Multi-award-winning Social Enterprise
Producing Outstanding Results
Call us on 03300 109919
Breakfast
HAF2021 Breakfast
Eating healthily as a team.
We want participants to learn about healthy living by living healthily. To achieve this participants prepare and serve a nutritious breakfast each day. They then clear up.
Challenge
We all know how difficult it can be to get children to eat fruit and vegetables. We set out to teach children about the importance of a healthy, varied diet that includes a wide range of micronutrients as well as the macronutrients they need. We wanted children to learn this through experience, because we know how important it is for local children to broaden horizons and try new things. So, we set about the challenge of helping children make healthier food choices at breakfast and try new foods. This included a co-creation element where children chose the menu for the following day, set up the breakfast room, served the breakfast, ate then cleared up. We started slow and escalated the challenge, raising our expectations of the children role in co-creating breakfast until a routine began to set in.
Developmental support through shared meal times
Children tell us about the additional strain their families faces from lockdown and how that made it more difficult for them to access their existing support networks. So, we used shared mealtimes to bring families together. Originally, we set out to use breakfast as a healthy starting point for maintaining positive, existing routines and building some new ones too. From the success of our family sessions we also expanded our lunch time meal provision, building on the cook and eat work we were doing. This included children bringing in their own, self made, pack lunches and supplementing our cook and eat with some catered provision.
Indicative menu
Breakfast served each day
- Range of cereals with les than 5g sugar per portion: Weetabix, Cornflakes, Rice Crispies, Cocopops, Special K, Fruit and Fiber, Bran Flakes, All Bran.
- Croissants, bread and jam.
- Range of fruit is always available including: apples, bananas, grapes, satsumas, strawberries and blueberries.
- Student's choose an additional fruit item each day, which we then provide. So far they have tried: mango, pineapple, watermelon, honeydew melon, snowdrop melon, plums, Sharon fruit, kiwis, passion fruit and avocado.
- On Fridays we have fresh fruit juice otherwise bottled water is always available.
Cook and eat meal served after cook and eat family sessions
- Chicken biryani
- Lamb seekh kebabs
- Aubergine curry (Vegan)
- Courgette curry (Vegan)
- Raita (yoghurt and cucumber) (Vegetarian)
- Fresh salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber) (Vegan)
- Bread and coissants
- Water (bottled)
Snack items served through the day and during the movie
Throughout the day fruit and bittled water is avaialble for children to snack on. Children can have a croissant (individually wrapped) if they have had some fruit are are still hungry. After sports sessions children sometimes ask for a sit down snack where fruit, croissants, bread and jam, and water are served.
For children who want to watch a movie on Fridays, a selection of fruit, some crisps and a small amount of chocolate is available. Crisps and chocolate are otherwise not available.
Twice, on particularly hot days, children were allowed an ice cream or ice lolly of their choice.
Week 1
The breakfast meal included of a wide range of cereals (all less than a teaspoon of sugar per bowl), bread and croissants with butter or jam, a large selection of fruit and water. The fruit selection chosen by the children included blueberries, strawberries, grapes, apples, bananas and oranges. Each day children tried a new fruit. This week we tried Sharon fruit, watermelon, snow drop melon and pineapple. On Fridays we had fresh fruit juice as well. Just over 60% of students participated in our evaluation exercise at the end of the week. Half of students found the breakfast satisfactory and half felt it was more than satisfactory. We want children to try new foods, especially fruit, and 90% said they had tried new foods sometimes or often during this week.
Week 2
The breakfast meal included of a wide range of cereals (all less than a teaspoon of sugar per bowl), bread and croissants with butter or jam, a large selection of fruit and water. The fruit selection chosen by the children included blueberries, strawberries, grapes, apples, bananas and oranges. Children tried some other fruit as well, including: mango, kiwi, cherries and more melon. The children also made a greater effort to co-create breakfast, working as a team to set-up tables and chairs, serve breakfast and then clean up and pack away. Next week we want them to start preparing the fruit as well.
Week 3
The fruit selection chosen by the children included avocado, plums and passion fruit. Some children found the passion fruit very sour, so many became reluctant to try it. However, peer encouragement helped and in the end everyone had a little bit at least.
Week 4
By the fourth week participants were making most of their breakfast. This week we tried peaches, nectarines, green apples, conference pears, apricots, green grapes, bananas, more avocado, and some other fruit.
Week 5
In the fifth week we wanted to educate on alternative options to fresh fruit, such as tinned and dried fruit, because these can be cheaper. So we tried grapefruit, tinned fruit cocktail and prunes. The students were not very keen on the grapefruit, it was sour, but the fruit cocktail was popular. We also provided a range of fresh fruit and the usual selection of cereal and bread.
Week 6
We offered a range of fruit and the uptake was great. We were delighted with parent feedback that children had been asking for fruit at home. We are also pleased that children no longer need prompting to make healthy breakfast choices.
