DairyCo

Stone Eden Nursery Case study

Best Practice 

Stone Eden Nursery is a privately owned day nursery which operates from converted farm buildings in a rural location close to Carlisle. A maximum of 76 children can be accommodated in the early years age group at any one time. The nursery is open 52 weeks per year from 8am to 6pm and also operates a holiday club for children aged from four to 11 years old.

In addition, Stone Eden is committed to promoting equality of opportunities in all areas of employment, including recruitment, training and promotion. To facilitate this, an excellent training room is situated within the nursery site, providing an ideal place for young people to start a career in childcare. They provide the opportunity to complete an Advanced Modern Apprenticeship, while gaining work experience in childcare.

Great attention is given to meals and snacks provision at the nursery. This is facilitated by their excellent chef, Dave, who carefully plans the menus to both meet the children's nutritional needs and introduce them to a wide variety of foods. Delicious meals and snacks are provided on a daily basis and food is sourced locally. Young people from local secondary schools also help Dave for one or two days a week gaining chefs work experience.

Milk or dairy is offered daily at one or other snack times in addition to within many of the puddings at lunch time.

Stone Eden promoted Farmhouse Breakfast Week (FHBW) in January 2010 partnering up cereals and milk. A whole school approach was taken to this initiative linking up the training school youngsters who made posters to highlight the event for the nursery classes, the staff who got involved with both a quiz and making up demonstration breakfast displays, and the chef Dave who offered a different breakfasts during FHBW, including yogurts and fresh fruit, in addition to the cereals and toast which are always offered. Again, pictures of the event are attached including Charlotte the Cow who met and greeted the nursery children as they arrived in the morning.

Following a training session with the training students about the importance of eating breakfast, how our cereals are produced and the importance of dairy in our diet, the training youngsters would now like to have a farm visit to co-ordinate what they have learnt in the classroom.