MAKE YOUR EFFORTS COUNT - TIPS TO ENSURE CHILDREN EAT

Woodmansterne School decided to stop packed lunches in infants, therefore ensuring every child would eat a hot lunch. Here are a few tricks that helped them encourage the children to try the food.

Introduce a daily salad bar consisting of single ingredients such as cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce, roasted beetroot and coleslaw ensuring the children had a choice.

Keep elements of any dish separate when preparing it so children can explore flavour combinations at their own pace. For example, when they introduced egg fried rice, they noticed many children were intimidated by the amount of veg. Now, only peas go inside – a firm favourite – and a veg medley is on the side for the children to mix and match at will.

Identify children happy to try new flavours - if they are first in the queue others will follow their example.

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Sit and talk with the children as they eat, ask what they’re enjoying and why. Food can be an exciting talking point in their day.

Stand by the bins encouraging children to try some more of the food on their plates before it is thrown away. Notice what is being thrown away and report back to the kitchen team so you can think of how to change the dish in future.