Feeding.
& the role of educators.
Eating a wide variety of food provides our bodies with the nutrients and the energy to play, learn and grow. Gut health has also been linked to social and emotional wellbeing meaning that what we eat can really effect our emotions, our mood and our behaviour.
Feeding is the process in which we give and receive food. In the context of the educational setting, educators and pupils have roles and responsibilities in feeding.
Google Ellyn Satter Institute to read about her Division of Responsibility in Feeding to describe the different roles and responsibilities of adults and children. She describes the child’s role as deciding how much and whether to eat the food that is offered. In other words, it is the child’s role and responsibility (where possible) to decide what food to put in their mouth and how much to eat.
What is the educators role?
We are going to consider some of the roles that Ellyn Satter discusses, specific to pupils with special educational needs and make considerations for those children who do, due to their physical development and/or complex needs, require fully supported assistance with feeding:
Choose and prepare the food. As educators we need to make sure that feeding is safe for each pupil. In choosing and preparing food we need to consider if the pupil has dysphagia or any allergies which restrict the type, size, texture of food that they can safely eat. For children with really restricted diets, ask their parents to send in food that they eat at home. Aim to offer a preferred food at every mealtime/snack alongside new foods to try.
Provide regular snacks and mealtimes. Find out if your pupils have breakfast before arriving at school. Look at your daily schedule and try to leave 2 hours between snacks/mealtimes. Develop a consistent snack and mealtime routine and observe your pupils cues to eating. Do they communicate that they are hungry, full or thirsty?
Help children to be calm and organised. Consider the activities in your timetable that come before and after snack/mealtimes. For example, if a pupil finds toileting stressful don’t engage in it immediately before or after mealtimes as this might lead to dysregulation. It can be a really positive part of your daily routine to engage in a sensory circuit before snacks/mealtimes.
Make eating times pleasant. Consider your pupils sensory needs and their snack/mealtime sensory environment. Are there any changes that you could make to improve their mealtime experiences? For example, opening windows to increase ventilation and reduce food smells, provide ear defenders to reduce noise distractions, offer family style food service for them to plate their own food, provide adapted equipment. For pupils who require fully supported feeding, ensure that they are consistently fed by a small number (2-3) familiar staff who they have positive relationships with.
Feed smoothly. For pupils who require fully supported feeding, provide them with your full attention and attune yourself to their verbal or non-verbal communication, looking for cues about timing, frequency, fatigue and amount of food. Dysphagia is also essential to understand. Ensure that chin scraping and mouth wiping is saved to the end of mealtimes to prevent associating eating with a potentially negative tactile experience around the mouth.
Model positive feeding behaviours. Eat with your pupils at snack/mealtimes. This doesn’t have to be the food that you want to eat on your lunch break but have a small amount of the same foods in front of you to model exploring food, eating food or overcoming challenges like messy hands. For example, model that you can wipe your hand/face with a flannel if they get messy and that it is ok to keep eating or model that you can place food that you don’t want on a “not now” plate instead of throwing the whole plate.
Planning for Snack/Mealtimes
If you work with pupils with special educational needs, you will recognise just how prevalent feeding difficulties are. Feeding is one of the most challenging things that you will ask your pupils to do because it involves the integration of information from all 8 senses. As with other lessons, snack and mealtimes require careful planning, preparation and staffing.
Supported seating is essential for providing pupils with good postural stability required for safe and effective eating. Make sure the chair and table heights are appropriate for each child. For individuals with complex needs and dysphagia, be sure to seek advice from the speech and language therapist and occupational therapist regarding optimal positioning for safe eating.
Ensure you know where each pupil is with their current feeding skill development. Is there anything that you can do outside of mealtimes to support their feeding skill development? Would they benefit from adapted equipment to support autonomy?
Raise any feeding concerns with members of the multi-disciplinary team. This may be Speech and Language, Occupational Therapy, Dieticians, Paediatricians, School Nurses, Psychologists.
Build relationships with your mealtime supervisors and school catering team. They have very important roles in mealtimes.
Observe mealtimes and note any challenges that any of the pupils might be experiencing. Are there any adaptations that you could make? For example, would it be beneficial to ask for food to be deconstructed (for example present the meat and sauce separate in a bolognaise).
Change expectations. For example, is it developmentally appropriate for a pupil to using a knife and fork to eat their food? Do they need to say “please” or “thank you”? Do they need to be requesting for their food or is reaching/pointing for it ok?
Team Meeting
Make sure all children with dysphagia have safe eating plans devised by their dysphagia trained Speech and Language Therapist. Dieticians may also contribute to the plan. Take time to make sure that all staff are familiar with what oral intake is and and is not allowed. Although every member of staff should be familiar with the safe eating plans, for pupils with feeding vulnerabilities it is best to allocate 2 -3 experienced members of the team to feed these pupils.
Video mealtimes and observe any subtle cues to eating that pupils give and how you respond. This does not have to be a group activity but open reflection on your practice really helps to develop skills and is something that I still do (11 years post qualification).
Share as a team the strategies and approaches to mealtimes that are and aren’t working. Staff are likely to be on mealtime rotas which means there might be different staff at mealtimes.
If you like our content, The Springboard Curriculum is available to buy here as an immediate digital download. You can follow the link to view sample pages before you buy. The reason we decided to share our work? To allow educators to use their time creatively to maximise play and tailor the learning activities to the strengths and challenges of each pupil.
£1 of every sale goes to the school’s charity to give back to the educators and pupils who inspired the curriculum.
