My Grandmother always said that a little of what you fancy does you good. Sadly, according to recent medical press, we are all too often unable to stop at a little and these days consume far too much of what we fancy. As a result, we are fast becoming one of the most overweight nations in the world, with all the health issues that accompany such obesity. Every week it seems there is a new report about the damaging effect of some familiar sugar laden food – the most recent being a link made between aggressive behaviour and fizzy drinks, and their tendency to heighten the risk of heart disease.

Of course, Children are particularly at risk, and given that prevention is better than a cure, I began to look at how nurseries might do their part to educate children and families about food by serving the best. Interestingly, despite all the TV coverage gained by Jamie Oliver with his admirable campaign to rid our schools of turkey twisslers, he rarely focused on the chefs and cooks actually preparing and serving the foods (aside from Nora, his trusty dinner lady). No effort was made to look into the qualifications available for chefs, which could be used to up the ante and go some way to ensuring and embedding high quality procurement, preparation, presentation and delivery of food to children, while also informing staff and parents of what makes healthy eating.

The history of chefs and cooks in both nurseries and schools tells a random tale, from those simply helping out as an interested parent to an agency chef from a local restaurant. Either way, most nursery staff will tell you that having a good chef – one who likes cooking for children and is both interested and motivated – is a joy and sadly not as commonplace as we would like!

When I began my research, what I soon found (though on a smaller scale) was not dissimilar to what Professor Cathy Nutbrown found about Early Years qualifications: a myriad of organically developed courses of varied quality with no core set of standards. The situation for chefs was worse inasmuch as there were generic qualifications which taught the basics, but no effort made to develop anything that would apply their knowledge to cooking specifically for children. CPD courses tended to focus on health and safety, food safety and manual handling – which though relevant did not lead to better teas and sauces or greater motivation and knowledge about what children love to eat.

Driven by this baffling discovery, I searched out individuals with similar interests and found a group of nutritionists, dieticians and others passionate to improve the food experience for small children. (At this point, the School Food Trust was focused unsurprisingly on schools, so Early Years had not been given any attention at all – despite national fears about obesity and heart disease amongst the young as a direct result of their awful diet.)

When I then surveyed the sector – including colleagues in Wales and Scotland – to see if there was any interest in a qualification for chefs in Early Years, the  overwhelmingly positive response that came back led me to dip my toe into the deep and mysterious waters of national standards and qualifications development. And quite frankly, given the complexity of process and language, I am amazed so many qualifications exist! Fortunately for me, People 1st (the skills sector for hospitality) and City and Guilds fully understood what I was after and so supported my efforts – especially useful, since my learning curve included regular viewing of Master Chef, Saturday Kitchen and Two Hairy Bikers. (I liked these most of all, particularly as they could rustle up a good curry by the side of the road – no Curly Wurly breakfasts for them!)

On Monday, 19 March (tomorrow, as I write this), we hope to take the final step on the long ladder of getting approval of the draft National Standards in order to formulate a set of Level 3 Qualifications in Professional Cooking for Early Years Chefs. We will present the key elements of a qualification to employers and will be sharing the same premise as Professor Nutbrown, namely that employers must be able to tell what skills and knowledge they can expect when employing someone with that qualification. It will include everything from basic knife skills to a real understanding of child nutrition.

At the very least, I sincerely hope this single step will be one more to help professionalise a growing industry which exists to provide a support service to children and their families, and in so doing will show yet another critical added value we have to offer society.

Sensible organisations try and ensure that staff are involved in developing policies and practices at every level.  Indeed, much is written about the inefficiency of top down approaches to making change happen.  However, in my opinion, the challenge is less in the initial engagement and more in maintaining interest and ensuring behaviour is embedded unconsciously, so that it becomes fundamental to everything. This becomes even more important if, like LEYF, you want to grow and need to ensure that policies and practices are securely embedded and repeated consistently in every setting.

Many years ago a manager came to me in despair, having discovered that a can of Coke and a Curly Wurly amounted to breakfast for some staff .  While she worried about their health, she became even more anxious when she realised these were the very staff who would be role models for children and their parents when it came to healthy eating. Her conversation sparked a large piece of work across LEYF,  involving staff at every level – as managers, practitioners, chefs, apprentices and parents all became part of the process to create a consistent and recognisable ‘LEYF approach’ to food.  We researched, examined and created new ways of procuring food, training staff, supporting parents, changing the curriculum and most importantly defining the role for our chefs. Our resulting LEYF Food Policy captured the outcome and was laid down as the basis of practice right across our organisation.

Children enjoying fresh fruit at a LEYF community nursery

Initial enthusiasm was positive and effective, but falling back into old habits happened as if by osmosis. Nothing big, just little things that showed the unravelling of an agreement. Little clues emerged such as a random plastic vegetable in the role play area when it’s meant to be fresh, not serving fish twice a week or forgetting to make sure that cooking was a weekly activity.

So what must we do to ensure that ‘buy in’ and engagement is robust and consistent, whilst still allowing us to review, shape and change things as the world itself changes?  For example, having spent two or three years developing our approach to food, we have now had to make changes to our kitchen management to fit better with the evolving needs of the organisation. Effective scaling and repeatability must equally allow action research to inform continuous improvements, and that can lead to change too.

How can we balance the non-negotiables, such as insisting on organic milk or fresh vegetables in the role play corner, with negotiated changes – such as a new management system – to better meet the needs of the children? What can we do to allow change into the mix in a way that does not start unravelling the whole approach? Can we as the proverbial leopards change our spots or are we asking the impossible?

There is a raft of management tomes telling us to think about communication, apply change management theory, get champions in critical places, give regular feedback and have solid processes that show up when things are not happening. The most telling approach though is simpler:

• Co- create guiding principles
• Define what is absolute and non-negotiable
• Put the necessary systems in place (and make them clear)
• Repeat the practice till you are blue in the face (and become as Freire would say unconsciously conscious)
• Use an action research model to continually improve but manage the change
• Get out there and see for yourself!

Finally, perhaps, buy lots of Curly Wurlys and distribute them generously to those embedding and sharing in our case ‘the LEYF way’. (But can I be first in line, since after fig rolls and walnut whips they are my next favourite treat!)