Healthy Early Years London (HEYL) is an award scheme funded by the Mayor of London which supports and recognises achievements in children’s health, wellbeing and education within the Early Years setting. The scheme is designed to support a healthy start to life across themes which include, healthy eating, oral health, physical development and early cognitive development.

We started this scheme in 2018, and it quickly become an important part of the Nursery’s ethos achieving our First Steps award in September of that year. We have made many improvements to the Pre-school/Nursery to support each child’s development across all areas.  We have introduced tooth brushing to support oral health, including a visit from our local Dental Hygienist. We have designed a Nose wiping station to enable all children to develop their independence and self-care, along with a little helper role to help lay the tables and serve snack. We reevaluated our Menus to ensure the meals daily included all the nutritional requirements. This included starting our own vegetable patch so the children can grow, cook and eat the fresh food produced in our garden. This is only a small sample of how we have implemented the HEYL into the Pre-school/Nursery. We have been awarded our Bronze award.