Hurrah, the press finally have something new to focus on now the Duchess is having a Royal Baby.  Poor old Kate, suffering not just morning sickness but –  hyperemesis gravidarum,  a particularly nasty form suffered by just one per cent of pregnant women and more often experienced by women carrying twins.  What a royal pain, and a royal thrill. My heart and joy goes out to the first time mother to be. Imagine though if Kate produces two heirs to the British throne, one male and the other female. With recent changes agreed by the Commonwealth Realms, a woman can finally rule in her own right! The monarchy has stepped further into the 21^st century, paving the way for women to be taken even more seriously as leaders.

I am hoping that the expected baby of such a high profile couple may lead to a bigger and better national conversation about children. Earlier today I listened to Elizabeth Truss MP, the Under Secretary for Children and Families, at the Daycare Trust Policy Conference. She told us that investing in Early Years and giving children the best experiences possible was the right thing to do.  I couldn’t agree more (we have been advocating this for years!) She did not say however what she thought the ‘right thing’ is, so the audience was left to fill in the gap. I assure you an audience filled with Early Years professionals is not short of an opinion or six, so that bit was easy – although if left unchecked, can quickly disintegrate into a whinge, gloom and an all too familiar desperate cry for more funding in any form.

The Minister’s other message was the importance of raising the profile of the Early Years as a credible and important job.  She asked for ideas as to how she could help make society sit up and take notice of us. I wonder if the arrival of the royal baby will be a good starting point to finally attract the attention we deserve

The Evening Standard started the debate with the headline ‘Kate will fight to give her baby a loving and normal childhood‘. The journalist must have had a  tête à tête with Wills and Kate because he seemed very assured about the  Cambridges’ absolute determination to raise their child their way – as a young, loving married couple.  Apparently, the young princes were brought up to behave like normal boys and enjoyed fun, frolics and play fights. If they stepped out of line, their late mother, Diana Princess of Wales, allowed adults in their social sphere to chastise them, including a rather large nanny having to pin Harry to the wall with her stomach until he calmed down. Yep! As confirmed in the same Evening Standard article (post Leveson!)

It is clear to this writer that the first message to the nation about a Royal childhood is that family matters. Parents need to retain their authority but can when necessary delegate to relevant adults, in order to ensure children have the security of consistent discipline and established boundaries.  Playing is important, as is sports and the outdoors, for every child’s sustainable personal development. Most of all, children need a stable and loving home environment and where possible, strong family ties.  I should think none of us would argue with this age old logic. Elizabeth Truss must now ensure that, like the Royal baby, all new babies should be welcomed into a society which places the same expectations on all parents and which supports this intention with policies that help make it happen.

Admit it, you’re either going on a diet, thinking about a diet or have just given up a diet and busy trying to accept your muffin top or your beer belly. If you’re from TOWIE, you’re saving up for liposuction or a gastric band!

This was the opening conversation I had with three LEYF nursery managers from our Dagenham nurseries while we were offered free refills of Coke or Lemonade on tap and our meals came piled high with chips.

Every time you turn on the TV someone is telling you how to eat, exercise or overcome your food issues. From Fat Camp to BBC 2 we’re bombarded with how to stay thin. Did it ever occur to people that we stay thin by eating less and accepting the fate of most women over 35 which is to be constantly hungry and feel guilty when you do eat? I liked the programme Horizon: Eat Fast and Live Longer on BBC 2 which told us to eat what you like 5 days a week but restrict yourself to 500 calories twice a week and not only will you maintain the body of Elle McPherson you’ll also reduce the chances of  high blood pressure, diabetes 2 and a myriad of other illnesses. I was really up for that till I discovered 500 calories is three apples and a bowl of cabbage soup. Peter Kay, in his tour to end all tours, made me cry for laughing as he expounded on his terrace (his fat tummy) and why we shouldn’t shop when hungry because of the high chance we’ll have eaten 4 of the 5 Kit Kats before even reaching the check out. I ignore Kit Kats and head straight to the Curly Wurlys.

So here’s the irony, we who have so many issues with food, are probably overweight and delight in calorific foods, such as chips and wine (although red wine has anti-oxidant resveratrol which makes you more nimble), are responsible for the dietary wellbeing of so many children. Their parents listen to us when we talk of a healthy diet; a balance of carbohydrates, protein and vegetables. We know that small children lack zinc and carbohydrates and need a good tea, we also know that organic milk increases intake of omega three which has huge benefits for children.  We know much more than that, for example:

• 28% of children aged 2 to 10 in England are obese. In London, the highest proportion are in Westminster, 4th are in Tower Hamlets and Kensington and Chelsea, and Lambeth are joint 8th (all places where we have nurseries)
• 34% of children aged 11 to 15 in England are obese
• Diabetes 2 (poor diet induced) is a growing problem in the UK
• Children bombarded as they are by ads for fizzy drinks and fast foods are unable to distinguish between ads and TV content
• A poll done by growingupmilkinfo.com found that 80% of children had eaten pizza and chips by the time they were two and 1 in 1000 parents had never cooked for their children
• The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is calling on the Government to reduce obesity and ensure that children in nurseries and Children’s Centres are served nutritionally balanced food as well as being able to offer correct and helpful information about food and eating

At LEYF we have been campaigning and even wrote the Standards for a National Qualification for Early Years Chefs. We recognise that the person in charge of the food should have a lead role in understanding what to cook, how to serve it and how best to support colleagues and parents understand about good food.

Despite an overwhelming array of information about food, staff and parents remain confused and obsess about body weight which to some degree misses the point.  We need to grow a body of capable and well informed staff who can give sensible advice, provide us with highly nutritional food, challenge the unhealthy obsessions with losing weight and focus instead on staying healthy by eating sensibly. As my Grandma always said “a little of what you fancy never did you any harm”…it’s when you are eating 5 Curly Wurlys at a go you should start to worry!

Not so long ago, David Stevens, Manager of the Angel Nursery, which for a while had 4 male staff out of a team of five, represented us at the Men in Childcare conference in Edinburgh. He had already been to the Men in Childcare Network Ireland International Conference, where he was the only UK representative and had to cope with the high jinks of the Irish and the Danes and the Scots! Enough said. Since then he has become even more interested in why there should be men in childcare and constantly urges me not to take it off the radar.

David and I have long questioned the actual reasons for having men in childcare. We are less than impressed by the standard responses we hear across the sector. The usual reasons trotted out are all about fear and barriers to entry. These include poor pay, lack of promotion opportunities, poor status, fear of accusations of abuse and paedophilia, discomfort working in such a highly female work environment and an expectation that one man can address the shortfall of positive male roles in so many children’s lives. Reading that would you want to come into childcare?

David feels all of this detracts from the main question which is “Do you want to work with children?” When speaking to our male LEYFstaff (of which there are 8% of the workforce) we found that they had all come into childcare because they thought they could be good Early Years Practitioners. For them being a sole man in a nursery was probably the biggest barrier and so we now try and place two men in each nursery, though this is not always possible. Generally, the men working at LEYF were both annoyed and depressed that all the talk of men in childcare became negative and focused on barriers to entry. Many reiterated that they always wanted to work with small children and that what we should be looking for is men who want to work with small children because they are interested in child development and how children learn and they think they have the ability to give them a really fun and exciting experience. The same argument or scenario does not play out in the Primary Schools as men ride up glass elevators to senior management and headteacher positions before you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

David has been involved with some very interested organisations drawn together by the Daycare Trust with the support of the DfE. However unlike Europe where Manner in Kitas received 14 million euros for theory based research into the benefit of men in childcare we are doing this on the usual barter and free gratis approach. Europe is also focusing on gender and equality issues which I think would be interesting and avoid us falling into the usual knee-jerk response that until men really take a hold in childcare we will see no improvements in pay or status. How depressing is that for a female led sector? What is needed is for the whole sector to be understood by the public and that policy makers help shape policies which assist the public to understand what we do… yes it’s more than smiling, washing hands and being patient while our male colleagues play really good rough and tumble while acting as surrogate uncle to all the children in female led families!

So here is what we are going to do:

1. Set up a London Men in Childcare Network beginning by bringing the LEYF male staff together to discuss the issues and formulate a shape.
2. Find out areas to research including David’s big question which asks us to compare the levels of physical and superhero play in nurseries with and without male colleagues? Then examine the impact that has on boys and girls play. Does it make a difference to their development?
3. Use Men in Childcare website set up by Kenny Spence to post new information.
4. Work more with our local Schools and Academies to promote men into childcare both through our apprenticeship programme but also as part of the schools careers options. (I feel a film coming on…)
5. Seek more engagement from parents in the issue. Get a sense of their views about the promotion of the role of men as carers and educators of children. I read recently that parents use blogs as their main source of information.  LEYF parents, have a look at this!

Men in Childcare is one aspect of a much bigger question which is what is the role of men in our society today? It’s certainly changing at different social, economic and political levels so let’s weave this into a much more comprehensive debate.

I have been called many things, but being invited by the National College for School Leadership to be a provocateur was a novel invitation. I certainly know I can provoke my husband to distraction, but in this instance I was being asked to amuse, tell stories, harangue and cajole a group of nursery heads into a new way of doing and being. It was the first meeting where I was talking to a group of heads, each with a glass of wine in their hands. It was a cross between Loose Women and Live at the Apollo.

The point I wanted to make was that we tend to be too humble and modest in this sector.  Both humility and modesty are actually beautiful traits, but we have to balance them with getting our voice heard and listened too. I was keen that we have the courage to accept the importance of balancing confidence and the capacity to take risks with the humility to learn from our mistakes and from others.  I willingly shared our many mistakes, including that of our experience on the SEF/ECERS/ITERS roundabout, as one example of how we are constantly examining and continuing our attempts to improve and be better at what we do.

We all agreed that we can be too parochial and a bit domestic in the sector, which distracts us from the bigger picture.  My view is that we are a group of female leaders developing a new industry (the childcare one), and that we have to shape and lead it to get what we all want; namely the best service for all children. This means looking at how we do things differently; developing our combined business capability to be able to get and apply strategy; while at the same time understanding how we can create business models that involve profit, loss, revenue, expenditure, performance measurement, social impact, governance and compliance.

There was no dispute in the room that leaders of the Early Years sector need to invest in their ability to learn about themselves, and trust in both their knowledge and instincts. We must be able to develop systems that create a feedback loop, so we can learn about ourselves and our impact. We agreed that we need to share what we know in a much more coherent and collaborative way, so we are all aiming in the same direction; petty jealousies, egos and in-fighting will simply destroy us and in doing so destroy those crucial opportunities for children.

So the battle cry was up: be brave, be strong and develop a message that parents can understand and support; good childcare is good for all children and can have longer-term benefits for our society as a whole.  We as leaders in the sector need to get out there and embed this message every chance we get.  It will kick into touch the ignorant sound bite stories that float up to the surface every now and then, serving only to distract us from what we are doing and freak out parents everywhere.

My Grandmother always said that a little of what you fancy does you good. Sadly, according to recent medical press, we are all too often unable to stop at a little and these days consume far too much of what we fancy. As a result, we are fast becoming one of the most overweight nations in the world, with all the health issues that accompany such obesity. Every week it seems there is a new report about the damaging effect of some familiar sugar laden food – the most recent being a link made between aggressive behaviour and fizzy drinks, and their tendency to heighten the risk of heart disease.

Of course, Children are particularly at risk, and given that prevention is better than a cure, I began to look at how nurseries might do their part to educate children and families about food by serving the best. Interestingly, despite all the TV coverage gained by Jamie Oliver with his admirable campaign to rid our schools of turkey twisslers, he rarely focused on the chefs and cooks actually preparing and serving the foods (aside from Nora, his trusty dinner lady). No effort was made to look into the qualifications available for chefs, which could be used to up the ante and go some way to ensuring and embedding high quality procurement, preparation, presentation and delivery of food to children, while also informing staff and parents of what makes healthy eating.

The history of chefs and cooks in both nurseries and schools tells a random tale, from those simply helping out as an interested parent to an agency chef from a local restaurant. Either way, most nursery staff will tell you that having a good chef – one who likes cooking for children and is both interested and motivated – is a joy and sadly not as commonplace as we would like!

When I began my research, what I soon found (though on a smaller scale) was not dissimilar to what Professor Cathy Nutbrown found about Early Years qualifications: a myriad of organically developed courses of varied quality with no core set of standards. The situation for chefs was worse inasmuch as there were generic qualifications which taught the basics, but no effort made to develop anything that would apply their knowledge to cooking specifically for children. CPD courses tended to focus on health and safety, food safety and manual handling – which though relevant did not lead to better teas and sauces or greater motivation and knowledge about what children love to eat.

Driven by this baffling discovery, I searched out individuals with similar interests and found a group of nutritionists, dieticians and others passionate to improve the food experience for small children. (At this point, the School Food Trust was focused unsurprisingly on schools, so Early Years had not been given any attention at all – despite national fears about obesity and heart disease amongst the young as a direct result of their awful diet.)

When I then surveyed the sector – including colleagues in Wales and Scotland – to see if there was any interest in a qualification for chefs in Early Years, the  overwhelmingly positive response that came back led me to dip my toe into the deep and mysterious waters of national standards and qualifications development. And quite frankly, given the complexity of process and language, I am amazed so many qualifications exist! Fortunately for me, People 1st (the skills sector for hospitality) and City and Guilds fully understood what I was after and so supported my efforts – especially useful, since my learning curve included regular viewing of Master Chef, Saturday Kitchen and Two Hairy Bikers. (I liked these most of all, particularly as they could rustle up a good curry by the side of the road – no Curly Wurly breakfasts for them!)

On Monday, 19 March (tomorrow, as I write this), we hope to take the final step on the long ladder of getting approval of the draft National Standards in order to formulate a set of Level 3 Qualifications in Professional Cooking for Early Years Chefs. We will present the key elements of a qualification to employers and will be sharing the same premise as Professor Nutbrown, namely that employers must be able to tell what skills and knowledge they can expect when employing someone with that qualification. It will include everything from basic knife skills to a real understanding of child nutrition.

At the very least, I sincerely hope this single step will be one more to help professionalise a growing industry which exists to provide a support service to children and their families, and in so doing will show yet another critical added value we have to offer society.

The National Audit Office report  Delivering the free entitlement to education for three- and four-year-olds has sent the press into pessimism overdrive, telling us the £1.9bn spending on provision of the free entitlement by local authorities in 2011-12 (providing  places for  831,800 in 28,630 settings) was a waste of  money, with apparently no measurable benefits to children.

Absolute poppycock! The report actually said that it was probably too soon to tell, adding how there has been improvement in the Foundation Stage but this has not carried on into Primary School. Dare I say it’s maybe the hallowed Primary Schools that need addressing; or perhaps we need a serious conversation about what we as a country want for our children?

Unlike our contemporaries in Europe, we have never fully considered what we want for our small children; instead we simply react to external reports and anecdotal observations. What does measurement actually tell us if we are measuring the wrong or non-compatible things with the same set of measurements?  Apparently, we want children to be happy, whilst at the same time ‘school ready’ and successful.

Perhaps, someone should listen to the many commentators suggesting that maybe schools are not the right place for children as young as three, and that if they were in nurseries for longer (like their apparently more successful counterparts in Europe) there would be even more improvement, sustained for much longer.

In addition to improvement, the report looked at the hoary chestnut of funding, unsurprisingly concluding that the Department and its partners do not yet sufficiently understand the relationship between this and local performance – including how far variations in rates paid to providers reflect legitimate local factors – to be confident that funding arrangements are efficient. For example, certain local authorities use funding to provide limited incentives for providers to improve quality, despite finding no links with take-up rates or quality. It’s no surprise to see the report noting how funding formulae are complex, yet despite this, transparency and fairness of funding was improving. (Although funding remained insufficient to cover the costs for some providers, nursery schools received a much higher level of payment than the rest of the sector.)

The report concluded that the Department for Education (DfE) needs to address variations in take-up when it comes to accessing high-quality provision – along with the impact on attainment in later years – if it is to achieve value for money and get the best possible return for children from its annual investment of some £1.9 billion. I vote this should become a central strategy to the current work being done and the reviews being undertaken, so that every DfE activity weaves together to deliver a coherent service, one which parents can both understand and buy into without all the confusion that is raised by so many emotive headlines.

I would caution that if we are to truly measure the longer term benefit, we must remember what we are measuring. Our children (including the two-year-olds) are babies and must be allowed to enjoy their childhood.  Value for money is important, of course, but if we are showing improvement already let’s start from that premise; measure the right things in the right way.  What we want is for children to have a happy childhood; Early Years is a crucial step towards that, but not a stick to be beaten with if children do less well in Primary Schools.

Mr Gove, I urge you again to take more interest in the Early Years and stop assuming that Primary Schools are perfect.  Be as critical of them as you are of Secondary Schools, and let’s have a more in depth look at transition. Remember what this report says: there has been improvement in the Foundation Stage.

There appears a general agreement that men in childcare are a good thing: the government has set a target to increase the number of men working in childcare; at LEYF we show our support for this idea by, among other things, having one of our nurseries led by a male team (8% of our staff are male, exceeding the Government target of 2%). But despite all the positive intentions, I confess to having some doubts about how the argument is phrased, and I feel we are at risk of confusing the reasons why we say we need men in childcare.

A couple of weeks ago I sent David Stevens, manager of our Angel nursery, off to Dublin to the Men in Childcare Network Annual Conference.  It was held in Ireland in the Wicklow Hills and in Dublin city, so I knew that David would have a good weekend come what may. I was right, he did have a very interesting and positive experience and the hospitality was good.  Most importantly, he was pleased to be able to connect and talk with other men interested in childcare, as they also like caring for and teaching young children and see themselves as members of a professional Early Years sector. Interestingly, David was the only man from the UK – his colleagues were Irish or Scandinavian. In any case, the remit of their debate was wide ranging.

Having gone there to represent LEYF, David felt obligated to come and give me feedback.  He was grateful for my insistence that he fly Aer Lingus.  I was worried that if I sent him on Ryan Air he might end up at an airport in the west of Ireland and never be seen again. Our subsequent conversation confirmed some of my anxieties that the debate about us needing men in childcare seems a bit nebulous. David has been examining the issue for a number of years and has given many presentations about the subject.  He comes at it from a very particular male perspective (to help you picture David, he is a shaved headed, tattoo wearing, Chelsea supporting vegetarian) and is clear that getting men into childcare has to begin from the principle that we need men who want to do the job. He also accepts that men are joining a female dominated workforce. We both agree that this type of workforce is not a bad thing, but some arguments make it seem that we need men to be part of the workforce in order to improve our pay and conditions because men won’t work for low status jobs. David and I both agreed that this is a slippery slope, as it undermines the whole sector, patronises those women who have developed the sector and sets men up as being knights on white chargers when in fact we join childcare because we like working with children, do a good job and want to make a difference.

With this in mind, if we are to develop the right strategies to attract the right kind of men, we need to have a better, more informed and intelligent discussion about why we want men in childcare. For example, I had taken the view that we need to share the men out among the nurseries. However, since David has been running his male team at the nursery, I have learned a great deal from him and changed some of my thinking and strategies about how I recruit and deploy men. For example, I no longer place men in a nursery alone if possible, rather place two together. I realised it was unfair to expect one male to reverse significant societal issues – such as family breakdown and some children neither seeing their Dad or having any male role models in their lives. By asking male staff directly, I also found that many disliked being the only man in the team.  They found it a bit scary and at times uncomfortable (easily done, as after a while women tend to forget men are men in the team and just make them part of the group).  Some men cope whilst others don’t, and find being one of the girls a bit much!

If we really want men to join us in the sector, we need to talk to them a bit more and perhaps develop the argument more coherently.  We need to think carefully about what we are asking from men, since in our zeal to increase the number of men in childcare, we may find ourselves inadvertently driving them away. Men have a tremendously important  role to play in providing children with a well rounded experience. But to expect them to readdress the gender imbalance, provide positive role models for children who had negative or no experience of men in their family and rebuild trust with women who may have been hurt or abandoned by their child’s father is asking too much.

Instead, let’s start sensibly. As women we need to welcome men into the team as colleagues and equals, not to be a particular role model.  As women who lead a female dominated sector, let’s gather our confidence and experience to lead a sector where men can play a part, but where women still lead the charge. If we think that by welcoming men into the sector we will change pay and conditions, and suddenly be seen as a more viable option, we are doing our selves a disservice.

Early Years has a history and a heritage that is female dominated.  It has a pattern of great women leaders.  It has room for men, but they are men not superheroes.  We need to encourage them because we want team members for both sexes, and we want a range of skills and interests that can be best achieved by men and women together.  We need to temper the debate for men in childcare with a rational and considered understanding of what men can do to add value.

If you have any direct experience or thoughts on how we can improve the current gender imbalance, only for the right reasons and in the right way, David and I would love to hear from you – so please use the comment box below, or drop David a line directly.

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.

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.”

The last few weeks have been a bit of an intellectual whirlwind, which always gets me really excited.  So for those people who think working with children is all about being nice and patient (and washing your hands a lot), it actually provides a platform for a great deal of intellectual challenge.

On Thursday 19^th May, I got to hear Professor James J Heckman expounding his theories on the importance of investing in the Early Years at the Daycare Trust Lecture organised to celebrate their 25th anniversary. It was a fascinating romp through 40 years worth of research, which continues to show how investing in the Early Years makes sense for the child, the family, the community and society. Two facts in particular resonated powerfully with me; firstly that children’s social and emotional skills are most potent when it comes to extending children’s cognitive development; and secondly adversity gets under the skin and determines the child’s biology.

Heckman also drew a gasp from the audience with his findings that by year three, children from ‘welfare’ families had 500 words, those from working class families had 700 and children from professional families had 1100. What more can you say here, other than parents really need to be made aware of this, so they can do something to address the issue. He then concluded by reminding us that ‘top-up’ programmes for literacy and numeracy in schools had no measureable benefit, nor did reducing the numbers of children in school classes. Instead, what really counted was giving children the best experience before they turned three.

Earlier that same day, I had the pleasure of a cup of tea with the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. In these straitened times, I suspected we might have a cup of tea in the hand. My mother first experienced this when I came to live in London, and she never could understand that you could drink tea without a plate of something to go with it. I have inherited this habit, so asked our children to help out – which under the tutelage of Feyi from our Marsham Street community nursery team, led to fresh batch of tasty banana biscuits! Suitably nourished, our conversation focused a lot on the importance of Early Years – in particular the youngest children and the significance of what we at LEYF call cultural capital. Professor Heckman reinforced the same, with the articulacy that so many Americans possess, and I hope Mr Gove’s team share.

Later in the week, I was able to push again for investment in the Early Years at a Dragon’s Den type experience where six social enterprises pitched to about 50 investors; an event organised by Clearly So and hosted by Coutts. We were trying to persuade investors to support our growth plans with investment that balanced straight financial returns with a social premium return.  It was very scary, not only since I was on first and the only woman, but also as I had to do this in 5 minutes. Somehow I managed to do both, whilst at the same time mingling with bankers and investors in Coutts’ august headquarters. Interestingly, the venue itself was the Coutts library, bequeathed by Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906), granddaughter of Thomas Coutts, founder of the bank.  More importantly, Angela was a great Victorian philanthropist, setting up Ragged Schools for poor children; she was also instrumental in founding the NSPCC. Personally, I love being somewhere which has the hand of a great woman on it!  They also have piped poetry in the bathrooms, which I thought was quite wonderful, so I will be checking out if we could do this at LEYF - with a few nursery rhymes thrown into the mix!

The entire experience and subsequent conversations make it clear that a fresh and full debate is needed, exploring the complex world of social investment with a view to developing some sort of fund, underpinned with a clear and philosophical set of principles, specifically geared to drive more investors into this area. We have to move from an ideology of charitable donation to social investment, with a longer-term look rather than an immediate feel good. My previous bedside reading (the enjoyable Larkrise to Candleford by Flora Thompson) has now been replaced with books about investment and may soon, I fear, also have to include those about tax options for social investors. Who says you never stop learning? Or as Francis Bacon said, a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. I for one hope this is an opportunity.

I finally concluded a busy week by spending a lively day with the team in our Centre for Research, Learning and Development.  It was a bit of a roller coaster of a day, as we shaped a clear business plan for the year ahead, with the team learning the stark financial realities of running a training business in an economic downturn. Former Head of Children’s Services at LEYF and now Lead for Quality, Learning & Development, Gary Simpson gave us the gem of a quote from Dolly Parton with which we all headed into the sunset:

The way I see it is, if you want a rainbow, you gotta  put up with the rain.”