Healthy Lifestyle
🥦 Meals & Nutrition
At our nursery, we believe happy tummies make happy children!
Our meals are made with care, using fresh, tasty ingredients to give every little one the energy they need to play, learn, and grow. 💚
🌿 Our Food Promise
We make sure every mealtime is safe, inclusive, and full of goodness!
🍗 Halal Meat & Chicken
All our meat and chicken at our Hackney and Ilford sites are Halal and prepared with love and care.
🍎 Caring for Every Child
We cater for all dietary needs — including allergies and religious preferences.
🥜 Nut Free
Our nurseries are completely nut free, so everyone can enjoy mealtimes safely.
🤝 Working with Families
We work closely with parents and carers to make sure every child’s needs are understood and supported.
🌼 Learning Through Food
Mealtimes are more than just eating — they’re a time for children to share, explore, and have fun!
We encourage our children to try new flavours, talk about healthy foods, and enjoy sitting together at the table.
Because every child deserves food that’s safe, nourishing, and full of love. 💛
Your child’s meals include:
Breakfast
Mid-morning snack
Nutritious lunch
Afternoon snack
Evening tea
Water is available throughout the day.
Your child’s mealtime routine is subject to the sessions your child attends.
All our food is freshly prepared and cooked on site to meet your child’s needs and requirements. When babies start weaning your key person will discuss with you what your child will require. Their meals will be prepared based on your weaning preferences and their weaning journey will be closely monitored and supported alongside families.
Our focus when it comes to healthy lifestyles:
Teaching children where food comes from and linking this to growing activities in our nature garden, city farm trips and room activities.
Ensuring we support children to internalise a healthy approach to food in relation to physical and mental health. We don’t pressurise or bribe children around food and how much and what they eat. We create a relaxed enjoyable atmosphere.
We eat together as a community and staff join in, staff model conversations together and we wait for our friends to finish politely before we leave the table. We learn how to eat with our cutlery safely and with considerate table manners.
The needs of children with allergies and sensory food aversions are fully respected. We have robust safety measures in place and all staff are qualified in paediatric first aid and anaphylaxis management and response. Children who need to are given the freedom to explore and expand their palate on their own terms and eat with their hands if this is appropriate.
Where appropriate, children will begin to serve themselves independently and scrape their plates at the end of mealtimes.
We also work in partnership with families to support children’s eating difficulties.
What our families say
Promoting Oral Health
First Day Nursery works to promote oral health and create oral health awareness for the children in our care.
We support children to remove the fear factor about toothbrushing through role-play experiences and story time to help children understand the importance of oral health and remove the anxiety around going to the dentist.
To promote healthy oral hygiene only milk and water is offered to the children throughout the day.
Parents are encouraged to instill regular toothbrushing routines at home. Parents can access information and advice about toothbrushing and oral health from staff at nursery or by clicking here.
Parents are asked to provide details of the family dentist as well as doctors on registration forms and children’s two-year progress checks.
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Kids friendly nursery. Staff are very professional with approachable and flexible management. Children always appear happy when I go in. My daughter loves going to nursery and has made so much progress since she joined the nursery She is always happy to go to nursery and she loves the food The nursery is extremely clean and very well maintained. it has enough resources for kids' development. I am so happy that I found this nursery for my daughter
Carol
Parent
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I would highly recommend First Day Nursery. The staff is caring highly qualified and attentive. My son is very happy here. The Nursery provides a variety of healthy food, which is very Important for my son growth. Lots of activities take place during the day such as cooking walks to local shops and train station, art and craft etc. His Key worker is very caring and helpful especially when, we as parents, need to discuss his problems. My son has developed lots of good habits because of the Nursery such as sharing tidy up, and going to the toilet by himself
Asma
Parent
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Attending Hillside Nursery myself over 30 years ago, and now seeing both my children and nephews experience the same nursery, feels truly special. Although under different ownership today, the nursery continues to uphold the same strong values, offering excellent opportunities for learning and play. One of my children faced a speech delay, and the one-to-one support they received was outstanding. The staff not only provided dedicated care but also guided us toward additional resources, which made a real difference. Both of my children attend five days a week and have never once refused or hesitated to go in. The staff are genuinely lovely, and the meals provided are often healthier—and sometimes even fancier—than what they would eat at home! There’s a wonderful sense of community, and the nursery goes above and beyond with enriching experiences. I especially love that they take the children on train trips to Burnham seawall and local parks, as well as involving them in church events throughout the year. I cannot recommend Hillside Nursery highly enough. I wouldn’t want my children anywhere else. Thank you for helping raise our girls, who are growing into such happy, cheeky, kind, and loving individuals.
Nicky
Parent