Words for Change
Launching the Reading Rights Summit in Liverpool Last week, Booktrust (where I proudly serve as a Trustee) hosted the Reading Rights Summit. We were joined by special guests, the…
LEYF News and CEO Blog
Read the latest news and updates from our CEO and the wider LEYF team.
Introducing AI To Early Years:Part 2
A Closer Look at Key Concepts In part one, I broke down the…
Olympic legacy should begin with the Early Years and leave politics on the side-lines
I must admit that I was slightly worried about the Olympics. Not quite a naysayer but wary all…
Parent engagement: research tells us to avoid being a shrinking violet.
At the recent summer NDNA conference,…
Camp beds, James Bond and Pandemonium: the Olympics have arrived.
I was going to blog about babies and business which hit the headlines last week – namely how the newly appointed pregnant CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer will not take…
The Angels’ Share: a film that turns whiskey into a political metaphor. Drink Up!
When the weather is raining and grey, I often like to go to see a film in the afternoon. It beats drinking tea in front of the box, watching the…
Having a customer conversation with Tesco
The influence of the modern supermarket on our daily lives is remarkably powerful. We take the big five for granted, rarely questioning their hold on how we shop, eat and…
The price of leadership: sharing a couch with Robert de Niro
Getting comfy in Noah’s Ark The other morning, I watched The Record , a programme on BBC Parliament which gives a daily run-through of key…
Diamond in the rough: a tale of banks, culture and high performance
Well the bankers are in trouble again. Is it a case of money corrupts? Poor Bob Diamond (former CEO of Barclays Bank). Last year he proudly announced…
LEYF report: NDNA Conference makes trip to ‘Brum’ worthwhile
This was a busy week for Early Years with the announcement of the Government’s Childcare Commission, the publication of the final report from the Nutbrown…
Read your two year-old a bedtime story, and start to slowly peel off the label of disadvantage before it sticks
This week has just disappeared, and that is partly because I had meetings every evening. I was flagging by Thursday and was keen to just go home, put my slippers…
Déjà vu, all over again.
I am a nervous passenger generally, but my anxiety rises to a whole new level when we go on the motorway. My coping mechanism is to work on my…
A lesson from Her Majesty the Queen: be nice, look nice, act nice.
Unsurprisingly, there is not a single LEYF nursery that hasn’t been joining in the Jubilee Celebrations this week in one way or another –…
Mr Mayor, please take an interest in the childcare sector and build a London fit for the next generation
When I started working with children many many years ago, I never envisaged talking about children and the economy in the same breath. These days, I never give it a…