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…
Politics is not welcome in the nursery
I write this blog with a sense of anger and despair. Even playing Verdi very loudly and a glass of wine could not quell my alarm. Why such gloom? Our…
Asking Robin Van Persie to kick the childcare football straight into the Equalities net
Childcare is flavour of the week and quickly becoming a political football. I wish we had an equivalent Robin Van Persie to either land the childcare ball in the…
The childcare cost mystery: is it time for Monsieur Poirot to visit the Treasury?
We are all aware that the cost of childcare is too expensive for many parents. Yet the Government says it…
Welcome to 2013: dump resolutions and LOL.
I have long rejected beginning the New Year with a hangover, and am even less keen to create a bunch of resolutions that rarely survive the month of January, let alone…
A fond farewell to 2012… or should that be ‘Au Revoir’?
As we rush to the end of a very speedy 2012, I thought I would review the year through the lenses of my 42 blogs. From…
Ofsted Annual Report? A great read, but please tell us something we don’t already know.
Last week Ofsted produced its Annual Report, the first from her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children Services and Skills, Sir Michael Wilshaw. It…
Will the arrival of a Royal baby raise the profile of Early Years?
Hurrah, the press finally have something new to focus on now the Duchess is having a Royal Baby. Poor old Kate, suffering not just morning sickness but…
What do women want? Better ask the Spice Girls.
The Margaret Horn Big Conversation happened last week on Social Enterprise…
Could more men in childcare have a real and lasting effect on the inherent prejudices of society (or only as long as the media take an interest)?
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation. Cicero Was it fortuitous or bad timing…
The importance of Cultural Capital, or how every child deserves a little Water Music more than just now and again.
An invitation to speak at the Early Arts UnConference at the MAC in Birmingham led to my reflecting back on why I started to investigate cultural capital…
LEYF Magic, coming to a nursery near you soon.
Friday saw another fantastic LEYF Staff Conference, once again successfully managed with great aplomb. Like another Chocolate Orange segment…
LEYF Staff Conference: Building a better future for more of London’s Children
Every year we hold our annual LEYF conference when we celebrate our achievements over the past 12 months and present our plans…