The Big Listen Reports!
The Ofsted Big Listen has reported. I have summarised the main thrust of the report. They will act using 7Cs but we need to engage and make sure we…
LEYF News and CEO Blog
Read the latest news and updates from our CEO and the wider LEYF team.
Is the Quality of New Staff Flashing Red?
The drive for the childcare expansion pushes on despite the worries about sufficient staff. However, while our concern about staff sufficiency remains flashing amber, our new flashing red is…
Early Years, Dragons and Dolly Parton… or how bankers became our new best friends
The last few weeks have been a bit of an intellectual whirlwind, which always gets me really excited. So for those people who think working with children is all about…
So we are all Social Enterprises Now? LOL!
I read in this week’s Third Sector magazine that Kevin Carey chair of the RNIB told the Charity Finance Directors Group that the charity…
Child poverty: will this new strategy finally make progress stick?
This weekend, I spent some time helping my sister (also in Early Years!) go through her old teaching resources in readiness to move them into a new space. Amongst the…
Is happiness the greatest gift we can give our children?
This weekend the TV presenters continually referred to the joy and happiness created by the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Images…
Social franchising and the LEYF Experience
For those wonderfully supportive people who follow this blog, you may have noticed a gap in production; this is because I have been staying in the Shropshire…
EYFS: the real values behind our ‘nappy curriculum’
This week we received the official recommendations from the Review of the Early Years Foundation Stage led by Dame Clare Tickell. It’s quite a…
No half measures when it comes to social impact
There is much talk at the moment about the importance of measurement, including a reference to it in many of the speeches I listened to during the…
Big society grants: plus ça change…
I have learned that if I am to truly avoid all contact with the world of work, then I need to go abroad without a phone or internet access. To…
Down on the farm, cultivating an organic approach to Big Society
Alongside the delight of being Chief Executive of LEYF, I am also chair of Paddington Farm Trust. Established as a charity 20 years ago…
Ready to grasp the nettle of our ‘hands-free’ future?
What would Lord Shaftsbury, Mary Carpenter or Dr Barnardo make of the ongoing political battle of what to cut and what to save? …
Children’s Centres: A Way Forward
This has been an interesting week or so for the sector… Firstly, Graham Allen MP (who spoke with such conviction about Early Intervention at our annual…
A Call to Arms: Save Our Children’s Centres
We are already halfway through January, having returned from a long break to the order and pattern that work gives us. We have cheerily greeted everyone with a Happy New…