WORKING WITH STAFF
Confidence can be one of the main issues staff face when approaching food. ‘In some nurseries, you find staff themselves need a bit of encouragement about vegetables and how to cook them,’ says Ingleby. ‘A lot of the time, it's about improving their knowledge of how simple it can be, and that you don't always even need to cook things. Practitioners can also need support with growing food.’
The Children's Kitchen introduces a growing programme to its mostly term-time-only settings, ensuring all the produce is grown and harvested by July to avoid any waste over holidays. After a year, they largely turn the project over to existing staff.
‘Really, the project is about working with and empowering staff,’ Ingleby explains. ‘We obviously work with children too, but the aim is that what we do happens every day in nurseries, not just on a special occasion or when we come in. After the first year, we still offer regular visits, mentoring or more CPD, but it is the staff that run it.’
IMPACT
Results are seen quickly, says Ingleby. ‘When we’ve been working with a nursery for a few months, you’ll see children are already happy to taste new foods, and they are learning physical developmental skills, like how to chop,’ she says.
The project's focus on areas of food insecurity means the biggest benefit is felt by families who need it most.
When the pandemic hit, the project was temporarily redesigned to create a network of Family Action FOOD Clubs to distribute surplus food from FareShare Southwest to families in lockdown every week.
‘It was all change, but actually in quite a positive way for us,’ reflects Ingleby. ‘It made us think more about how practically to help families cook.’
The FOOD Clubs differ from food banks in that families become members and feel part of a small community. The Children's Kitchen provides demonstrations to give families simple ideas for what to do with the produce they receive, and has created five recipe booklets to accompany them, with around 30 recipes available in 16 languages.
‘The clubs are basically a way for families to get very-low-cost bags full of fresh produce and store-cupboard ingredients,’ says Ingleby. ‘Because it's a membership club, it's not just for an emergency. Access is sustainable and provides long-term support. It's not intended to replace a weekly shop, but it is extra to alleviate some of the cost of living.’
Since lockdown ended, 15 clubs have continued to provide food for families in need. ‘Now, we release booklets for every big holiday, all very positive, bright, happy and child-friendly. So we’ve got another one coming out of Christmas that will be based on store-cupboard ingredients, very much with the cost of living in mind at the moment.’
GROWING NEED
Indeed, the current climate is providing extra demand for the project. ‘Feeding children is becoming more of an issue, as more children are coming into nursery hungry and eating a lot more in food sessions,’ says Ingleby. ‘They used to come in after breakfast and not be too bothered about coming to a food session because they didn't feel they needed to. Now, it's like they’re just happy to be eating.’
A pilot is running in two nurseries in Nottinghamshire as part of the Public Health Obesity Trailblazers programme, and further expansion could be on the horizon.
‘We’re also noticing that lockdown children, who are two or three now, have a lot further to go in terms of trying food, learning social skills, or even just sitting at a table eating. They need a lot more support,’ says Ingleby.
CASE STUDY: Knowle West Nursery School in Bristol
‘We’re in a deprived, urban part of Bristol, and food is quite an issue for a lot of children,’ explains Helen Hogg, nursery teacher at Knowle West Nursery School, which has been working with the Children's Kitchen since 2019.
‘Their lunchboxes can look quite shocking. For some, it is quite normal to turn up with a McDonald's breakfast.’
The Children's Kitchen began by explaining to staff how its approach differs from traditional ideas of cooking. ‘It's much more of an exploratory experience,’ Hogg says. ‘Curiosity is a really key word, because there's no expectation on children to eat the food. They are encouraged to use all their senses to find out about it.’
The setting has a large outside area with a covered kitchen, and the Children's Kitchen introduced raised planting beds, which helped create a link between what was grown in the garden and what happened in the kitchen.
The nursery is now visited by a Children's Kitchen representative for a half-day per week, with a food specialist and a gardening specialist alternating sessions. ‘Children will join in if they want to, look at the box of fresh produce the Children's Kitchen has brought, and chop, taste it and do whatever they feel they want to,’ says Hogg. ‘There's no pressure for children to come, so it's very free-flowing and relaxed; real child-led learning.’
A wide range of benefits for children's development has been observed. ‘In terms of language and communication, it's wonderful because children are learning all these new words and about what things like banana leaves are, alongside fine motor skills,’ Hogg explains. ‘They plant all these wonderful foods, watch them grow, then pick and eat them.’
The nursery would now like to involve parents more in the process. ‘Everybody's been cautious about having people in the building for the past few years with Covid, but I’m hoping that this year, we can get parents to the sessions and see their child actually eating a head of broccoli, so they will know they can put that in their lunchbox,’ Hogg says.
Staff have overhauled their approach to food as a result of working on the project. ‘It's been a really big learning curve,’ Hogg admits.