Hot drinks policy at pre-school

[marathonmum]

I have just taken over as manager of a pre-school. The last manager allowed staff to have a cup of tea/coffee midmorning. However recently staff have been walking around the setting with cups of tea on trays , drinking them outside etc. I feel this is a health a safetyissue for the children . I would like tohave no hot drinks around the children at all. I am happy to have cold drinks/snack for the staff mid morning esp as one member of staff is diabetic.
What do other settings do? How would you feel if you were a staff member deprived of your tea? or a parent seeing staff drinking Tea instead of playing with your child.
I'd really appreciate your advice

Marathonmum, at the Children's Centre where I used to work, we introduced a "no hot drinks" at groups policy. This was for parents and workers alike. We found the relevant statistics on the ROSPA and CAPT websites to support the decision and gave them a month's notice. We just offered cold drinks.

In the nursery, there was a milk kitchen where staff went during their 10 minute break so that no-one ever had hot drinks around the children.

If it's only a three hour session, I think you are perfectly within your rights to restrict the staff to cold drinks only. I think that if you showed them the statistics for children burned by hot drinks, and made it clear that it was for this reason, then they might accept the decision more readily.

In a school I worked in a member of staff put her newly made cup of tea on the table, the child next to her reached out and knocked the tea all over himself. Luckilly there was no serious damage but could have been much worse. My advice do not allow hot drinks around the children as accedents do happen.

When I was Primary school teacher, used to have hot drink outside at break time but the minute I needed to go to a child I would water the grass with it and leave my mug empty.. Perhaps not practical at preschool, but at home I only ever leave a cup of tea on a high on a surface and I've never had a problem. But there's only one of me and no one else is usually there to knock things over. WHen NCT group come round drives me mad when people leave full cups of tea on the floor. I don't see the hot drinks thing as a particular safety issue because the cups are going to be well out of their height range while staff drinking but it does mean that staff can't interact with the children while they're drinking. Fine in a junior playground where really they only want you to chat unless there's a problem - see earlier comment about watering the grass - but I found it virtually impossible to do effective care for infants with hot drink and used to give up and drink water.