It’s always interesting to meet television journalists up close and personal – and that’s exactly what I did on Wednesday, when LEYF Chair of Trustees, Tim Willis and I went to an Acevo Leaders to Leaders lunch.  Robert Peston, Business Editor at BBC was the speaking guest, and I had booked the lunch some time ago, as I had got used to using the Peston daily bulletin to keep me appraised of the unfolding economic drama back in 2008, and I was keen to hear his latest economic analysis, along with his take on the way out of the mess.

Once there, it very quickly became clear how Peston lives and breathes business economics. It was like being locked in a room with an Early Years obsessive!  He pontificated on the 20 years of unprecedented recorded growth, the lending and borrowing boom and its abrupt end in 2007/08, the shrinking bank balance then replaced by a huge growth in the public sector balance sheet.  He described this as the biggest event in his career, one that catapulted him into the limelight; a place he seems eminently comfortable in.

I was very keen to hear his economic predictions.  He started by telling us a lot of what we all know too well: Economics is not a good science and we have to look to history for some guidance; and globalisation creates global problems, but we have national governments, so it is hard to find a balanced way to either respond or influence. In effect there is no quick way out of this.

He continued to predict a less optimistic growth rate than Mr Osborne‘s anticipated 2-3%, suggesting reality is more likely to be nearer 1%.  He reminded us that debt is still 180% ratio to disposable income, whilst the big cost of the bank bailout debt equated to £5000 for every person on the planet.  The most horrible fact was that despite all the cuts, repayment is making little more than a tiny chink in the debt. The reality of economics is that we won’t know if Osborne is doing the right thing until it’s too late.

So his survival tactics were:

The lunch concluded with Preston advising us to re-think our approach; getting smarter and more efficient, whilst supporting the private sector to develop more jobs.
So that means we continue pushing staff to grow occupancy and collect fees on time, we increase the introduction to finance that our CRLD team has introduced for our apprentices, and we take more apprentices to help them into work.  We will also push for a project with A4E to support parents in managing their money and limit the risk of debt.

It was a useful lunch and one which reaffirmed the need to develop, implement and insist on business practices designed to reduce reckless financial behaviour at every level; if left unchecked, this simply puts everything and everyone at risk of disaster.

At LEYF, our core business is delivering daycare for 1500 children each year in our 21 community nurseries; but our core business approach must be working to secure these; and financial rigour is right at the very heart of it.

I have just come back from a two day NDNA conference in Leeds, accompanied by two of our nursery officers – Audrey Grant from Lisson Green and Wendy Buckingham from Ford Road (and very good company they were too).

As you may have spotted from our comments recently in Nursery World, at LEYF we believe that attending and presenting at key conferences not only helps boost the organisation’s reputation, but is also and more importantly critical to personal development.

This particular conference presented many opportunities to extend thinking about our own practice, and Wendy and Audrey were both quick to analyse the value of the new ideas put forward and have gone off with some of that data to test in their own settings.

The conference was opened with a rousing overview from Purnima Tanuku, CEO of the NDNA, who set a positive and upbeat vibe for the day. She reminded us that the sector is not small beer, that we should be confident about the clout we have to create and sustain employment, as well as providing the means to enable parents to work and contribute to the economy. Purnima also showered us with facts which told an interesting story.  For example, did you know there are:

• 475,000 Early Years practitioners in the UK
• 360,000 in the PVI sector
• 73% of this workforce are Level 3 qualified
• 13% have achieved Level 6
• 7000 are Early Years Professionals
• 90%  of staff are in permanent employment
• 98% are female
• Average occupancy in nurseries is 82%
• The nursery sector is worth £4.41 billion pounds and contributes £381,780,000 towards the UK income tax bill

Of course, we are struggling with the economic downturn and some businesses have gone out of operation, yet generally the stronger more capable businesses are surviving. It is a slow growth period, but it’s flat lining rather than plummeting.

Interestingly, later in the day Philip Blackburn from Laing and Buisson described  the nursery market as mature, with much more emphasis being placed on developing quality and service innovation.

The age old problem of the cost of the universal offer was highlighted, and Purnima revealed some big differences in the Nursery Education Grant across the country – varying from between £2.04 to £3.99, with very few local authorities funding the actual cost through their hourly rate. This looks unlikely to be resolved and will continue to take all our business and leadership creativity to balance the books while running a flexible offer.

Sarah Teather, our Minister, joined us to give a confident speech, subsequently endearing herself to the audience by staying to answer some difficult questions honestly and comprehensively. She reaffirmed the aim of the government was to close the attainment gap in children from poor backgrounds, something she felt could happen with the support of our very diverse sector.

As ever, she asked us for our input; but asked in the right way and we will always rise to the request.  In this case, our feedback is now sought on a number of reviews, including Tickell’s recommendations, Ofsted, the Code of Practice and the workforce. So that is one weekend of survey monkey to look forward to!

She acknowledged that much of our frustration comes from the interpretation of the many regulations we face; apparently Local Authorities have 200 pages of guidance, so little wonder there are concerns around interpretation. Let’s help get the guidance on one page.  We are trying to do that with our HR policies at LEYF, and if we can do it, the Government certainly can.

Sarah Teather clarified that access to free places must be free.  Parents must not be expected to pay for extras or lunch in order to access the free offer. The chair, Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent at The Times, got a great guffaw from the audience when she asked

…Minister, do you not think it’s your job to ring up local authorities and tell them to pay a fair rate?”

The Minister also picked up the audiences concern that the new Level 3 CYPW Diploma was weak and would not ensure quality, especially as it lacks any real child development input, no units on play and can be completed in 2 long assessments with limited literacy assessment.  This puts the heart crossways for many employers, especially those of us training 16 to 19 year olds.  Our minister at least had the decency to accept our concerns and said she would review it.

We need to think about qualifications and whether they are fit for purpose.”

The following day we were patronised by the head of the CWDC, who more or less told us to get stuffed, saying the CWDC had consulted with employers and we had agreed to this.  Having recently spoken with all the big employers, along with a colleague representing employers on the CWDC working group attending the conference, we were collectively stunned by such an assertion, as none of us have been approached by the CWDC on any matter, let alone the Diploma.

Audrey and Wendy certainly liked the presentation by Catherine Prisk, Director of Play England, who made an impassioned plea to encourage risky play. I laughed given I had blogged about this last week. She pressed her point by asking the audience to remember our best play experience. She then asked whether it was inside or outside…naturally everyone put their hands up for outside.  She then went in for the kill, asking us whether we were with friends or adults.  Yes, of course, it was without an adult.  Who would want one of them around to spoil the fun; a point also made by a child she quoted who described play as

Play is what I do when you stop telling me what to do.”

Spare a thought then for our children, who not only go to school far too early, but come home to spend far too much time with Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog as companions.  Our challenge is to create an environment where they have the opportunities to test themselves, to feel fear, to find solutions and to gain mastery. We had a presentation from Sandfield Natural Play Centre in Liverpool which has built in risky play into their curriculum.  We were delighted by photos of her forest school approach.  It inspired the following quote from Wendy, who is going to build a fire pit in Ford Road whilst I cut the ribbon and celebrate over a toasted marshmallow.

Risky Play Rocks; stepping out on a rocky road adventure together, we have the potential to move beyond scaredy cats to confident and creative staff and children. Rock on!

Wendy Buckingham, Ford Road Children’s Centre Nursery

Catherine Prisk reminded those afraid of risky play to read two books to give them greater confidence:

• Common Sense Common Safety; Lord Young, October 2010
• Too safe for their own good; Jennie Lindon, 2011-06-09

After a tasty lunch (what is it about conferences, we sit all day and are constantly hungry?),  we were regaled with a presentation on attachment by Robin Balbernie, who shocked us all by saying 55% adults and 60% of children had poor attachment. He reminded us that attachment is a child’s biological response to fear and danger and actually sculpts our brain; a fact not lost on our CRLD team which is keen to roll out and develop their Brain Development CPD programme.

Robin continued by emphasising the crucial role of adults who care for babies, since the damage from poor attachment is done by the end of their first year. So shout out for all our staff who work with babies! It certainly got Audrey thinking about how we can do more at LEYF. We also need to improve our assessment of attachment, especially as we are about to increase our offer to two year olds in line with Government policy; we need to figure out better ways of assessing attachment, and supporting staff and parents to respond to children in a way that helps ensure the child’s forms secure attachments.  Apparently, assessing at collection time is the better time to weigh up the child’s state of attachment, as the reunion following the separation is the place where you can better gauge the quality of attachment.

Neil Griffiths of Storysack fame ended the day with a stirring call for us to read books to children, so they will be inspired to read for pleasure.  He advised those reading stories just before lunch using a dying wasp voice with the face like a slug’s bottom need to leave and go and work elsewhere. He read us the story of the little mouse, the ripe red strawberry and the big hungry bear until tears of laughter ran down our faces.  How I wished the whole of LEYF were there to experience it.  Maybe they will some day soon.

Audrey summed it up when she said she would encourage staff to…

“…hold the book as if it were your most treasured possession, and use everything at your disposal – including your vocal acrobatics – to engage children so the story becomes part of their memories.”

We have it in our power to build the world anew.”

Thomas Paine 1737 -1809

To celebrate 25 years of wedded bliss (well, most of the time), my husband and I headed off on a week of cultural events, stopping in the little town of Lewes.  I was surprised to discover that Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man (1791), had lived here from 1768 to 1774, before heading to America – where he not only changed their constitution but was also central to naming it the United States of America.

For those of you less familiar, The Rights of Man posited that people have natural rights along with responsibilities, but can revolt if the government is failing to safeguard those natural rights and interests. Paine also argued for the ‘Rights of Infants’ to be free from abuse and poverty.  It’s  a modern message and probably worth a re-read, especially for those of us advocating on behalf of children.

I was equally reminded by my long-wedded husband that Thomas Paine also featured in one of his favourite Bob Dylan songs, As I went out one morning.  That set the tone of the CDs for the rest of the journey; Mozart to Bob Dylan, both of whom would feature in my Desert Island Discs (having already submitted my collection to the reader’s choice, with a million to one chance they will be played on June 11^th). Now, Desert Island Discs being one of my favourite programmes on Radio 4, I have on occasion written to its guests as a direct response to hearing their world view on air; one in particular being Professor David Phillips, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry.  I asked his opinion about how we ensure science remains a crucial focus of the Early Years curriculum, as the basis for inspiring interest and excitement in the subject by our youngest children.

At LEYF, we recently conducted a piece of action research in this very area, led in the main by two exemplary practitioners, Maria Anemouri from Eastbury Children’s Centre Nursery and Michelle Samuels from Marsham Street Community Nursery. We asked the question: was science too focused on biology? Upon investigation, we found that it was, and so began a journey which included sending both Maria and Michelle to the Children Scientist Exhibition in Edinburgh. They came back bursting with ideas – along with a great story about staying in a guest house straight out of Fawlty Towers. The simple outcome was a whole set of learning activities they have since developed - from making toothpaste to every kind of volcano – thereby extending the interest of children, parents and staff in more chemical and physics based approaches. It was written up as an article, Putting the Sparkle Back into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, for EYE magazine (vol 12, 8^th December 2010), and is now set to form a central plank in the LEYF curriculum.

On a final note this week, I was delighted to hear from Julie Weiss, manager of our Luton Street Community Nursery and a great community organiser herself, how she had arrived safely at Paddington Farm in Glastonbury for a long weekend with seven children, two staff and one apprentice. In this world of risk aversion, health and safety mania and litigious attitudes, I am so proud that LEYF staff are still willing to go beyond their core duties to build in the extra cultural capital which makes such a difference to so many of our children; and equally proud that parents allow their children to go. The farm itself, of which I am proud to be chair, has been reconfigured into a social enterprise (surprise , surprise) and offers a lovely country retreat – with among other delights a willow play area, clay pizza oven, forest school and animals set in a beautiful 43 acre organic farm. It’s a beautiful experience for so many children who rarely get beyond the Edgware Road. I really do think quality indicators for nurseries need to recognise outings, trips and holidays for children, as sadly many hardly venture beyond the nursery door.

It made me wonder what Margaret McMillan (1860 – 1931) might have thought of this attitude – with her movement for outside nurseries and fresh air – or Octavia Hill (1838 – 1912), who set up housing with built in open spaces for children to play as well as organising  holidays and countryside experiences for the children of Marylebone…

Thomas Paine complained in the 18^th century ‘These are the times that try men’s souls’; it’s a sentiment I certainly share.