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…
Discovering Eva Hart and Ashley Banjo while doing Action Research in Chadwell Heath
Action research at LEYF is a key aspect of how we ensure quality. It’s all about asking questions of ourselves and checking how we can do things better to give children…
Wearing a red coat to a blue Conference
I went to the Conservative Conference because I was invited to speak at a couple of Fringe events. Having done a day and a half at the…
A fine Scottish trinity: Islands, Carnochan and Mr Gove
It was a brave move when Isabel Dunn, recently retired chair of the Scottish Preschool Playgroup Association (SPPA) asked me if I would give this year’s keynote…
Conference talk: more courage and less cliché for two-year-old childcare please
The Conference season is upon us, and so the launch of ideas for manifestos rain down upon our ears. Clichés and soundbites abound as the Party Leaders…
Who was Margaret Horn? Yep, just another modest woman quietly getting on with it…
Every year on 15 November, we hold our Margaret Horn Lecture to celebrate Social Enterprise Day. This year I want to focus on the issues facing women…
Don’t look at me, look at my hands.
Job descriptions for leaders and managers always stipulate a need to communicate. And as a CEO, I am expected to be able to talk to many different…
Get off the diet kicks and learn to eat, serve and advise on nutritionally sound food.
Admit it, you’re either going on a diet, thinking about a diet or have just given up a diet and busy trying to accept your muffin top or your beer…
A LEYF approach to Men in Childcare: not quite as quick as saying Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Not so long ago, David Stevens, Manager of the Angel Nursery, which for a while had 4 male staff out of a team of five,…
Olympic legacy should begin with the Early Years and leave politics on the side-lines
I must admit that I was slightly worried about the Olympics. Not quite a naysayer but wary all…
Parent engagement: research tells us to avoid being a shrinking violet.
At the recent summer NDNA conference,…
Camp beds, James Bond and Pandemonium: the Olympics have arrived.
I was going to blog about babies and business which hit the headlines last week – namely how the newly appointed pregnant CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer will not take…
The Angels’ Share: a film that turns whiskey into a political metaphor. Drink Up!
When the weather is raining and grey, I often like to go to see a film in the afternoon. It beats drinking tea in front of the box, watching the…