I am a nervous passenger generally, but my anxiety rises to a whole new level when we go on the motorway.

My coping mechanism is to work on my computer to avoid spending the whole journey gripped in a panic that we are about to crash into the lorry ahead. The upside is that I get time to trawl through my documents and keep calm. Meanwhile, the driver (usually my husband) is able to concentrate on the road, rather than having to continually threaten to throw me out. The downside is that I come across speeches, articles and blog entries which all smack of Déjà Vu.

This week was a case in point, as I found myself preparing a speech on leadership in the sector and a presentation for some funds to help us grow the business. As I began the process by finding similar speeches for inspiration, I was shocked to discover so many of the issues facing us today were exactly the same as far back as 2007. I know they say that change takes time, but this seems excessively slow.

So I thought it might serve as a fun game, as we head into the Jubilee-free weekend, to remind ourselves of the state of play and key issues back then, to see how much if anything has changed:

• Universal child care was inadequately funded
• It was felt that children should not go to school aged four (a sentiment supported by the Children and Young People Select Committee and National Primary Headteachers Association)
• Ofsted was looking at its approach to inspection
• I was arguing that Children’s Centres should be a hub for intergenerational work, with young and old learning together and developing relationships that could help achieve community cohesion
• We were awaiting a Government re-shuffle
• A Two Year Old Pilot was in discussion
• Unhappy economic times were beginning, and talk of solutions and sustainability were beginning to quietly emerge
• We had just taken our first group of apprentices called NEETs
• Action for Children and New Economics Foundation produced a fascinating report called Backing the Future, setting out a plan to save the UK taxpayer £486 billion over 20 years and dramatically improve social wellbeing
• According to economic analyst Rob Grunewald, (video here), if Government invested substantially in parenting and enriched daycare, they could expect a rate of return (in monetary terms) of between 3:1-7:1, and 17:1 by the time the child reaches 21years. He explained that social benefits were also significant, with a reduction in crime and prison, better educational attainment, healthier adults and reduced levels of obesity and a reduction in welfare dependency
• The Cambridge Primary Review was challenging the notion of school readiness in their final report, reminding us of what Froebel said 250 years before – namely that Early Years was not a time to merely prepare for school, but a distinct phase to be celebrated and enjoyed in its own right
• Remaining stubbornly high, child poverty was on the rise despite all attempts to reduce it – including provision of flexible work opportunities, training, childcare, improved incentives and investment in child benefit
• Limited funds were available to provide a quality workforce, including employing many more graduates
• Transitions to school were an issue

Peter Drucker said that management has no choice but to anticipate the future. Well then, we better start looking at the past, because the blueprint is already there. And as a leader, it’s probably wise to get organisations fit to manage the continual challenges that are not easily solved and are more entrenched than we could possibly imagine. Learning from experience is not enough.

Therefore, I’d suggest that one solution may be to create a learning organisation that can flex and re-shape, according to both the fast and slow pace of change. Consider the following ten steps, and maybe in this instance a bit of repeat, recall and déjà vu will be a good thing:

• Learning is incorporated into everything people do
• Learning for learning’s sake is encouraged and celebrated
• Teamwork, creativity, empowerment and quality are fully supported
• Staff are trusted and encouraged to choose and take decisions
• People with different job titles learn together
• Coaching relationships are promoted to enhance learning
• Learning is an integral part of meetings, work groups and work processes
• Everyone in the organisation has equal access to learning
• Mistakes are embraced as learning opportunities
• Cross-training is encouraged and staff that learn a broad range of skills rewarded
• Continuous learning is considered a shared core value of the organisation

Do you agree with the above?  Let me know what you think in the space below.

This week the chancellor announced that the government will extend the free entitlement of 15 hours of nursery education to every disadvantaged two-year-old over the next four years. This expansion will be funded by an additional investment of around £300 million per year so that by the end of 2015 about  40 per cent of all two year olds (130,000) will benefit from the new entitlement.

Good job for Mr. Osborne and a possible sop to many disenchanted women who are bearing quite a lot of the brunt of the ongoing economic slump.

The arrival of more two years olds under the free offer may be good news for many settings, especially as the grant for two year olds currently covers the real costs of provision, unlike the grant for the three and four year olds.

The rationale for providing places for those two year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds must be predicated on the research, showing how good quality childcare can improve the child’s life chances and pay dividends to the child, the family and society as a whole. It’s clearly an investment with a serious social return. Sarah Teather MP tells us that

Our priority is to increase social mobility by helping children from the poorest backgrounds in their earliest years. High quality early education is the key to making a difference early on in a child’s life. It’s crucial for their healthy development and means they’re not falling behind before they have even started primary school.

Sarah Teather MP

However, the most powerful words here are good quality. There is also a raft of research that demonstrates what good quality needs to look like, only it’s not always either interpreted or applied consistently. Ofsted still find that the lowest quality childcare remains in the poorest and most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. It’s shockingly unacceptable.

One aspect of quality is the ability to understand the developmental stages of children.  For two year olds this means recognizing and celebrating the twoness of two.  There has been an inclination to overly focus on education to the detriment of care (yes I know the two are integral, but I fear not everyone knows that!), pushing small children into an inappropriate and unsuitable curriculum or environment.  Two year olds are just recent babies, and this needs to be considered as we welcome them into our nurseries and help them become independent and confident little people. It’s a skilled and sensitive role for those adults working with this group of children, and one not to be underestimated.

The experiences children receive in their early years are crucial to overall brain development. When a child has an experience, connections are formed between brain cells; so the cells are dependent on experience to create these connections. After eight months a child exposed to a nurturing and stimulating environment may already have 1,000 trillion connections created; so again these connections physically grow and develop the brain.

As such, it is primarily the early experiences and warm and consistent parents, who cuddle and talk to their children and provide fun learning experiences, that largely determine the basic strength and function of the brain’s wiring system and so promote healthy brain development for their children. By contrast, babies who do not receive consistent and caring responses to their cries, or those whose cries are met with abuse, develop brain connections to prepare them to cope in that environment. As a result their ability to learn and respond to nurturing and kindness may be impaired.

The brain organizes through a ‘use it or lose it’ process: the brain eliminates or strengthens connections in an effort to become more efficient. So, experiences that are repeated frequently lead to brain connections that are retained. It is Repetition That Makes Strong Connections. And consistency is key. The brain feels comfortable when it knows what to expect. When children learn, through repetition, that a parent (or care provider) will be there for them when needed, they can relax and feel safe.

In short, providing loving interaction, adequate amounts of sleep, healthy nutrition, time playing outdoors, physical activity, lots of creative play and exploration contributes to a child with a healthy brain.

To further explore this crucial aspect of development in the early years, we are starting a working group of staff at LEYF who care for and really understand two year olds.  We have already learnt from the Two Year Old pilot that we need to set simple benchmark assessment, help people revisit their understanding of what it means to be two and figure out a way of engaging parents to better understand and support their two year olds at home. But we cannot stop there.

If you have any thoughts or specific experiences in relation to this topic, please do add your comments below.

Last week I went to the Globe to see my favourite Shakespearean comedy; Much Ado About Nothing.  It was a sterling performance and the wit and banter between Beatrice and Benedict was much appreciated by the very diverse audience.

Still buzzing from the experience, I boarded the train home and, as I began to read the evening papers, fell off the high left by Much Ado into the dark, guilt-ridden space more often occupied by Irish playwrights. The Irish can do guilt big time.  Combine our history and Catholicism and we have set the stage for a guilt fest. But we may be outdone nowadays by the current guilt trip that modern research is placing on parents; and in particular mothers.

It does not take much to make a woman feel guilty. We feel guilty about something from the minute we get up to last thing at night. But nothing can compare to the quality of guilt that wraps around us when we become a parent. So we are suckers for those who can confuse and confound with snippets of research which suggests we are doing some level of damage, especially those parents who choose childcare. Woe betide them!

In the past becoming a parent – and motherhood especially – was seen as a fundamental part of life.  Most people had children, some chose not to and others were tragically not afforded the choice.  The typically central role undertaken by a mother came with varying levels of support from husbands, partners, boyfriends, family, friends and neighbours.  It was also accepted that having children was generally a good thing for everyone, not least because we would have people working to pay our retirement pensions.

These days, with the help of modern science, we are trying to turn parenting into an art form; a qualification, a set of behaviours, skills and attitudes that will ensure our children don’t just thrive and grow up reasonably stable and happy, but will be propelled onto the milky way of success by highly engaged and confident mothers who always know and do the right thing.

In September, UNICEF told British parents that we were hopeless. In her article in the Evening Standard last month, Xbox children? Don’t just blame the parents, Rachel Johnson commented that after coping over the long summer…

… instead of someone patting us on the back and saying ‘well done’ for holding it together (I keep waiting for that to happen), we are told by Unicef that British parents have lost the plot. We are locked in a “compulsive consumption cycle”, working all hours to buy our children “gadgets and branded clothes” as compensation for all the time we’re not spending with them.”

She continued..

How I wish that Unicef had used its funding instead to come up with a sensible, layered report that explained why households with two working parents have resorted to consumer goods as a substitute for spending time with each other. But that would involve an examination of the growth-led, unchecked credit bubble that gave us overpriced houses, trapped buyers in unaffordable mortgages, created a childcare market where fees outpaced Eton College’s, and led the British to work among the longest hours in Europe. Almost all the parents I know do their best but they are a bit tired.”

October produced more research which led Viv Groksop in the Observer to suggest Why parents should stop feeling guilty if they can’t devote time to their toddlers. She was referring to the debate among academics about findings from neuro-scientists on the biological development of children’s brains which was leading to a confused state for parents; mothers especially did not know what to do for the best.  As a consequence, they were being subjected to ridiculous levels of pressure to get things right, leading to unwarranted anxiety and guilt.  In her article, Groksop challenged the interpretation of some of this research which demonstrates the impact on the brain of poor attachment and stimulation at an early age.

The premise of the neuro scientific argument is that poor nurturing of babies, especially continual failure to comfort children in stressful situations, leads to high levels of the stress hormone Cortisol remaining in the child’s body.  This in turn can do sufficient damage to the child’s neuro-endocrine networks to affect their mental and physical health in adulthood.  Dr Aric Sigman added to the debate with a more explanatory article, Mother Superior? The Biological Effects of Daycare (The Biologist, Vol 58 No 3). He recognised the contextual sensitivities of examining the biological impact of childcare, which he believes has been challenged so far within the prism of adult sexual politics and women’s rights that the impact on the child has been squashed.

At this point, I have to declare an interest as someone who has worked with children for over 30 years in a whole range of settings, and now CEO of LEYF. I therefore must try and be even-handed. Of course, I want to say that childcare can do no wrong, but realise that being with other children all day is bound to affect children’s stress.

Dr Sigman goes on to argue that poor attachment, insensitive adults, lack of biological fathers and the age of the child are all factors in stressing children.  But what Dr Sigman has yet to show conclusively – and he accepts there are counter arguments, especially those questioning the transient nature of raised Cortisol levels – is whether stress levels caused by increased Cortisol in partiular has long-term, negative biological implications on the fast growing brain. (80% of the brain is formed by the time the child is 3 years old.) In the meantime, parents continue to feel guilty about the way they are parenting their children, and childcare continues to support those half of all British mothers who go out to work before their child is 12 months old (OECD 2011).

Groksop quotes sociologist Ellie Lee from the University of Kent, who says…

It’s making motherhood into a miserable enterprise when it should be fun and life-enhancing. Also, there is no culture of supporting parents, so they end up thinking, ‘If I don’t do this for my child, no one will’.”

So while academics continue to research the impact of childcare on children, and the Government tries to sort out an economic climate that is squeezing working parents, we might do well to assume this is not Much Ado about Nothing. So let’s use what we know to do the best for parents and children; improve our adult levels of engagement and sensitivities, keep the high ratio we need to ensure this happens, review the environment and start thinking seriously about whether three year olds should be in school.  In fact, only last week I heard that some schools would now be taking two years olds.

Let’s support parents to become part of the debate and get them to back childcare; encourage them to value their own judgement, the same judgement which led them to confidently place their children in a nursery to begin with, and go public with their support for childcare.  Our job is ultimately to help parents follow their own natural instincts: to love their children, converse with them, sing to them and have a little fun by just watching them be children.  The final debate is then less a matter of money, politics or propaganda and more one of time, energy and inspiration for all parents (with guilt finally seen to exit stage left).

Earlier this week I found myself listening to a debate about the best way to care for our elderly citizens – and was immediately struck by the similarities between good social care homes and good nurseries.

In our experience, a good nursery needs to be warm, clean and comfortable.  It needs to be run by caring, friendly, empathetic staff who like children and want to give them a great experience.  Good homes for older people need to be much the same, and the recent shameful reports about unkindness, callous and hard-hearted behaviour are not dis-similar to horrid cases of poor nursery practice that are presented by our ever helpful press.

It strikes me that we should really join adult care with childcare, so we can learn from each other rather than try to sort the issue out in two silos.  However, we have the usual attitudes to overcome – including entrenchment across government, local authority departments, large organisations and charities that have a sole focus on adult care.  What we really need is to find the right person in one of these services to lead a new way of doing things, so we can get social care businesses that deliver high quality.

Elsewhere this week, I spent a few interesting days enjoying the Georgian splendour in Edinburgh.  It was a trip tinged with sadness, as it reminded me of Vicki Whitfield, our late HR Manager who died suddenly in 2005. Vicki was brought up in Edinburgh and often told us hilarious stories about many of the places I was visiting.  When in need of a password, she often used Auchtermuchty, which I discovered is a real place; another Balamory!

During my visit, I mixed business with pleasure, and spent some time working with a Scottish group of nurseries on leadership.  It proved a lively session, exploring the challenges of leading high quality childcare and education so that business success is central to the process.  I was relieved to discover the problems we face – getting our nursery leaders to understand and then ensure the three strands (business, care and education) weave into a strong fabric – are the same north and south of the border; it seems we all struggle with the need to lead and manage quite complex processes to ensure success.  However, these processes draw on such a wide set of skills, behaviour, attitudes and knowledge that each nursery leader needs to be a truly special individual to manage this effectively.  What those at the top have to then understand is how to balance the importance of each of those strands and communicate the expectations very clearly and at every level.  Interestingly, this supports what I discovered when researching my own book on leadership, which was that the business side of leading nurseries as a feature of good leadership is much ignored; yet without it we will not have sustainable nurseries which are critical to roll out the Government’s childcare agenda.

Finally, I joined a merry band of LEYF staff on Sunday morning to run the Race for Life in support of our friend and colleague Barbara, who is very bravely and stoically fighting cancer.  April, Lucy, Yasmin, Gill, Gill’s young daughter (and LEYF graduate) Maya and I joined 11,000 determined women wearing pink to run 5km around Hyde Park in record time.  Pinned to everyone’s T-shirt was a sign telling the world who they were running for – and I was struck by how many people have direct experience of cancer, with either friends or family members who had died or survived.  I particularly liked the statements about survivors, and the many women who were running for their children’s future.  It reminded me of two neon signs outside the Edinburgh Museum of Modern Art; There Are No Miracles Here balanced by Everything Is Going To Be Alright.  After today, I am going with the latter.

This week I overheard a member of staff commenting on my blog.  She had just begun to read it and was surprised at just how much it told her about what I do; about my efforts to ensure what we do at LEYF influences the world of childcare and so helps to build a better future for children everywhere.

Later in the week we had a staff forum where they made a similar observation, so I thought I would use this week’s blog to sum up our plans for franchising our model; to give some idea of what it might be like if we could successfully scale up and replicate what we do here at LEYF elsewhere. It fits into a particularly busy week of submitting tenders for nurseries, training services and strategic alliances – another means of getting a place at the table. Not surprisingly, I feel like Alice trying to get an invite to the Mad Hatters Tea Party, so we can have a turn to say our piece.

On the subject of tea – an occasion which should, in my humble opinion, be a compulsory 4 o’clock occurrence – it featured quite a few times this week, including a spontaneous invite to share tea at the House of Lords following my outburst at the APPG on Sure Start.

On this occasion, I was provoked by the number of people whinging and complaining about government changes rather than trying to find a solution. It’s all very well saying how everything was wonderful in the past – a fact both inaccurate and irritating, which then just limits any kind of solution-focused approach and so raises my blood pressure!  For my part, I presented the option of a social enterprise Children’s Centre in my usual, outspoken way.  This naturally resulted in a range of responses – including eyes rolling, amusement, attention, clapping and the aforementioned invitation. I avoided any caustic comments by using the time to network with the great and good.

So, given that many of our own staff are beginning to read the blog, below is what I believe a LEYF franchise may mean in ten years time:

• Social enterprise nurseries are now considered the first and natural choice for all parents; they are recognised as having a critical role to play not only in providing the best childcare but also in supporting and connecting families in the local community;
• The design of a specifically social enterprise curriculum ensures social capital for all children;
• Social enterprise nurseries are founded on a principle of supporting and taking care of a child’s wider abilities, leading to a growing sense of social responsibility and a readiness to act; in so doing establishing a greater degree solidarity and tolerance;
• A quality mark exists to help parents clearly identify a social enterprise nursery in a crowded market; the mark is also a form of quality assurance, making sure the values of social enterprise are embedded and implemented to the full;
• Social enterprise childcare has become the leading example of best practice across the sector and so a symbol of quality for all children; no longer locked within such a limiting concept as so often bestowed on PVIs of being simply ‘good enough for the poor and disadvantaged’;
• Social enterprise childcare is now a recognised sector in itself, a real influence on corporate direction, part of corporate management programmes and considered critical to corporate social responsibility;
• The social enterprise childcare sector has become a leading driver for change in public services;
• Clear means of measuring and assessing the associated benefits of a social enterprise approach to childcare have been established and are now widely recognised within ‘value-added’ qualities or transitions, such as improved well-being, employability and active citizenship;
• A strong social enterprise childcare network now exists with the weight and purpose to shape and change both Early Years policy and community regeneration, along with development and contractual procurement on a local, regional, national and international scale;
• Links between social enterprise childcare services and the reduction of child poverty are clear, with a direct and measurable contribution to reducing the 3.9 million children living in poverty, with all the attendant health costs as they become adults;
• An intergenerational approach to everything is explicitly embedded in the social enterprise childcare model, recognising that sometimes the younger generation is best placed to deal with issues challenging their community such as drugs, disadvantage, poverty and race.

Does the above sound like a dream to you – or a nightmare?  Let me know what you think or how you see the future of social enterprise or childcare.  Simply rate or comment on this post below and share with colleagues via Twitter, Facebook or email using the usual, handy links!

It’s a shocking thing to discover that a woman once trusted as a reliable and caring nursery officer could be so influenced by her Svengali-like boyfriend, that she would exploit the trust placed in her by parents and abuse their children. If nothing else, the report from Little Ted’s published yesterday reminds us of the absolutely critical nature of strong leadership, solid management systems and a positive culture – where staff feel able to discuss concerns about colleagues in a way that will be taken seriously.

It also begs the question about whether Ofsted is doing its job. At LEYF, we have had over 50 Ofsted inspections in their various forms. At best these provide little more than a snapshot of any situation, and like most things will depend on the calibre of the inspector. In my book, a good inspection is determined by a number of factors; it should be unplanned, place a heavy emphasis on what is happening during the day, involve lots of observation and engagement with all staff and children, and be led by at least two inspectors who know what they are doing and are then able and willing to engage and discuss all the issues in a shared and intelligent way. There was a time when we had to write an action plan following an inspection, and I think we need to do that again, sending a copy to the local authority so they are also informed.  However, it is also worth noting that inspections from local authority advisory teams, whilst not wielding quite the same power as Ofsted, are equally dependent on the calibre and intelligence of the advisory staff.

Either way this is no time for a game of tit for tat; no-one anticipated the situation in Portsmouth.  But since it was allowed to happen, we really must think and act wisely now if we are to have any chance of being ready to head off the next unknown.

Related Articles

• Vanessa George’s nursery provided ‘ideal environment for abuse’ (telegraph.co.uk)