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…
To Inveraray for an Early Years Conference with Paul Brannigan…
(Alice Sharp, Mrs Patterson and Mr Patterson – but not Mrs Patterson Mr Patterson – also along for the ride!)…
Nurseries cost more than private schools. Well of course they do – duh..!!
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…
A visit from our Minister
This week LEYF hosted a visit for our Minister Elizabeth Truss MP. We were pleased to welcome her and…
Can President Obama supply the Haribo needed to bang out an Early Years investment proposition?
UK politicians and policy makers oscillate between venerating Europe and the US. We all now know of our Minister…
A Happy Valentine’s date in Paris with French nurseries!
Valentine’s Day in Paris. Yep, there I was. Not arm in arm with my beloved, but trudging across the otherwise romantic capital of France visiting nurseries. Part of a group of…
Remember the lessons of Stafford Hospital and listen to Florence Nightingale: don’t let the same happen to two year olds!
The Francis Report on the scandals of Stafford Hospital was published last week, and unless you have never been in the…
A swan and a lark: why the Government’s new childcare report may be the stone that kills both birds
The Government’s new childcare report was launched last week by Elizabeth Truss MP Parliamentary Under-Secretary for State (education and…
Politics is not welcome in the nursery
I write this blog with a sense of anger and despair. Even playing Verdi very loudly and a glass of wine could not quell my alarm. Why such gloom? Our…
Asking Robin Van Persie to kick the childcare football straight into the Equalities net
Childcare is flavour of the week and quickly becoming a political football. I wish we had an equivalent Robin Van Persie to either land the childcare ball in the…
The childcare cost mystery: is it time for Monsieur Poirot to visit the Treasury?
We are all aware that the cost of childcare is too expensive for many parents. Yet the Government says it…
Welcome to 2013: dump resolutions and LOL.
I have long rejected beginning the New Year with a hangover, and am even less keen to create a bunch of resolutions that rarely survive the month of January, let alone…
A fond farewell to 2012… or should that be ‘Au Revoir’?
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…