Talking Early Years: In Conversation with Howard Roberts
The Curiosity Code What makes people tick? Why do we care about certain brands—or causes—more than others? And how do we spark genuine emotional connection, not just polite head-nods?…
LEYF News and CEO Blog
Read the latest news and updates from our CEO and the wider LEYF team.
Strengthening Practice Through Research – EECERA
LEYF at EECERA 2025 Wrapped up with a Bow for You! Attending an EECERA conference established by the wonderful Chris Pascal and Tony Bertram has become a LEYF ritual. …
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?…
May the Force Be With You : The Rallying Cry in Dublin at the 26th EECERA Conference
The EECERA Conference is an annual event and I always try and attend accompanied by LEYF staff where possible. It’s much better fun when we go as…
Parents, your childcare could be in jeopardy
Dear Parents Do you know that your childcare could be in jeopardy? Why? Because a decision made in 2014 by the then Minister for Childcare is having a detrimental…
Ofsted has discovered Child Poverty
“If we get the early years right, we pave the way for a lifetime of achievement. If we get them wrong, we miss a unique opportunity to shape a child’s…
Dear Justine Greening MP
Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Education. It is quite a Brief so l hope that those of us who have been grappling with it for a…