Menu Planner - Clandon Park Nursery

CLANDON PARK NURSERY

Menu Planner

Our aim at the nursery is to support children to understand where their food comes from and how it is grown and prepared. We will discuss with the children food groups, how food supports our bodies to be healthy and how they think the food got to their plates! The staff team will be fully involved in supporting children to see and learn how their food is made. The children have an observing window to watch the staff prepare their favourite meals and there is a phone so they can speak to them and ask questions about how their meals are being made. Children will be given as many opportunities to join in the cooking of meals. The aim is to support children in the whole process of planting seeds, caring for their seeds and watching them grow in the Clandon vegetable garden and then harvest and prepare them for their meals! We believe the more, children are involved, the more they will try. Thus, developing a healthy attitude to their food as well as helping with sustainability!

Mealtimes are very ‘family style,’ with the children sitting together with their friends, self-serving and clearing away their own plates. At Clandon Park we see mealtimes as another important learning experience of learning table manners, using cutlery, making friends and learning about the food we eat. Children enjoy eating ‘al fresco,’ style outdoors for as long as the weather permits! We welcome the passion the children have for the outdoors! In our recent Ofsted report the Inspector commented on how well staff teach children about keeping themselves safe around mealtimes:

“Staff teach children how to keep themselves safe in everyday situations. For example, they explain the importance of using equipment correctly and the dangers of cutlery, if used inappropriately. This means children learn about safety and the consequences of their actions.” (July 07, 2025)

Breakfast

Breakfasts consist of a choice of healthy low sugar cereals and a selection of whole milk, semi-skimmed milk, oat and soya milk to cater for all dietary requirements. Again, children self-serve from canisters and are encourage to pour their own milk and tidy away supported by the friendly staff team.

Lunchtime

Lunchtimes are always a hot meal and we use Zebedees an outside catering company who cater for all dietary needs and preferences. Meals are prepared from scratch with high quality ingredients and delivered piping hot to the nursery door. Zebedees use a range of wholesome ingredients and flavours that children may not always encounter outside of nursery, to help reduce reluctance to try new and different foods later in life. Zebedees even have an around the World menu so the children get to eat dishes from France to Japan and every country in between!

Our recent Ofsted report (July 2025) commented on the quality of food and how safe mealtimes are for the children when they reported that:

“Children enjoy balanced and nutritious snacks and meals. Staff implement rigorous safety systems to cater for those children with special dietary requirements or allergies.”

Please feel free to peruse the Zebedees website at www.zebedees.co.uk to see the extensive and high-quality food they offer.

Tea Times

Tea times at Clandon Park Nursery are prepared by our nursery staff who engage the children in preparing food out of the nursery garden which they have grown. The children are fascinated and in ‘awe,’ when they dig the potatoes out of the garden, help to wash them and then eat them as Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese! The children learn important skills such as grating carrots and cutting their homegrown radishes and making them into side salads for their tea. Teatime is usually described as a healthy ‘light tea’. Again, it is a very social affair with the children preparing food and serving it to themselves. The children are particularly enjoying helping to do tasks- which is a great life skill.

The 'Light Tea,' Autumn Menu

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Jacket Potatoes With beans and cheese A selection of seasonal fruit	Rice cakes Bread sticks Crackers Cheese Ham Cucumber Tomatoes Shredded carrot A selection of seasonal fruit	Hidden vegetable pasta A selection of seasonal fruit	Breaded chicken served with rainbow pasta A selection of fruit	Pitta Bread vegetable pizza. Side of Cucumber/ Tomatoes. A selection of fruit

- Please note we will cater for any dietary preferences such as vegan, pescatarian or vegetarian options by finding alternatives that look the same so children all feel included, For example vegan cheese or quorn meat.
- Sometimes the menu will change when the children’s crops they have grown need harvesting, such as picking cooking apples from Clandon Park and making apple crumbles! We of course will advise you when the children have anything different to eat!