What are the New Requirements for Safe Eating in Early Years?

On 1^st September 2025, significant updates to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) come into force.  Whilst the changes span across a range of areas within the EYFS, one of the most significant is the introduction of safe eating requirements for all early years settings.

The new safer eating requirements in the EYFS are crucial for protecting young children’s health and safety, particularly regarding choking and food allergies. They help to ensure that early years settings provide an environment where children can eat safely, while also supporting their early childhood nutrition.

What exactly are the new requirements?

Some of the key changes include:

• A staff member with a valid Paediatric First Aid certificate must be present in the room while children are eating, and that children are always within sight and hearing of a member of staff while eating.

• Settings must now obtain comprehensive information about each child’s dietary requirements, allergies, and intolerances before the child begins their first day at the setting, and this information must be shared with all relevant staff.

• Regular discussions must be held between providers, parents or carers, and relevant healthcare professionals to ensure weaning is managed consistently.

• Settings should ensure that guidance is followed to prepare food in a way that minimises choking risks and hazards.

• Children should be seated in appropriate high or low chairs when eating.

• If a choking incident occurs, a record must be made of where and how it occurred, and parents must be informed.

Why are the safer eating requirements being introduced?

One of the reasons that these requirements have been introduced is a result of three years of campaigning by the parents of Oliver Steeper.

Oliver died aged only 9 months old in 2021 when he choked on chopped pasta bolognese at an early years setting. He had only been fed pureed and finger food at home.

The first aid response was also found to be “poor” by the inquest that followed. It also featured testimony that his key worker had not been trained about the size of food that he should have been served.

To help prevent such a tragic incident happening again the Government listened to the concerns of Oliver’s parents and other campaigners to make changes. The new requirements are mandatory for all staff in early years settings.

How can we train our staff on the new safe eating requirements?

As a result of the new safer eating requirements within the EYFS, flick learning have created a brand-new e-learning course to cover everything that staff need to know in this area. The course includes all relevant early years food guidance, choking hazards and nutrition guidelines  – whether they form part of the new requirements or not.

Safer Eating in Early Years was released in early August 2025 so that all early years settings can train their staff on the requirements around safe eating. The course has been specifically designed to train early years settings on all the guidance within the EYFS around safer eating in the truly memorable award-winning flick learning style that learners love.

What other courses to flick provide in this area?

We also have a range of other childcare and education courses aimed at early years providers, many of which have also been updated as a result of the 2025 updates to the EYFS. These include:

• Budgeting Effectively in Early Years

• Common Core Skills and Knowledge

• Environments in Early Years

• EYFS Made Simple – for Childminders

• EYFS Made Simple – for Group and School-Based Settings

• Floor Space Requirements in Early Years

• Ofsted’s Early Years Education Inspection Framework

• Paediatric First Aid

• Positive Behaviour in Early Years

• Working With Babies

All these courses (and many more!) are included the flick library , which you can have unlimited access to when you sign up for a subscription. Or, if you have your own LMS, you can license flick courses to host on your own platform.

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