D is for Disadvantaged: What Does that Mean?
“Disadvantage” is one of those terms we bandy about in policy papers and conference keynotes, but what do we mean by it? Do we understand the lived reality behind the…
LEYF News and CEO Blog
Read the latest news and updates from our CEO and the wider LEYF team.
The Power of Intergenerational Nurseries
Talking Early Years: June O’Sullivan and Sue Egersdorff The world is changing fast. Technology is accelerating how we live, work and even care, but in that rush, you…
Keep Calm, Be Kind and Build Bridges of Friendship for the Sake of the Children
In 2007 three of the LEYF nurseries were involved in the Edgeware Road bombings. I still remember it but the strongest memories that stay with me were of the kindness…
Happy International Women’s Day
And so here we are at another International Women’s Day. I awoke to a card from South Bermondsey nursery wishing me a happy International Women’s Day. Well, didn’t this wake…
Be Kind, Be Courteous and Remember Your Manners
Last week, I spent a morning with staff from two nurseries talking about pedagogy. Kindness and what it means was central to the discussion on social and emotional well-being. It’s…
Become an Early Years Teacher and Beat the Robots
I recently read a piece about the growth of artificial intelligence and the impact it will have on existing jobs, whether the driverless car or the extension of computer controlled…
Doing business by doing good : A Social Enterprise’s most valuable asset is hope
It’s hard to get a feel of what is going on with the Government at the moment. Communication is muffled and it feels like we are watching a foreign psychological…
“Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now”
We began the year of 2017 with the sad news of the second untimely death of another of our much loved young staff members. Telling the organisation about his death…
Take the Christmas Quiz and See if You Can Remember Anything From 2016!
Many of you have broken up this weekend (or broken down!) and the rest of us continue to work flat out until Christmas Eve (another reason to support nurseries designed to…
The London Challenge Roundtable
Last week, I began the week with a challenge to the security at City Hall. Arriving for a meeting with the Mayor’s Education Advisor, I popped my bag onto the…
Can We Top Trump’s Childcare Policies?
Last week the US electorate put two fingers up to the neoliberal establishment and voted in Donald Trump to be the next president of the USA. While I, along with…
Margaret Horn 2016 : The London Childcare Challenge
Every year during the November Global Enterprise Fortnight we host the Margaret Horn Debate to celebrate Social Enterprise Day. Margaret Horn was the first director of the charity that in…
An Invitation to the 2016 Autumn London Big Ofsted Conversation
Dear Colleagues It’s time for the next London OBC, please come. It’s long overdue. We had planned the next one around our invitation to the new Chair…
Encouraging Women to the top
Are you a feminist from the 1970s? Did you look forward to reading the monthly Spare Rib? Was your diary the Spare Rib diary?…