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…
The London Challenge Roundtable
Last week, I began the week with a challenge to the security at City Hall. Arriving for a meeting with the Mayor’s Education Advisor, I popped my bag onto the…
Can We Top Trump’s Childcare Policies?
Last week the US electorate put two fingers up to the neoliberal establishment and voted in Donald Trump to be the next president of the USA. While I, along with…
Margaret Horn 2016 : The London Childcare Challenge
Every year during the November Global Enterprise Fortnight we host the Margaret Horn Debate to celebrate Social Enterprise Day. Margaret Horn was the first director of the charity that in…
An Invitation to the 2016 Autumn London Big Ofsted Conversation
Dear Colleagues It’s time for the next London OBC, please come. It’s long overdue. We had planned the next one around our invitation to the new Chair…
Encouraging Women to the top
Are you a feminist from the 1970s? Did you look forward to reading the monthly Spare Rib? Was your diary the Spare Rib diary?…
May the Force Be With You : The Rallying Cry in Dublin at the 26th EECERA Conference
The EECERA Conference is an annual event and I always try and attend accompanied by LEYF staff where possible. It’s much better fun when we go as…
Parents, your childcare could be in jeopardy
Dear Parents Do you know that your childcare could be in jeopardy? Why? Because a decision made in 2014 by the then Minister for Childcare is having a detrimental…
Ofsted has discovered Child Poverty
“If we get the early years right, we pave the way for a lifetime of achievement. If we get them wrong, we miss a unique opportunity to shape a child’s…
Dear Justine Greening MP
Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Education. It is quite a Brief so l hope that those of us who have been grappling with it for a…
Men in Childcare, why are we still debating this?
Just when you think that you are beginning to open people’s eyes and ears as to the benefits of having men working in childcare settings, along comes the ill- informed and…
I’m Alright, Jack
Last Thursday was a day of momentous historical significance. It may be linked but the weather also decided to create havoc on that day. Determined not to be beaten, I…
What’s Brand Got to Do with the Early Years?
I seem to be visiting the homes of great Early Years pioneers at the moment. Last month to Keilhau home of Froebel and last week a short holiday…