On Friday, I was delighted to be able to give the keynote speech to the staff of Rainbow Trust, a children’s charity led by their energetic and committed CEO Heather Wood, and one that provides emotional and practical support to families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness.

I am always energised by a good audience and they were great fun, so all in all it was a win-win situation, as I expounded on how good leadership is key if you want to make a difference. It’s a subject I also presented the following day at the Manchester TES Resources conference, and once again it was interesting to get feedback from so many truly committed people, desperate for tips on how to remain good at leading, and at the same time alive and alert to new ways of doing it. I started by suggesting they deserved a star for giving up the only dry Saturday we’ve had of late, or in fact are likely to have in the near future!

On the train back I mused on the more pressing leadership contest in London; yep, the Mayoral and London Assembly elections. Thursday, 3 May gets us a new Mayor (or at least a recycled one), along with 25 London Assembly members. Up to now, I have hardly noticed there even was an election campaign, that was until we had a visit from Harriet Harman and a gaggle of London Assembly candidates to one of our nurseries last week. Clearly some of them need to learn from her polished and experienced performance, and at least try to seem interested. The visit was to raise the importance of childcare to the economy; a subject we have heard very little of so far. Naturally, I have written to both candidates and asked for the re-introduction of the CAP, which Ken introduced during his time in office. Although cumbersome and bureaucratic, it helped women into work by supporting childcare costs, and also offered childcare support to parents whose children are disabled.

So far, what we have seen of this campaign is a few adolescent spats between Boris and Ken, Brian playing the good policeman and Jenny Jones trying to get a voice by being green, not forgetting a few independents – most notably Siobhan Benita, hoping to be elected because she is independent and so above party politics. If only that were enough! She clearly needs to watch more of The Thick of It.

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”

Peter Drucker

Either way, you just have to read their blurb; all grand statements about the usual (transport, fares, housing and crime). And of course, everyone loves an apprentice. To give him his dues, the only one who even mentions childcare is Ken. He suggests grants and interest free loans as well as a campaign against government cuts to child tax credits. But will that be enough to get him our vote, or will Boris’ charm win out once again? Either way it feels like a two horse race. Wrong says my son, apparently Lawrence Webb from UKIP is the bookies favourite! …Lawrence Who??

On Wednesday this week we hosted the sector’s first ever Pan London Olympic strategy meeting.  It was our way of helping London’s childcare industry consider how it could respond proactively and in a grown up way to the inevitable disruption the Olympics will cause during the summer. The Olympics may officially begin in 100 days, but the torch bearers begin in 30 days and really the situation starts to kick off from then.  What is more, people think the Olympics runs for two weeks, when in reality it’s six weeks at best, and more realistically in fact the entire summer – beginning with the Queens Jubilee in June and concluding at the end of August.

Representatives came the summit from 42 nurseries in 22 boroughs across London and heard presentations from TfL and the City of London police, along with sensible advice from the contingency business planner for Westminster City Council.

The audience was a lively one, and it took very little time for us to realise the implications of the Olympics would be greater than we imagined and so needed careful thought if were to remain calm, positive and constructive advocates for UKPLC! A point emphasised by Tessa Jowell MP, Shadow Minister with responsibility for the Olympics, who popped in to congratulate us on having the foresight to organise such a meeting in the first place; and then marvelled at the numbers of children and parents we would be serving during that period.  (A guestimate of 50,000 was bandied about.)

Despite conflicting media information about tourist numbers, both the police and TfL agree we will have at least 2 million visitors to London, with many of them staying in the centre; and as we already find ourselves regularly squashed between rucksacks and map readers, this will only increase.  So the advice was clear: don’t take unnecessary journeys says TfL, plot out the road hotspots, examine the tube hotspots; spend time on their website.

The police had more advice, with the inspector asking what will people do when the event is over – go home for a rest? Of course not; they will go down to the local hostelry, restaurant, park or go sightseeing, typically adding to the summer’s usual crowd and travel problems. Pubs and other places will take advantage of this passing trade, and may have big screen events adding yet further to these numbers, spreading the possible chaos.  Each country also has something called the National Olympic Committee (NOC), essentially party organisers that will be arranging cultural events well into the evening. Many of these are sponsored by drinks companies, so they won’t be serving tea and cucumber sandwiches! (Sadly, the inspector was unable to tell me if there was an Irish NOC or where it might be, as I quite fancy a bit of Christy Moore, chocolate Kimberley biscuits and a pot of Barry’s tea – and maybe Gabriel Byrne might pop in and make my year!)

In any case, the police officer certainly had a sense of humour, and balanced his gloomy take on security with an introduction to those rather eccentric characters who want to make a point for peace or the greater good by disrupting events.  He reminded us that Fathers4Justice have promised an outing, whilst Jimmy Jump and Cornelius Horan both get their kicks out of disrupting sporting events by running into them or stripping naked and running off with the ball. (The sort of behaviour we expect with two year olds; only in this case, they get publicity, we get more disruption.)

However, what was soon apparent was how as Early Years providers we are a practical lot – and were soon taking the first steps in contingency planning. Later the Evening Standard asked me if we will cope. “Of course we will,” I said. “We are the childcare industry!” (For more reporting on the expected challenges during the Olympics and our event’s aim to come up with solutions, I’m told we should pick up a copy of said paper this coming Monday!)

In summary, the issues we need to cope with and options to consider include:

• Staff travelling to and from work – implications for ratios, overtime, emergency contact arrangement
• Deliveries of food – to stockpile or not to stockpile!
• Arrival and collection times of children – implications for ratios, fees and flexibility
• Camp beds – should we buy one or two for unexpected over-night stays?
• Outings – where do we go, and what about holiday clubs which organise lots of outings?
• Know thy neighbour – making contacts with local nurseries so we can support one another
• Hospitals – identifying which is the designated emergency hospital
• Communication – updating everyone’s contact details, since mobile phone networks often get overloaded, making it impossible to get through to anyone (so think of alternatives)

What we all agreed on at the meeting was that no one really quite understands the broader implications for this period, so this was just a start.

In terms of next steps, Kate Hawkins (from Nursery Management Today magazine, which worked with us on the event) left us with an action plan template. Meanwhile, Julian Gibbs (Regional Manager for the NDNA) has promised to put together a fact sheet and upload it on their website, so I encourage all providers to keep an eye out for that.  In fact, Julian concluded that the meeting had been an eye opener and flagged up many more issues than he had first imagined.

From our side, LEYF nurseries have already sent parents a postcard asking if they are on leave, changing their hours or could give us information about their plans during the period to help us ‘Get Ahead of the Games‘.

So like the Boy Scouts always say: ‘Be Prepared’.

I am very pleased to be able to represent LEYF as a member of Professor Cathy Nutbrown’s Expert Panel. The Panel is examining the standard and range of qualifications for those working in Early Years settings.  It’s a hot topic and one that needs calm, rational and measured consideration.  It’s also an issue that powerfully demonstrates that rhetoric and good intentions don’t always translate well into practice, and no solution will be perfect.  And it further requires a steady and pragmatic hand which Cathy certainly has.

Before anyone gets excited about being called an expert, the actual reality of being on a panel is that you are expected to do some work and research an issue or two.  At the last meeting, I agreed to examine the question of whether it is necessary for those entering the profession to have a grade C in GCSE Maths and English. In order to do it justice, I sought some support from my friend Sue, who put her considerable research skills to good use finding out whether or not having these grades leads to better teaching of the subjects, higher thinking skills and greater ability to apply abstract concepts in a range of situations. I also needed to know that if having a Grade C was essential, could we get everyone up to that standard through Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and would it create barriers to potential apprentices, trainees and other staff from diverse communities.

What we found was that although research from OECD and EPPE tells us that higher qualified staff offer a more reliable predictor of better quality – with a more positive impact on children’s future learning and development as a result – there is little data to securely support the correlation between the levels of formal qualifications in literacy and numeracy among Early Years practitioners and children’s achievements. The best we could find was the Millennium Cohort Study which stressed the links between quality of provision in a setting, the level of qualifications of the staff and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) analysed by subject, concluding that…

Continued priority needs to be given to strengthening the non-graduate early years workforce, who continue to make up the majority of staff. All practitioners need to have a clear grasp of how children’s understanding of mathematics develops; they need to be comfortable with mathematical language and able to support children’s play as outlined in the previous section on effective mathematical pedagogy.” Milleniun Cohort Study

The most interesting findings emphasised something our tutor for Key Skills previously said, namely how the psychological barrier people have created about Maths is often the greater hurdle to them getting a grade C.  I recently saw this in action among a group of otherwise experienced LEYF staff who needed to get a grade C in Maths as part of their degrees; the level of anxiety this generated, despite us providing specialist workshops, was such that even a chocolate fest could not reduce the waves of panic in the room. (Not even the promise of our favourite Curly Wurly!) The lack of enthusiasm for Maths, often acquired from poor teaching, creates a self perpetuating cycle which flies in the face of the Williams Review(DCSF 2008a) which found that…

One of the distinctive features that support high quality mathematical learning includes practitioners’ enthusiasm for, understanding of, and confidence in, mathematics.” Williams Review

For those of us running nursery businesses, the lack of mathematical confidence has greater implications, given the need to grasp Maths in action through an ability to understand and manage occupancy, staff deployment, pricing and basic income and expenditure; all critical skills needed to keep the business going.  (Sadly, I have seen far too many nurseries slip into disaster because of the manager’s inability to read the numbers.) And I know this statement will send Hitchcock shivers down the spines of some LEYF staff, in fact I’m sure most would much rather sit through the Director’s Cut of Psycho in a dark room on their own than do the books.

But if we see our job in Early Years as being the educators of the youngest children, and therefore needing to inculcate in them positive attitudes about Maths and literacy (especially Maths), then we have to look at the bigger picture and the costs to society. The CBI Education and Skills Survey 2011 reported that employers found widespread weaknesses in the core skills of their employees, with almost half reporting problems with literacy and numeracy. KPMG estimates that the cost to the public purse each year from failure to master basic numeracy skills is up to £2.4 billion.

So what to do? Luckily I am not Cathy Nutbrown, and my task was to merely present ideas and information, whilst Cathy gets to analyse and draw a conclusion.  Still, she is ably assisted by our Civil Servants, who I am sure have all the relevant C grades. In the meantime, I suggest we all ensure we have regular planned Maths activities, lots of Maths in the routine and that we practise our timetables while we do our Pilates.  If all fruit fails then watch Dara O Briain’s School of Hard Sums (formerly called ‘Dara O Briain’s University of Practical Mathematics’) where humour and numbers mix. Why not? Have a laugh, do a sum!

It wasn’t Big Society or social value that got Mr. Cameron out of Downing St to celebrate social businesses, it was money; or at least the draw of it. Big Society Capital, long planned and much mooted by Mr Hurd MP, finally launched; but had it not been for the Prime Minister helping out on the PR front, it’s unlikely many social enterprises would have even noticed.

Of course, there is no doubt we need risk and working capital in the same way that any business does. But how will this shiny new opportunity work? Essentially, Big Society Capital (BSC) is a wholesaler which will lend to social investment finance intermediaries (SIFIs), who will in turn lend to social businesses at a slightly lower interest rate than your average High St Bank. I can only hope that spending on both BSC and all the SIFIs will be kept to a minimum, or the £600m available will soon be frittered away; I also hope that the lending process will be attractive and accessible, and sensibly match the interests of socially motivated investors with the need for capital in the social sector.

At LEYF we have been investigating how to get investment to repeat our model across London for some time now.  We certainly found a lot of rhetoric that did not translate into any meaningful investment; partly because many investors just don’t get social value as a part of an investment return, else the offer to businesses was considered so risk averse that it simply was not viable.  Our real breakthrough was winning a contract to work with the Social Business Trust (SBT) which has brought together six large businesses which cover all elements of investment, finance, business management, communication and compliance.  For us, this has led to us being treated like a proper client, and with the offer of serious money to inject into a thoroughly considered and fully costed growth strategy.  As the team making it happen, SBT get the three elements right: social, business and trust.  This last element, trust, being the actual glue that enables us to form the kind of relationship that will allow real growth, expansion and business sustainability.

I hope the launch of BSC will allow for more SBTs, and the more we use this means of investing for growth, the more confident we will become in the market place. There is of course a risk that smaller and lower economic value businesses will not attract funds through BSC. Nonetheless, it still represents a genuine opportunity for some larger mainstream public sector services to enter the market. The key fact to remember here is that social businesses are set up to respond to a market need, but in a way that adds explicit social value. And if we want to increase this value, we have to saturate the market with social enterprises; and investment can help with this. As Bollinger, sponsors of tomorrow’s Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race,  proudly declare “Life can be perfect”; and so it can, as long as we have the chance to raise more glasses and celebrate a social enterprise takeover in today’s capitalist society.