Talking Early Years: In conversation with Frank Cottrell-Boyce
If you have been frog marched through books, why would you ever read for pleasure? The award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cotterell-Boyce is the 13th Children’s Laureate of…
LEYF News and CEO Blog
Read the latest news and updates from our CEO and the wider LEYF team.
Lessons We Must Learn to Better Protect Our Children
In Memory of Genevieve Meehan Tonight, BBC One North West and Yorkshire will air an investigative programme titled How Safe Are Our Nurseries? It follows the heartbreaking story of Genevieve…
Homelessness
In October, one of the LEYF managers slept out to raise awareness about homelessness. Her observations prompted this blog. I felt vulnerable and rather lonely in the early hours…
Using a Multi-Generational Approach to Reach into Our Communities
What do we mean by multigenerational practice? Here at LEYF we are now very clear. It is how we ensure our nurseries are active community catalysts. Ten years ago,…
Can Early Years be the Bridge to Helping Combat Loneliness and Isolation in Local Communities?
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is not an education at all” An invitation to the annual Margaret Horn Debate. Over ten years ago, we started the annual…
Join BrewEY and build the Early Years Grassroots Movement
The grassroots movement is when the ordinary people get together and use collective action from the local level to affect change at the local, regional, national, or international level. In…
Don’t’s Dump the EYFS, Just Tweak it
About a year ago, the Government suggested that it might need to refresh the EYFS and the Early Learning Goals. This elicited limited support from the sector. We were worried…
Volunteering is good for our social purpose
I am always happy to support staff who want to volunteer with organisations around the world especially when they are helping children. We have encouraged staff who wanted to use…
Stand Up With One Voice
I rarely say no to an invitation to speak about Early Years in Ireland, and this weekend was no exception. I therefore found myself in Athlone, a small town…
Why It’s Worth the Effort of Bringing Your Practice to a Research Conference
Four LEYF staff recently attended the annual EECERA conference. This year it was held in the friendly hot and very humid city of Thessaloniki, a city suffering from the…
Should there be more Social Enterprises in Childcare?
I operate in two worlds; Early Years and Social Enterprise. Every now and then they converge, and I find myself invited to a most unusual or unexpected event. That happened…
Train Your Baby Like A Dog?
Last week, I had a panicky phone call from my friend Alice Sharp asking me to get on twitter and read about the Channel 4 programme which proposes using…
The Launch of the first Early Years Chef Academy
I recently found a letter I had written in 2014 to the London boroughs arguing that if we were serious about stemming childhood obesity we needed to work together to…
Child Poverty Affects Us All… and that means YOU!
There is no poverty in the UK I hear you cry. Really? Let’s start by looking at what we mean by poverty and the statistics. There is currently no formal…