We prepare your child’s food fresh on site every day. Children will be provided with a nutritious morning and afternoon snack and a cooked midday meal.
Our Food Coordinators use seasonal produce and our menus vary each week based on a four-weekly cycle, which reflect the current cooler or warmer season.
Our menus contain a vast array of colourful, multicultural and international foods to ensure a sense of inclusion and encourage children to try new and different foods or tastes, which that may not be familiar to them.
We can prepare alternative meals for children with allergies, and/or individual dietary requirements.
We check our menus to ensure they are nutritionally balanced using the Healthy Australia website (NHMRC) to ensure the menu meets the nutritional guidelines for each child.
At Ngala Early Learning and Development Service our philosophy includes hearing the children’s voices and responding to their ideas and interests, in line with this, our children have input into the development of menus and are consulted when we are changing items.
We encourage children’s growing independence when eating by supporting them to learn to serve themselves and scrape their plates afterwards.
Children are invited to mealtimes in small groups so our Educators can sit at the table alongside them and share conversations about the food they are eating, their day so far, what foods they like, the texture of the food and foods they eat at home.