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…
Fighting education inequality in the Early Years through food waste
An innovative partnership with City Harvest is helping us to plug a gap in Government funding and provide extra hours in nursery for children in need who are excluded…
Talking Early Years: Celebrating 120 Years at LEYF
The Year That is 2023 – This year, we are proud to celebrate 120 years of LEYF. It’s been fascinating to reflect back on what has changed over…
The Consultation is Here, Get Talking!
As a sector, we can sometimes come across as a bit split. Copyright Darren Fletcher Photography – Commissioned by The Sun This may be because we are part…
The Spring OBC Round Up
Thank you to those who came to the OBC on the 18th May. It was the ten-year anniversary of the #OBC and our first face to face meeting since…
Hobson’s Choice for the Early Years means No Choice at all!
Things continue to be difficult for the sector, and we seem to have few choices as to how we resolve the issues which all revolve around the recruitment…
London OBC 2023
In 2013, I set up the Ofsted Big Conversation #OBC because I was so dismayed at how our relationship had deteriorated with our regulator. I was beyond angry at what…
The Three Sides of the Red Box Budget
Hurrah, the importance to invest in the Early Years has finally filtered deep into the Treasury and the Chancellor responded in the Budget. So that is the good bit, but…
Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things on International Women’s Day…And Beyond
Each year we celebrate International Women’s Day in our own special way. The day was the idea of Clara Zetkin back in 1910 and was only recognised by the…
Dear Chancellor
A letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt
Early Years settings are key to building children’s health – and their chefs can be the catalysts
Research shows that the experiences young children and babies have during their first five years has a long-term effect on their cognitive, emotional and physical development and their life…
The Continuing Saga of the Childcare Cost
We have been raising the issues of childcare funding for over 10 years. It has been so long, I am amazed at how patient I’ve remained – and…
Time to Help Sustain Our Children’s Future
Never has the word ‘strategy’ been quite so exciting! That’s because it is THE Sustainability Strategy. A strategy is the plan, the road map or whatever cliché you want…