‘We get to talk about lots of things in toast time don’t we? That’s always fun isn’t it’
St Andrew’s Primary School, Norfolk
What is toast time?
One of the most important parts of any nurture session involves the sharing of food. Many nurture practitioners report that many of their children’s breakthrough moments have happened during snack time.
Toast time is a way of practicing this, by implementing a regular time in the school day to all sit down together, eating as a group, somewhat like a family.
Social skills are key to children’s success in establishing and maintaining nurturing relationships and toast time offers a unique inclusive opportunity for all children.
Toast time and St Andrew's Primary School
St Andrew’s Primary School set aside a set period every morning to sit down at tables and enjoy ‘free’ conversations with peers and adults in the room over a piece of toast.
This daily toast time was set up across the small mixed age primary school (approx. 70 children) as a result of an identified need from the Boxall Profile® assessments of all of the children in the school. All children in the whole school were assessed twice a year using the Boxall Profile®.
The aim of toast time was to improve and develop children’s social skills using the whole school nurture/nurture groups approach i.e. a nurturing intervention.
How to start your own toast time - best practices
Catherine Chalmers, Senco from the school, observed the toast time sessions and as a result she established a number of agreed practices for these sessions.
Staff:
- It was essential that staff sat down with the children and ate too.
- Staff were directly involved in the social intercourse and were able to encourage and demonstrate modes of behaviour required of the children e.g. offering toast around the table at the same time making eye contact, saying please and thank you and using each other's names.
- The role of the adults was very important but as teachers we needed to understand that we were not there to direct or control the children’s conversation and adults could often impede this, especially where less confident children were involved. As adults we needed to intervene to ensure that the children shared the toast, listened to each other and remembered to say thank you but these adults also needed to know when to step back and allow the conversation to flow.
- A toast time log was kept by adults with any key information recorded.
Children:
- Children were allocated roles on a rotating basis, from setting up the toast time to tidying away, the whole class was involved.
- It was considered to be beneficial for the children if they were required to sit at allocated places for the week, using name plaques to identify their set places.
Interaction:
- Food was shared which helped create attachments and relationships.
Subsequent research from The National Literacy Trust emphasises that regular family mealtimes, where people sit down and talk, are crucial for boosting children's communication skills and confidence, as well as fostering healthy family relationships. This is in effect what toast time in school replicates.
- Frequently emotional and philosophical issues were discussed and the presence of an adult to monitor and occasionally guide the conversation was crucial.
- Sharing news was important so that each child felt valued and had time that does not always occur during the average school day.
The positive outcomes of toast time
Over a period of two terms, Catherine Chalmers (Senco) was able to observe three children who had particularly poor social skills. Although this period of time was short and it involved such a such a small number of children to give a definitive outcome, significant improvements in their social skills were noted.
Toast time became a very valuable, if not crucial part of the school day. It gave the children the opportunity to learn and practice essential social skills, air their view, share their feelings and be heard. These are all necessary to prepare children for and to help them achieve their full learning potential in school and later on in adult life, to become active citizens in their communities.
For an in-depth look at the importance of sharing food, nurtureuk offers a Snack time bundle to support schools. The bundle focuses on the sharing of food in nurture settings and considers why it is such a vital part of the nurture curriculum. It aims to explain the theory and research behind the snack time routine.
The importance of snack time in nurturing interventions
This short book explains the role and benefits of snack time, and how it fits with attachment theory and the development of young people’s communication skills. It also offers practical tips on how to structure snack time effectively, as well as fun ideas for games and activities.