(Alice Sharp,  Mrs Patterson and Mr Patterson – but not Mrs Patterson Mr Patterson – also along for the ride!)

It seems like a long way to go to talk about Leadership and Home Learning, but nothing can underestimate the quality thinking time offered when attending conferences (even as the speaker); and Scotland is always a place to watch when it comes to the Early Years, not least in terms of Government strategy. The National Parent Strategy (designed to ‘Help Make Scotland the Best Place in the World to Grow Up’) is a laudable ambition. I would love a similar one for England, not least so we at LEYF could add our own vision of ‘Building a better future for London’s children’ into the mix.

Anyone who knows me understands that I am a dreadful passenger, and so driving on dark, wet roads from Glasgow out to Inveraray had me crossing all fingers, with eyes wide shut the whole way. Alice is an inspirational speaker, a proud advocate for Early Years and a stunning developer of resources… but not my first choice for chauffeur! The tighter the bends, the faster she went, as we hurled towards Loch Fyne with Paul in the front reacting like many of the characters from the Angels’ Share (as those of you that have been reading this blog for any time must already  know, one of my favourite films, and one for which he has recently won the Scottish Bafta).

The conference focused on leadership and home learning, and how we try to create an environment where we better engage with children through their families, and perhaps understand the issues many families face which affects their ability to succeed.  Paul gave a very personal story which illustrated such points, and I can always regale an audience with a few stories, not to mention examples of our mistakes and new ideas we are testing. It led to one of the audience suggesting that I might be a suitable candidate for Fascinating Aida. (Yes please, but only for one night!)

Home Learning is a key strategic objective at LEYF, and it forces us to think and respond quite differently. It is not as many people think purely a matter of setting up some learning bags or arranging for some cameras to go home; it really demands that staff set the family at the very heart of the community, weaving a multi-generational approach into their work and (like Bruner’s spiral curriculum) blending all of these factors into a mutual learning culture.

LEYF’s Home Learning strategy also relies on us getting really good at casual pedagogical conversation: those random but regular opportunities to chat with parents, whilst explaining what and how the child is learning in a way that makes sense and encourages shared interest. It is then that such foundations are built on and further supported by nursery activities, community activities and home learning resources. It is a new journey and one recently celebrated by parents at our Eastbury Children’s Centre nursery, who positively delighted when staff recently sent a little piece of the nursery home. It’s the only way, even if you have to first take the road to Inveraray with Alice at the wheel!

So, Home Learning is definitely the way forward: it adds value to the core service, whilst at the dsame time building in additional social impact.

I am breaking my rule of one blog post a week, because tweeting simply cannot give credibility to the confusion in the media elicited by the annual childcare cost survey.

The survey tells us what parents pay for childcare. It does not address either the actual cost to provide childcare or who should bear that cost. ’Nurseries are more expensive than public schools’ scream the headlines. Guys, nurseries cost what they cost.

Nurseries are not great generators of profit. LEYF does not cream off a load of profit so we can all be paid more than 900 times that of our lowest staff member like Sir Terry Leahy at Tesco. Nurseries do not operate like banks with the Chancellor crawling to Brussels to justify bankers keeping large bonuses. If the £600m about to be spent at RBS on bonuses for bankers were available to the childcare sector, we could double the number of two year olds getting their free 15 hours, or even double the time to 30 hours for those already using the nurseries. (A much better use of money in my humble opinion.)

Here is the reality: nursery costs are made up of 77% staff cost; the rest is rent, food, equipment, training and the unexpected. There is little opportunity for vast profits; and in our case, as a social enterprise, any profit we make is reinvested to keep fees low and quality high, support parents in difficulty, develop training opportunities for apprentices and increase our contribution to local communities.

No one complains about what schools cost. That is because we have agreed as tax payers to fund education. If we had to pay for our education, we would be paying the same as private school fees (which is the real cost of education). The question therefore is this: should we pay for childcare as part of the education offer??

Mainland Europe has decided to do this, and pays up to 100% of the costs. It would certainly make my life easier trying to keep fees low and quality high if the UK would follow suit. But what about the free offer I hear you say? We have been complaining for nearly 10 years that the free offer is insufficient. The NDNA pointed out in a recent report that members are making a loss of £500 per year for every child in receipt of free nursery entitlement hours. In London a childcare place costs at least £6 per hour for high quality childcare. The Government pays anything between £3.66 and £4.80. Even those of us without a C in GCSE Maths can do the sums: yep, a shortfall of £1.80 per hour per child. Add that up and it soon becomes a big gap.

The issue of what childcare costs will never go away until we have a big discussion and decide whether we as tax payers should fund the central costs of childcare. It’s certainly worth the outlay, and the return on such an investment is great. For those taxpayers who see having children as a private matter, then let me remind them it is these children who will be funding their pensions during a long old age.

As we rush to the end of a very speedy 2012, I thought I would review the year through the lenses of my 42 blogs. From RiRi to the Spice Girls and Bedouin Tents to Scottish Islands, it’s clear that LEYF has had an eventful year.

Back in January 2012, we started the year with interest rate rises, higher unemployment, problems in the Eurozone, freakish weather and the promise of deflation. Quite frankly, we needed neither Nostradamus nor the I Ching for predictions on how to navigate the year, as such things seem to be regular occurrences nowadays – and all evidence indicates that 2013 will begin along very similar lines. These realities have meant a year of keeping our noses at LEYF just above the waterline, with a great deal of pressure on the front line in our nurseries to keep occupancy up and debt down. Not the easiest task, even with the stalwart support of our Central Office team. Consequently, the debate about child poverty remained live throughout the year and featured in my blog at least six times. Just to remind you, my I Ching reading for LEYF for 2012 said:

Work on what has been spoiled;

Has supreme success;

It furthers one to cross the great water,

Afterwards there is order

Not so far from the truth then as we consider progressions and challenges over the past 12 months!

Earlier in the year we began preparing for the Olympics and, like any good organisation, we had a plan. Luckily, we never had to use it. Instead, like James Bond we whisked across London on foot, bus and ‘Boris Bike’  – and in the case of our Facilities Manager April running, as we brought our own special light (in the shape of our very own Olympic-style torch) to every LEYF nursery, and in so doing created a piece of art that exceeds anything the Turner Prize has ever honoured.

The issue of feminism was raised early this year with the celebration of Little Women’s Christmas in January. While we focused on parents continually throughout the year, we also examined the role of mothers who got bashed for wanting to work. Our annual Margaret Horn Lecture was given over entirely to examining how we can help women excel in the workplace. The criticism against mothers felt like a re-run of the 1970s, prompting this working mother to resurrect my old Spare Rib and Virago books. Ah, such nostalgic memories for the days of ‘Reclaiming the Night’ marches in London.

Humanising capitalism was also a key theme of the year. Occupy London made its rather biblical mark on the steps of St Paul’s cathedral in direct response to the moral failing of banks, as they thrived to the benefit of overpaid staff and the detriment of the poor. Social Enterprise featured in the media as a palatable version for transforming the way we operate. We were proud therefore to be the first social and childcare business to win the ‘Transformational Change’ category of the National Business Awards; a sign of things to come perhaps? Much will depend on the growing availability of social finance and the jury is still out on that.

Leadership was a subject of debate as Boris retained the crown of London’s Mayor and Bob Diamond lost his sparkle. For a while we were able to think more publicly about the importance of good, wise and steady leadership. Sadly, with the phone hacking scandal, the Leveson Report and poor leadership at the BBC unmasked, we saw and heard a lot about unsustainable leadership and not enough about how to lead with integrity, honesty and as a true custodian of the nation’s interests. Radio 4′s Women’s Hour seems to be trying to re-balance this with a bid to name the 100 most influential women leaders. I just hope they think outside the box and not rely on the same old… (Question Time comes to mind!)

Meanwhile, there were changes in Early Years – such as the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), a fresh Ofsted regime and the change of Government Minister. Other things remained unchanged however, particularly the issue of how to make childcare affordable. This unfortunately remains unanswered and unanswerable, unless we strip down the effective management of funds and its reallocation against societal objectives of what we want for our children.

My blog will always feature things we do and try-to-do at LEYF. Some areas of note have included developing the notion of cultural capital, particularly with regards to language, art, music and food. Just last week, the Ofsted report said that children from deprived homes were still not achieving a level playing field with their more advantaged peers. It also indicated the gap could be as wide as 19 months by the time they get to school. It’s a shocking statistic and one that everyone at LEYF feels we can positively affect. Hence our growth strategy, with the aim of replicating what has been dubbed ‘the LEYF sum’; where a child spends a minimum of 15 hours a week for 36 months in a high quality LEYF nursery, with additional support for parents to help develop a good home learning environment. It was the theme of our heart-warming Staff Conference where we were joined by six Scottish colleagues and Paul Brannigan, lead actor of the Angel’s Share - a film that summed up the plight of so many young people who had a poor start in life. It’s certainly one for the Christmas present list.

So as this year draws to a close, our nursery children, parents and staff are all enjoying festive concerts, parties and family events to mark the Christmas season. As part of this, our nurseries are visiting local care homes to allow the children in our care to bring songs of good cheer to their older neighbours. It truly gladdens my heart, as loneliness, isolation and the separation of the generations are the biggest failing of our modern society.

Next year maybe the importance of childcare will be on everyone’s lips. Amidst scenes of the Christmas nativity and the expectation of the birth of a Royal baby in the New Year, our future as a nation may yet take on a golden glow. I wonder, will the three wise men include Mr Gove, our Secretary of State for Education, bringing with him gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh – or better still, funds and positive policy? Will our star rise in the sky and shine a light on what we do? We will have to wait and see. In the meantime, I best be quick if I’m to write that letter to Santa…

Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year!

…till 2013.

An invitation to speak at the Early Arts UnConference at the MAC in Birmingham led to my reflecting back on why I started to investigate cultural capital as a core of the LEYF learning approach. This was long before the days of the EYFS, so the raft of information, guidance and research we have since developed was in short supply. However, Europe and New Zealand was a great source of information for me, and I looked there for proof that children would benefit greatly from a culturally enriched environment.  My hypothesis was that creativity was built by being with people who could translate it in many ways.

It all became real for me when we introduced classical music at sleep time, and a little girl with a fairly difficult home life sat bolt upright when she heard the first blasts of Handel’s Water Music, saying “It’s like God’s music”. She was an immediate convert to Handel, and I was an immediate convert to the notion of cultural entitlement.

It is true that most learning happens at home, but a good education can open your eyes and bring new ideas and a new world into that home. Education is part of culture and cannot be divested from it, as culture is transmitted through children. It’s why the home learning environment is a key element of the LEYF social impact model.   I was lucky to get a good convent education, and the nuns (for all their faults and fury) introduced me to Jane Austen, Michelangelo, Stravinsky and Miles Davis. This opened up a whole new world for me which I never would have received at home;   my curiosity then grew and developed, albeit more slowly for genres such as opera and modern art, and more quickly for dance and literature.

So what does a cultural entitlement look like? Howard Gardner summed it up perfectly when he said that every child has a spark inside them, but it’s our responsibility to find what will ignite that spark.

I hopefully regaled the Birmingham audience with stories and photos of how to enrich and embed daily activities with a touch of magic. Extended language, arts and crafts, music, singing, poetry, drama, food, outings, galleries, museums, theatre, art exhibitions, science, shopping and eating;  all daily activities with which a stretch and a twist can open a new world for our children. The core impulse for a human mind is to learn and use all kinds of experiences, and then to learn what other people label them. Fostering creativity is fundamentally important, because creativity brings with it the ability to question, make connections, innovate, problem solve, communicate, collaborate and to reflect critically. All of which is vital for all children to be able to play their part in their rapidly changing world.

According to the Henley Report, by the time a child has reached seven years, the minimum level of cultural education they should have experienced through school is to have regularly read books and taken part in storytelling, arts and crafts, singing, music and dance. They should also have visited art galleries, theatre, cinema, museums, libraries and heritage sites. The new EYFS states that expressive arts needs to contribute to children succeeding in the three prime areas. (PSE, CLL and Physical in case you had forgotten!)

The importance of having a creative staff who can embellish and fascinate children by using imagination, creativity and all the arts available as part of children’s daily lives is what matters. Research is particularly clear about the importance of language. We know that children who have a grasp of formal language, rather than being restricted to informal language, are at an enormous advantage in the education system. Low level and limited vocabulary and poor management of grammar limits children and reduces their expression of analytical and abstract ideas and arguments. We also know reading is key to helping us transmit content, vocabulary and styles of expression which in turn helps develop linguistic fluency, a fundamental skill and one that is well rewarded in school.  We know that broadening a child’s horizons and experiences, which extend and challenge them, takes them further up their zone of proximal development.  So who are we to limit children by being unable or unwilling to teach and extend their vocabulary, literacy and world view by failing to use the vast array of creative resources, opportunities and teaching methods available to us?  Why should Hannah be deprived of ever hearing “God’s Music”? A learning approach needs to be based on the principles of cultural entitlement, not as a nice thing to do now and then, but as the basis of all that goes on in the nursery.

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots, the other is wings.

Hodding Carter

Let me know your thoughts, and how you make cultural capital an every day reality in your setting, in the comment area below.