Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan (June O'Sullivan)

Whilst filming on-set with her newborn son, Charlotte Riley became very aware of how the lack of childcare was detrimental to the careers of so many women and men working in the film industry. She soon recognised that the kind efforts to support her bringing her baby on set could work for the lead actor but it was not an option for the hundreds of others who form the essential production team – without which no film or programme could ever be produced.

Listen to June chat with Charlotte about how her mission to improve childcare provision for the UK film industry has been a catalyst for deeper conversations on breast-feeding, menopause and ageism .

Why is child poverty not on the agenda? It’s a horrible situation that doesn’t just affect the child but the wider society. In this podcast I am discussing the issue with Katherine Hill who is the Strategic Project Lead for the London Child Poverty Alliance.  

 Do you enjoy listening to an honest, funny, down to earth conversation?  That sums up June's chat with serial social entrepreneur Karen Lynch. June met Karen many years ago when Karen was invited to rescue Belu Water which was in debt and its future was looking unsustainable. She stayed, turned it round and left it last year in a good place able to meet her £1m donation to Water Aid. 

Celebrating the publication of their new book: Social Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care: An Introduction, June and Mona sit down for a frank discussion about social leadership. By narrating the leadership of those who already lead with a social purpose in Early Childhood Education and Care, we can encourage more conversations about social leadership. Pour a cup of tea, and enjoy.
https://amzn.to/3R202pY 

June has been using the word, ‘pedagogy’ for many years and is now beyond delighted that LEYF can employ Pedagogy Coaches to support its nurseries understand how to embed pedagogy in their daily practice.  Listen to June chat with Siobhan, Konstantinos and Ricky, who explain the role of a Pedagogy Coach at LEYF and how it helps to builds  a quality practice!

Listen as Teresa Heaney, CEO of Early Childhood Ireland, explains how the Irish government has agreed to a number of positive actions following the publication of their evidence-based strategy, called First Five.

June kicked off this year’s podcast chatting to the well-informed Krupesh Hirani, London Assembly Member for Brent and Chair of the London Assembly Health Committee and the Health Inequalities Committee. 

What have Food Banks got to do with the Early Years? 

This year, LEYF is celebrating 120 years of history. In doing so, we are reflecting on what was in order to look towards the future.  

As an organisation, we have always been involved with issues of poverty and it was interesting to find that back in 1926 we were involved with the National Cookery School of Cookery which is a slightly different twist to what we are doing now. 

In this podcast, I am talking to two inspirational LEYF managers who have each gone that extra mile in the name of helping to tackle food poverty and supporting their local community.  

I was introduced to coaching by Stephen Gribben many years ago.  It was an interesting experience, and one I was not too sure how to make the best use of his generous pro bono service. However, I soon warmed to the idea of coaching which has remained with me and today we now put as many staff as possible through the Level 3 Diploma in Coaching.  Since then, Stephen has written a very informative book which has explored the subject even further.  

In this podcast we explore why people choose to be coached, what are their coaching intentions, do men are coached more than women and who chooses to be coached. A high proportion of those accessing coaching are CEOs, which does not surprise me because being a CEO is a lonely place whereby a CEO needs a space to think, to feel and just to download. You cannot do that with your team. 

Of course, coaching is more successful if you are clear about the real reasons you want to engage with one. It can be a suggestion from your manager as part of your self-development.  Stephen got very passionate about the difference between self-improvement and self-development and what that means. 

People have many reasons for having a coach, but it often starts because you want help to solve a problem or reframe it. For example, preparing to have a difficult conversation where the outcome is that both conversationalists survive and thrive from the conversation or being coached because you want to learn and not let your emotions dictate your choices, decisions and approaches or as singer/song writer, Cat Burns would say – avoid being a People Pleaser.  

This podcast explores these issues and many more and leaves you with some thoughts to guide you along the coaching pathway. Click here to listen 

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 that time (both good and bad) and what essentially remains the same. I consider children to be the litmus test of society and my reflections support this. 

Listen in to my interview reflecting on the LEYF history with two of our longest serving LEYF staff – Maureen and Gary, and one of our apprentices, Danayt.
Look out for our new Podcast series of “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things” and we are kicking off with Food Poverty.

As an organisation, we have always been involved with issues of poverty and it was interesting to find that back in 1926 we were involved with the National Cookery School of Cookery which is a slightly different twist to what we are doing now. Our organisation then was known as the City of Westminster Society of Health and was helping parents to learn how to cook to support their children’s health. Children were dying from malnutrition because they had too little to eat whilst today, children from poorer families are suffering from obesity resulting from a diet of poor-quality food high in fat, sugar and salt.  

Early Years is a highly political space where powerful issues of finance, education, employment, health, housing, and care all collide and we have to navigate through this with children’s futures central to the debate. 

Today, we are helping by training our chefs as part of the LEYF Early Years Chef Academy, running food banks and partnering with food pantries and food distribution organisations such as City Harvest.

In this podcast, I am talking to two inspirational LEYF managers who have each gone that extra mile in the name of helping to tackle food poverty and supporting their local community.  

My guest, Stuart Lewis, CEO of Rest Less, began to think about another response after conversations with his dad about the length of retirement.  He noted that his dad would have spent 25 years in retirement which is enough time to rethink a career. I totally understood that because my own Dad only stopped driving his taxi aged 75 and probably would have gone on longer but he had to care for my mother. 

After his dad died, Stuart watched a programme about an intergenerational nursery and was moved by the benefits of having older people and children together.  Underpinned by the impetus that necessity is the mother of invention, he formed Rest Less, a staffing agency focused on the Over 50s.  It was a sensible response when you learn that: 

• 1/3 of the working population is over the age of 50 
• Retention of the over 50s is better
• 70% of employment growth is in the over 50s age bracket
• Half a million people over the age of 50 want to work
• Intergenerational teams have better outcomes for staff and the business 

However, we do live in a very ageist world, especially for women. People operate in negative stereotypes and think older people are not physically able and will be off sick more.  That is not true!  I would assert that ageism is socially acceptable and it's often missing from the EDI agenda.   

The UK chancellor says he wants more of these people back to work. But statements alone at a national level simply cannot change things. Organisations need to think about their own longevity strategies and how that relates to members of their workforce who need to feel encouraged, valued and included if there is any hope of retaining them. A continued shortage of labour and an aging workforce will weigh heavy on growth prospects for the UK economy.  

So, let’s be creative. Chuck out the ageist bias like Ikea chucked out the chintz! 

Listen to my podcast with Stuart and find out how to engage with the Over 50s

For International Men’s Day on the 19th November 2012, I invited as many men as I could find who worked in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) to join us for a drink to discuss how we might build a London Men in Childcare Network.

We wanted to create a place where we could learn from the men who worked in Early Years about how they were experiencing the sector.  The evening was sparked by a conversation with David Stevens, who persuaded me that we should do more about encouraging Men in Childcare (MiC) across the sector, not just at LEYF.  At the time, David was a Nursery Manager of a nursery where four of the six staff were men.  This had not been a planned staffing arrangement but happened because other men wanted to be in a setting where they felt welcomed.  
Since then, we have conducted plenty of surveys which show that nearly 100% of female nursery staff were generally supportive of having male colleagues. They like the balance and think that it’s also good for children to see the gender stereotypes disrupted.  
We saw progress with a steady 8% at LEYF, but this was still not good enough. Given the efforts to encourage MiC, why has the sector begun to slip backwards again, given the obvious benefits for both children and staff? We are now back down to 2%, behind even the Government’s own target of 3%. 

This is the question I often discuss with David Stevens (Nursery Teacher), Greg Lane (below, Manager of Soho Nursery and Arts & Cultural Partnerships Lead) and Konstantinos Skordas (Pedagogy Manager and Chair of the LEYF MiC Community of Practice group).

Listen and let us know what you think? Should we have more MiC?  Do we need a wider MiC Community of Practice?  

It is not every day you get to talk to the Mayor’s Walking & Cycling Commissioner, but this is exactly who I am talking to in this podcast.  

Dr. Will Norman became London's first Walking and Cycling Commissioner in 2016 and now leads the Mayor’s work to make the capital’s streets safer for walking and cycling, enabling thousands more Londoners to choose greener, cleaner and healthier ways of traveling around the city.  Being able to walk and cycle safely in the city should be the right of every family in London, yet many London parents believe the capital's traffic-choked roads are too dangerous for their children to cycle on.   

However, given carbon footprint is one measure of sustainability and transport is 18% of that, it should be of no surprise just how beneficial both walking and cycling is for our health and the planet when done safely. 

 As obesity rates among children soar and the planet becomes even more damaged, what better way to take action and learn how to ride a bike because children who cycle regularly are more likely to become active adults.

Will is full of interesting facts and suggestions including the TfL grants designed to support settings instigate walking and / or cycling initiatives.

Listen to this Podcast to find out more

Solitaire Townsend is a remarkable woman. She is one of the leading international voices on communicating sustainability. In 2001, she co-founded Futerra, one of the few UK communications consultancies to specialise solely in sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. She has worked with senior management on internal and external initiatives across the UK, Europe and North America, implementing real and impactful solutions for a broad range of businesses, governments and NGO's including Unilever, Barnet Council, Shell, DECC, DFID, Defra and Greenpeace. 

She is also a member of the UN Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce and a member of the Green Alliance. In 2008, she was named one of fifteen 'London Leaders' by the Mayor of London. 

Her TED Talk in October 2021 asked the audience ‘Are ad agencies, PR firms and lobbyists destroying the climate?’ 

Soli’s work is not directly linked to children but she agrees that sustainability must begin with  our youngest citizens. She recognises the importance of positive narratives in a world where studies such as The Lancet Planetary Health (2021) are finding more and more children are suffering climate anxiety.  

I firmly believe we can all make progress if we combine the forces of education and business to create a strong and positive narrative. Yet in doing so, children need each and everyone one of us to step up in our own way and begin paving the way to solving the biggest crisis our planet has ever faced. 

If you want to find out how you can do this, listen to this podcast

Sarah Ronan, Director of the recently formed Early Education and Care Coalition (EECC) joined me to talk about the EECC. As a fellow Cork woman, she got a warm welcome!

The Early Years sector is often criticised for not always speaking with one voice, a consequence of being part of a very fragmented sector. The Coalition has been developing over the past year and is the brainchild of Lucie Stephens who some people will know from her work at the New Economics Foundation.

The Coalition has been set up to raise the importance of the Early Years; a cohesive voice to send a strong message to government and political parties that you cannot separate our interests, as we all want the best and most sustainable policy decisions to secure the sector. This must be of benefit for all children and reduce the way current policy is creating a gap between affluent and disadvantaged children. As Sarah says:

The clunky and segmented treatment of policy in this area has been delivered through the single lens of parental employment without a much bigger holistic view of the way in which it touches everyone's life. It also highlights the way in which the Government Departments need to interact when it comes to the life cycle of a child. They need to come together as well.

The Coalition commissioned a report from Claremont Behavioural Change Agency which looked at the public perception of the sector was very interesting, explaining that most people understood childcare but struggled with the concept of Early Education and Care, a finding that was supported by the Royal Foundation Centre research last year.  Given 42% of people said childcare would influence their choice of votes in the next election then maybe the Coalition can help. I look forward to joining them at a panel at the Labour Party Conference this weekend.

If you are interested in a helping shape a plan to creating a national Early Years strategy and committed to working together then listen here and consider how you and your wider circle can step in and step up.

Workout to Help with Salas… and Bring Kindness to the World 

Life is very serendipitous and leads to meeting some very engaging people who want to do something helpful with their time on this earth. Salas Baldas is one of these people.  I heard about his work from a friend of mine who attended his workouts during Covid lockdown and then I discovered how he developed these workouts to support people all over the world through his project ’Workout to Help’. 

Salas was born in Guinea Bissau in West Africa, moved to Portugal, Lisbon when he was about 10 years and now lives in south London. His story is about how to turn something you enjoyinto a way of becoming.  It is how simple ideas can be used to support people who are struggling through connections and conversations. He is the antithesis of the view shared by Mohamed Yunus Link that indifference is the enemy.  

After the pandemic lock-down rules were lifted, Salas and his friend, Nico took their van and travelled to Africa,Brazil and Peru to support local individuals and families in need of help.  For example, they provided a wheelchair to a family in Peru and repaired a house in Dominica which included giving the family a front door and windows so they felt safe.  His ’Workout to Help’ has now become a network which he is funding from the profits of his new clothing line.  

His delightful new cartoon book,  Workout to Help traveling the world with Salas: Guinea-Bissau (and just published on Amazon) tells of his personal story which is beautifully illustrated and teaches children what kindness and empathy can look like. 

Salas is a great role model for our children and, over the next few months, will come and tell his story to schools and groups. I suggest you connect with him, not least because his sheer positivity and joy will light up your day, but his message about the need to do better for the world should resonate with all of us . Listen to his podcast and connect. 

My first Podcast of 2024 is an interview with the very delightful Matt Arnerich, Director of Brand & Comms at Famly – an Early Childhood Platform that bridges the collaboration gap between the grown-ups who raise young children. It supports around 6,000 Early Years providers and families to communicate, share information, run their business and learn new things. Whilst we don’t subscribe to Famly’s platform at LEYF, we are very supportive of its work. 

I wanted to talk to Matt about his international perspective of Early Years Education and Care (EYEC), what he thinks are the benefits of digitalisation for pedagogical practice and clarify the difference between digitalisation and digitisation (who knew?!). I was also keen to hear his take on AI in the Early Years, which is something I am very interested in understanding better.  

As background, Matt’s international take on the Early Years began at home with his Mum working in the sector. His family heritage stems from New Zealand, Europe and a bit of Irish!  He has lived in Denmark for the past seven years, his partner is from Finland and he is working with Famly across the UK, Denmark, Norway, Germany and the US.  

We started our international exploration in Denmark, a country that is often cited in a somewhat rose-tinted way by the press as a great example of providing access to affordable high quality EYEC. The Princess of Wales visit there in 2022, as part of her campaigning for The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, highlighted the emphasis the Danes place on the importance of childhood and playing freely away from panicky parents. Here, they actively want their children to enjoy being children and be able to play indoors and outdoors all day long. They start school aged six but nothing in their PISA scores suggests that this approach is failing them. In fact, they are much higher up the scale than the schoolified US and UK.  Matt quoted the great Sir Ken Robinson who reminded us that a 3-year-old is not half a 6-year-old, right? 

To hear about the other countries and discover the huge funding crisis in the US, the shift in Government expectations in Denmark and the sheer size of certain church groups in Germany which run the kindergartens, you will have to listen to the full podcast. 

Do you know the difference between digitalisation and digitisation?  
It’s a subtle difference but it is  significant in terms of the outcome. We digitalise tasks to make them simpler like using programmes on iPads to capture observations with a Grammarly, checking to correct the write ups. Digitisation is taking something in the real world and making it digital for the sake of making it digital. Like trying to have a programme to record fridge temperatures which would be done ten times quicker by just writing it on a sheet of paper and pinning it to the fridge. The warning here is to understand the difference and don’t cause yourself more aggravation by complicating a task that is better on paper or using digitalisation to raise parents’ expectations. You end up a slave to your iPad, failing to see what’s happening around you because you are bent over the iPad writing up what has happened earlier! 

Finally, I asked Matt about AI (Artificial Intelligence) because I know he is exploring how to use it more efficiently and I am learning more and more about it so I can use it sensibly, and not be scared of it. I suggested he might consider developing some webinars about using Chat GPT which I think would be rather helpful. 

In a world that is now undeniably digital, with disruptive technologies arriving at breakneck speed and continually changing how we live and work, the need to stay connected and collaborative has never been greater. This not only makes us more productive and efficient when done correctly, it allows us the time to focus on what matters. 

According to Barnardos, it is estimated that there are up to 310,000 children every year with a parent in prison in England and Wales. And for those children, this can lead to poor physical and mental health and significant trauma, especially as some of them will have witnessed some of the criminal activity or even the arrest of their parent.  It is not unheard that no one collects a child from school because they have been convicted at a court hearing earlier in the day.  Can you imagine the impact on a child?

These conversations led to an introduction to Andy Keen-Downs, CEO of PACT.  He described the125 year-old children’s charity within the prison service as a well-kept secret! In this podcast he tells us more about PACT and the National Prisoners Helpline 0808 808 2003 which provides lots of support and information for families and  had 30,000 calls over the past 12 months: Prisoners' Families Helpline (prisonersfamilies.org). There is some support for older children and professionals: For children | Prison Advice and Care Trust and For professionals | Prison Advice and Care Trust but this podcast is all about what we can do in the Early Years to help. Here is a taster statistic that will make you think!

Six out of 10 boys with a father  in prison  will follow their father into prison, and they're more likely to go to prison than to go to university.

One of the LEYF managers recounted a story that sadly supported this statistic. She remembered one of the children aged 4 announcing that her Dad was in jail and when she grew up she would go to jail too.  She said:

            “I will be a burglar because I am very good at creeping around and climbing”

At LEYF we have now developed a pack for the Early Years sector in collaboration with PACT to help people respond when they know or suspect that a child’s parent may be in prison.  It is such a sensitive situation requiring deep levels of compassion to navigate because people remain very ashamed of the situation.   We know that when families are able to support the prisoner , reoffending drops by 39%, which is significant for the children living in those families. Our job is to remember that we must never write off children of prisoners and reject the expression of  ‘the apple doesn't fall far from the tree’.

Every child has promise and if you believe this and you want system change then listen to the podcast!

“I see myself as the Benjamin Button of Education” In conversation with Dr Ger Graus. 

The power of play is recognised within the Early Years sector as essential to children’s development. Playing is a child’s right and is our main teaching tool.  As Friedrich Froebel said so eloquently back in 1837, “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul.” 

Yet today, we are limiting children’s opportunity for play more and more.  I still hear people’s stories of how children as young as three are told to ‘Finish your work and then you can go and play’ or ‘you are behind with your work, so you miss playtime’. 

My podcast guest is Dr Ger Graus OBE who was the first director of KidZania, which went on to be one the fastest growing global educational entertainment brands, with 28 locations around the world.  I first met him in 2016 when I visited KidZania to see how we could adapt the experiences for children aged three and four. We were defeated by the safeguarding implications of letting children have the freedom to explore without adult supervision.  

For Ger, Early Years is not a place to drop off a child for a few hours to get a reprieve for parental responsibility but a place of education and care, with staff doing their best to educate children. A child is everyone’s responsibility! He argues that our job is to create an education which helps children navigate the technological revolution. To do that, Ger is keen that we agree what 10 experiences every four-year-old should have. 
What do you think? 

In this podcast with Prue Leith, we discover that Prue’s approach to life is summed up by her autobiography, “I'd Try Anything Once” and the more she talks the more you believe it! From posh white girl in South Africa  to judge on Bake Off,  food dominates Prue’s career. Her passion is undimmed as is her patience with the stupidity of politicians. She provides an entertaining but thoughtful summary of her efforts to put small children's health and access to food right at the centre of modern politics. We might even end up with a Masterchef for Nursery cuisine. 

Listen to Prue’s stimulating take on what we should do!

It’s fitting that this podcast is being aired on International Children’s Day because Sir Al is a huge advocate for children over his very busy and noteworthy 50 years.  His message is powerful, and he pulls no punches about his frustration over the failure of our country to take seriously the importance of children, and particularly those in the Early Years. 

“Every child should be given the resources to achieve her or his full potential. Now, why don't we have that being articulated, let alone actioned? It is utterly dire in my view.” 

He despairs at the serious erosion of the basic humanity of the caring services and his new purpose is putting compassion back into compassionate care that we provide for people, especially children.  

“There is a mismatch between our wonderful science and all of our services and the dismal failure of politicians to recognise the importance of children “.  

“…chiselled in letters of stone over every Department of State should be this. We need healthy, educated, creative, resilient and happy children, with the life skills to become the productive adults of the future and the competent parents of the future.”  

Reflecting on Every Child Matters which he describes as the world's best policy programme for children (one for which he proudly shared across the world) – it was the brainchild of the Labour Party,  then destroyed by a triple whammy. The Coalition government dismantling it without any serious debate, then austerity followed (and its dreadful impact on families), followed by COVID. Effectively, it was the destruction of the world's best policy programme for children which he despairs does not appear to be top of the Labour manifesto.  

We discuss the low birth rate, the old age dependency ratio between working adults and the elderly, fertility rates, immigration, the science of attachment, brain development, synaptic connection, his book The British Betrayal of Childhood and much more… 

  
Listen to his call to action and get involved.  Start by listening and sharing this podcast… 

Baby, It’s Time  

Do you think babies are a focus of care and education policy enough?  Do we have a baby policy blind spot?   We think so!  

This is the subject of my conversation with Sally Hogg, Senior Policy Fellow at the Centre for Research on Playing Education, Development and Learning better known as PEDAL. 

Why has this issue become so important now?  Well, because of the speed of the childcare expansion. From September, babies from nine months will be able to access a nursery place. Getting it right from conception to two years is more crucial than at any other stage of learning. The brain development in babies is startling. Just imagine the baby brain as a firework of synaptic connections, fizzing across brains and forming strong cerebral pathways.  

 If you are interested in the Under 2's and what makes great practice, listen to my conversation with Sally Hogg and share it widely.  You know the  drill! 

Slow Pedagogy 

Slow pedagogy calls for compassion where we actively do something to address suffering. 

During Covid, the LEYF staff running our 15 nurseries for key workers had a call with me at 3pm every day.  I looked forward to our chats and it wasn’t long until they we talking about  how the reduction in numbers of children, time to play, less curricular demands and  fewer wider issues was positively impacting on the children and they in turn were slowing down the pedagogy to allow the children time to just enjoy being children.

Let’s think about slowing down early childhood in the world of fast living and undesirable excess  is the message.  Let’s ignore the government or business ethos of targets and consumerism. It isn’t working!  No one is satisfied! 

Have a listen and tell us what you think. 

Getting into your Ofsted Groove!

In this podcast I talk to Wendy Ratcliff and Sam Sleeman-Boss from Ofsted about the Big Listen, refreshed handbooks, new complaints procedure and the research review series and how they are feeling about the Ofsted Academy and the future of Ofsted. While there are some things they cannot answer yet, like how will Ofsted reshape, I am holding them to the promise of a research report on babies especially with the expansion of childcare to include little babies of 9-months-old.

The conclusion of the conversation confirms that we need to continue with our OBC to keep engaged with our regulator so we have a voice in what is often a national debate that only focuses on Ofsted in schools. 

The next London OBC is 31st of October, get your ticket here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-obc-october-2024-tickets-1007508564237

Listen to this to help you get into the Ofsted groove. 

It seems strange that in 2024 parents feel the need to lead a campaign about healthy food, but with the help of the Children’s Food Campaign at Sustain, that’s exactly what they are doing. Indeed, they managed to get to meet members of parliament to share their manifesto with them.

In this podcast I speak to Barbara Crowther, Children’s Food Campaign Manager at Sustain and parent ambassador Jaynaide Powis about their comprehensive polling of over 2,000 parents conducted by Savanta and the Children’s Food Campaign which has helped determine the biggest challenges faced by parents in the current food system and their top priorities for change.  

Listen as we explore topical questions such as:  

1. Is it time to stop our snacking culture?  
2. Do we need to go back to the days when we all learned to cook in the home economics class at school  
3. Should nurseries have free nursery food and should all chefs be trained with  credible Chef qualification such as our degree from the Early Years Chef Academy ? 
4. Do we need statutory food guidance for nurseries and childminders? 
5. Should Ofsted be inspecting food in nurseries and childminders? 
6. What further policies are needed to support them.  

There is a lot of concern about recently qualified staff who appear to find adjusting to the workplace a challenge and seem to have emerged with degrees which are low quality. As an employer of nearly 1000 staff, that is an issue, because my job isn’t simply to recruit staff but to succession plan ( and I don’t mean that in a Brian Cox sort of way!). 
Therefore, these concerns which I am hearing about from many quarters are of concern.  But are these facts or rumours and setting out self -fulfilling prophesies? Is it just university ranking snobbery? 

So, I asked Professor Eunice Lumsden, from the University of Northampton who heads up the Childhood Youth and Families Department and is responsible for a whole suite of degrees from undergraduate to postgraduate, that cover a raft of subjects including early childhood studies, education, social work to working with children. 

Listen to find out what this means for us as employers and university and college teachers! 

Sarah Ronan is the director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) – an organisation made up of 35 members which represent children, parents, providers, the Early Years workforce and the wider business community.

Like many others in the Early Years sector, Sarah's journey is deeply personal. Her own experiences with inaccessible childcare, combined with her passion for women’s issues, led her to work with organisations like the Women’s Budget Group and Pregnant Then Screwed. She firmly believes that access to childcare is a core feminist issue – not only for women as parents but also for the predominantly female workforce in the sector. It also shines a light on the broader politics of care and its critical importance in society.

Building a coalition in the Early Years sector is no small feat. It requires both time and resources, especially in a field as diverse and market driven as this. The first year of the coalition's work focused on laying the groundwork behind the scenes –aligning priorities and getting everything in place before officially launching its efforts.

Key to this is producing robust research evidence and effective policy solutions, both of which require significant energy to drive the movement forward and, according to Sarah, this has been lacking in Early Years for some time.

Her long-term ambition is for a movement that is not just a formal group of people but one that weaves together all the informal structures, dynamics and mechanisms that exist into a powerful catalyst that can become a force for change and therefore a force for good.

Sarah raises the challenges of a coalition which are not just keeping the energy powered but also securing funds to create the communication content and lead the advocacy to get in front of the right people. It is these individuals who can help drive the change needed to create a fair and accessible service for all children and their families.

So, have a listen to a master class on developing networks and coalitions in an Early Years that must do much more to share our powerful message with politicians, policy makes and the public.

A Right to be Children: The Importance of the Design Architecture 

The importance of architecture to Early Years is often misunderstood. The building is part of the enabling environment and needs to be designed to support learning by creating the right environment and resources both indoors and outside. They are also integral to meeting the sustainability pillars; economic, social and environments in their design for example where they are situated, and how they support local communities and the local biodiversity.  Nowadays, people are thinking even more about the towns and cities, the city of play and how to make them child friendly and position schools and nurseries as community catalysts.

If you are interested in design and want to understand why it matters and how we need a strong relationship with architects, then listen here.

In this episode, June O'Sullivan, the CEO of London Early Years Foundation talks about how she reformed from being a charity many years ago into a social business to deliver specific impact. We discuss the seven elements of the LEYF pedagogy that really addresses the rights of children and how June measures it with the LEYF Pedagogical Development Scales (LPDS) she uses to evaluate success. 

Who Says Giraffes Can’t Dance?

 Well, Giles Andreae did! He also reminded us that there is a Rumble in the Jungle and a Commotion in the Ocean and if you look hard enough you will find Captain Flinn with the Pirate Dinosaurs in Smuggler’s Bay.

Giraffe Can’t Dance reached the top five most best-selling books in lockdown, not surprising because poor Gerald the Giraffe thinks he can’t dance and so cannot join his friends for the Jungle dance and feels  “so sad and so alone”.  This probably reflected how a lot of people felt at the beginning of the pandemic but remembering Gerald and re-reading his story they were buoyed by the cricket’s lovely advice

“But sometimes when you’re different, you just need a different song”

I wanted to meet the author who charmed so many children and adults and, lucky for me, Giles agreed and together we made the very first Talking Early Years podcast. I have been wanting to do a podcast forever but there was always a reason to avoid stepping into a public conversation. But getting the chance to chat to Giles was the catalyst I needed.

I hope you enjoy our chat about how Giles started writing children’s books, what makes a great storybook, can teachers read stories and what made him write stories about being brave enough to be different.

June O’Sullivan meets leading, award-winning expert in Early Years education, Laura Henry.

Join them for a cuppa where they discuss the power of literacy for children’s long term learning and development, multi-generational relationships and the inspiration behind Laura's book; JoJo and Gran Gran which has become the first British-made animated TV show for CBeebies centred around the lives of a black family.

The programme has since won legions of fans, with parents taking to Twitter to applaud the step towards greater diversity. The character of Gran Gran is loosely based upon Laura's own grandmother, Marie Helenac, who came to the UK from St Lucia in the 1950s.

June O’Sullivan meets Dr Lala Manners who has enjoyed a long and varied career in the field of Early Years movement studies and physical development: as a teacher, trainer, educator, consultant, researcher, author and broadcaster. 

Here, they debate the importance of practitioners engaging in physical development and overcoming the fear by getting ‘stuck in’ whilst allowing children to just be. To sit still. To stand still. To observe the here and now – all vital components of improving a child’s mental and physical health development.

Poor physical development in young children has been shown to impact readiness for school, behaviour, social development and academic achievement which is why daily movement, tailored to particular ages and groups of children, must be placed at the heart of the curriculum in order to support all aspects of learning.

To be honest, cultural capital is not the usual conversation piece. But it is both a conscious and unconscious part of our everyday lives. Now that Ofsted has introduced the concept into the new inspection framework, cultural capital will become more conscious for many people based on the essential knowledge that children need to be educated citizens. 

 Here, Helen discusses why cultural capital should be inclusive and driven by language and literacy whereby everyone, regardless of their background, has something valid to contribute and that the interaction between children and their families is where they will learn the best.

Of course, cultural capital cannot be separated from the home learning environment. Every home has cultural capital, it’s just that society values some culture more highly than others.

Join June O’Sullivan in discussion with the Book Trust’s CEO, Diana Gerald who helps transform lives by getting children and families reading.

With a deep understanding of the role that education plays in creating opportunity, which is at the heart of BookTrust's work, Diana talks about how she got the best job in the world and how challenging it can be to get children to read, despite the golden age and the rich diversity of books available. 

They discuss the importance of why parents should be encouraged to read with their children daily (despite the reality of many varied lives and work patterns) and how Early Years settings can be utilised to get books back into the home. 

The discussion also focuses on how the number of people who come to work in the Early Years have never been taught how to read a story and asks should there be more guidance? Whilst the assumption may be that everyone is an instinctive storyteller - that’s not always the case… especially when storytelling to a group or storytelling to an individual. However, according to Diana there is no right way – it’s about what you do that really matters… Let us know what you think.

June O’Sullivan meets CJ Bowry, CEO of Surrey based charity, Sal’s Shoes which has distributed an impressive two million pairs of shoes in the UK and across the world in a bid to tackle the rise in shoe poverty.

In a world whereby 300 million children are often walking without shoes – risking foot injures and disease, the charity avoids waste by sending a pair of clean, good quality shoes to another child who will benefit and may be able to share them onwards.

Having discovered Sal’s Shoes on Twitter when a LEYF nursery manager noticed that many of the children returning to nursey after lockdown were wearing inappropriate, badly-fitting or broken shoes, Sals Shoes kindly responded by generously donating 25 pairs of new shoes to Angel Pre School (LEYF) in South Westminster – all of which were greatly received.

Shoe poverty is the kind of poverty that impacts children’s confidence and their self-esteem. Never has there been a greater need for children’s shoe donations and put a Spring in Their Step.

Listen here to what CJ has to say…

June O’Sullivan meets Chefs in Schools CEO, Naomi Duncan who is leading a new revolution in school food, recruiting and training chefs with pedigrees from some of London’s top restaurants such as Nopi & Noma to take on food and food education in schools. 

Backed by leading chefs and restaurateurs including Henry Dimbleby, Prue Leith and Yottam Ottolenghi, they have changed the face of school food for more than 10,000 pupils already.
 
As with LEYF’s Chef Academy, they too believe that children have an absolute and vital right to enjoy and learn about fresh, nutritious food - and most importantly, get excited about it! Equipping the next generation with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves and their families well, should be a central part of the education offered in both nurseries and schools. 

Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan: In conversation with Julian Grenier

I was very pleased to talk to Julian Grenier, Headteacher of Sheringham Nursery School in Newham. He and I have always had a mutual respect for our work, but we have not always seen eye to eye and I hope that continues. Great practice comes from robust debate and critical, serious thinking where we have the mutual respect to listen and consider each other’s points of view and counter the arguments rationally, honestly and openly... read the full post on leyf.org.uk 

Listen to June O’Sullivan talk candidly with Dr Linda Greenwall – founder of the charity, Dental Wellness Trust about the urgent need for free supervised tooth brushing programmes to be implemented across Early Years settings and schools.

According to the latest figures by the Local Government Association which show nearly 45,000 hospital operations were performed to remove children’s rotten teeth during 2018/19 as a result of tooth decay and high sugar diets – never has there been a more pertinent time to address this preventable crisis. 

Although tooth decay does not discriminate, it is strongly associated with deprivation and social exclusion says Dr Greenwall. This was made worse during 2020 when dental practices were forced to shut and many children were unable to attend appointments as well as their nursery. Alarmingly, almost three-quarters of children have not seen a dentist since the start of last year – despite recommendations that children have annual check-ups. 

Better dental hygiene taught at an early age will have long term benefits for children’s teeth, fewer nursery days lost and better overall health and wellbeing of our children. 

Click to find out WHY prevention is better than cure…

The Importance of Storytelling : In Conversation with Trisha Lee from Make Believe Arts

Trisha is passionate about Gussin-Paley but she is even more passionate about the rationale for storytelling and why its so important. She rails against the schoolification which squeezes out storytelling in favour of learning the structure of writing so now children can tell you what an adverb is but are writing in a way that will never be listened to.  

Listen to Trisha talk about storytelling as oral stories, poems, formal books and audio books. She reminds us that Gussin Paley read books like Charlotte’s Web to four-years-olds. She sees children able to understand much more complex ideas through stories. Because of COVID-19, she has recorded stories and poems with music to share with people on her website. 

Children's mental health: In conversation with Kate Silverton

Mum to two young children, journalist and children's mental health advocate, Kate Silverton shares her ground-breaking new approach to parenting under-fives that helps to make family life so much easier with her best-selling book: There’s No Such Thing as ‘Naughty’.

Listen to the podcast and enjoy a conversation which also asks if we know so much about supporting children to become emotionally literate, why are so many Government policies rejecting all this research?

https://leyf.org.uk/podcast-kate-silverton/ 

Gill and June became friends under the most usual circumstances. June was very fed up with Ofsted and the attitude they had towards the Early Years sector. Gill was appointed the Director of Early Years and she listened. She heard what the sector was saying and has been listening ever since.

Have a listen to Gill talk about her fourteen years at Ofsted, her passion for music and how she thinks the Early Years will continue to thrive.

 https://leyf.org.uk/podcast-gill-jones/

 It was a chance conversation with Jim Blakemore that led to the beginning of what has now become a strong relationship between LEYF and Bikeworks and has encouraged two wider conversations between the two organsiations.

Have a listen to June in conversation with the two founders of Bikeworks, Jim Blakemore and Zoe Portlock as they discuss the growth of Bikeworks, their response to COVID-19 and why access to bikes and cycling for children and families can help people build their inner confidence.

 https://leyf.org.uk/podcast-bikeworks

We all agree that child obesity is a complex issue and addressing it can seem overwhelming. Therefore, partnering and learning from others is crucial.

June's conversation with Sonia Pombo,  ranges from discussion on salt "the silent killer", salt in hot chocolate, subtle ways to reduce salt and the importance of an Early Years chef to be trained.  As a parent, nutritionist and working parent Sonia provides a very interesting overview as what we can do in nursery to support parents and challenge the food myths, fads, snacking, confusing packaging and the ethics of the food industry that can overwhelm us. 

https://leyf.org.uk/podcast-action-on-salt

 Leslee Udwin is a film maker and founder of the organisation Think Equal. She is on a mission to achieve a global system change In Early Childhood Education through social and emotional learning based on empathy, equality and inclusion. 

In this podcast Leslee talks passionately about her journey and her remarkable energy to persuade everyone to understand how social and emotional learning from the earliest age has a huge benefit on the long-term behaviour attitudes and values of young people across the world. 

It was when June was talking at a conference about community engagement where she met Professor Norma Raynes.  She is a lively, impassioned speaker who asked the question – why do we exclude the old from nurseries and school? Does their experience, knowledge and understanding count for nothing? She told of the organisation she founded to address this very pertinent issue. The organisation is, of course, FromGeneration2Generation. Enjoy and connect! 

Time to Put Empathy at the Heart of Pedagogy

June got to know Helen Garnett when she met her at an Empathy Lab event and was enthralled by her description of the word ‘empathy’. It was a light-bulb moment.  June soon realised that both children and adults were not born with a given level of empathy. On the contrary. It is developed throughout each of our lives and is a vital skill. Furthermore. empathetic behaviour doesn’t just happen – it is caught within a loving and nurturing environment.

Listen to their discussion,  see if you can answer the question what can we do to increase empathy?