http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8569117.stm

Most nurseries are working very hard to ensure that children in their care get a balanced diet. However, it is a major challenge keeping up to date with all the latest recommendations – for example, at which age children should be drinking full-fat or semi-skimmed milk, which has changed several times over recent years. Many nursery providers already offer excellent meals in line with nutritional guidelines, but there are still some who struggle to interpret all the guidance that is out there, or whom assume that children need a low-fat, high fibre diet, which many adults are trying to achieve. At The Old Station Nursery we carried out a new menu trial last year, in association with 2 different groups of students from Oxford Brookes university. They looked at our previous menu cycle and recommended some minor changes, to help us to ensure the children got sufficient calories throughout the day, with the correct nutrients including vitamins and minerals, but without exceeding recommended salt levels. We now have a menu cycle which we use across the company, with some local variations to allow the cooks to exercise a little personal choice. We would welcome any national standards which the Government see fit to recommend, as anything which helps us to ensure the children receive a balanced diet will be beneficial.

Do you think the Government should get involved in standards for pre-school food, or just concentrate on school age children? Are you confident you know what guidelines you should be following at home? Do let us know what you think.

It’s been a very exciting week here at the nerve centre, as I learnt recently that The Old Station Nursery has been awarded the contract to operate a brand new children’s nursery at Imjin Barracks, Innsworth on the edge of Gloucester. Innsworth is currently the home to several hundred military personnel, but is soon to be joined by many more who are returning to Gloucester from Rheindalen, Germany, where the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps has been based up until now.

As part of their relocation, there is a great deal of building going on and part of this will be a state-of-the-art, eco build nursery, complete with solar panels and a grass roof.  When I visited on Monday it was still very much a building site, but I am looking forward to watching it develop over the next few weeks, with a planned opening date of 1st September.

The real work now begins, as we look at recruiting staff to run the nursery, which will be overseen by our Operations Manager in the South, Emma Pittam, with a little light interference (I mean help!) from me. We are just starting to publicise the contract award and look forward to talking to lots of  families both in the Innsworth area and further afield in Rheindalen, where it will be really frustrating as they try and plan homes, schools, jobs and nurseries from many miles away. We look forward to talking to everyone who is interested in the new nursery and wants to talk about what will be available. For now, all I can say is, ‘watch this space’!