Nursery serving 'buffet' of junk food is rated inadequate

A nursery offering ‘buffet-style’ junk food to children has been downgraded to ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted inspectors, due partly to its failure to give children healthy, balanced and nutritious meals.

Children's food includes crisps Credit: Iuliia Diakova/ Shutterstock

Sweet Pea Nursery in Whittlesey, Peterborough was marked down from ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted after inspectors witnessed children tucking into food high in salt and fat when they visited the setting on 25 June.

Crisps and mini sausages

Inspector Tracey Dawson said: ‘Staff do not provide children with healthy, balanced and nutritious food at mealtimes.

'For example, at lunchtime staff lay out crisps, buttered bread, mini sausages and other 'buffet' style foods on a side table and encourage children to help themselves.

‘While this helps to promote children's independence, staff do not monitor what children take and some children return to their chairs with lots of crisps and other less healthy foods.’

Ofsted's report highlighted the nursery does not ‘ensure that all food provided for children is healthy, balanced and nutritious’.

Staff forget the words to songs

Sweet Pea nursery cares for babies and children up to the age of four and has been rated 'inadequate' in all areas.

Ofsted also found the quality of teaching to be ‘mundane’ and ‘weak’. It described ‘unchallenging’ activities that take too long to set up, leaving children waiting around until they ‘become distracted and lose interest’ before the activity starts.

Inspectors watched as a group sing-song went wrong when staff forgot the words to the songs causing the children to ‘lose interest quickly and start to play with other toys’. Despite the outcome of the sing-song, inspectors noted the children used their own initiative to entertain themselves with toys to play with.

Referring to the quality of teaching, Ms Dawson added: ‘Although the manager regularly completes staff supervision meetings and observes their practice, she does not follow up on actions raised at previous supervisions.

'Staff fail to develop their practice further in order to raise the quality of teaching.’

Nursery manager Wendy Whitwell told daynurseries.co.uk she is appealing Ofsted’s decision to rate the nursery 'inadequate'.