LEYF News and CEO Blog

I operate in two worlds; Early Years and Social Enterprise. Every now and then they converge, and I find myself invited to a most unusual or unexpected event. That happened…

Last week, I had a panicky phone call from my friend Alice Sharp asking me to get on twitter and read about the Channel 4 programme which proposes using…

I recently found a letter I had written in 2014 to the London boroughs arguing that if we were serious about stemming childhood obesity we needed to work together to…

There is no poverty in the UK I hear you cry. Really?  Let’s start by looking at what we mean by poverty and the statistics. There is currently no formal…

It was the longest and largest consultation Ofsted has ever undertaken (four months with 100 focus groups and 250 pilots across the sector) and consequently 15,000 people replied.  Lesson to…

The debate about what is education continues unabated. The DfE annoyed and baffled many last month when they announced that they did not advocate using the word learning because…

Last week, one of our LEYF nurseries curated a pop-up art exhibition at a central venue in London’s Soho.  The art which was auctioned by the manager…

I arrived on Friday evening (15 March) in a wet Bath for the Firm Foundations Conference. A wet bath was also just perfect metaphor for my life at the…

I grew up in a world where reading was a normal pastime. I didn’t have access to many books at home but I was an avid library fan.  I went…

I was invited to talk to Eamonn Holmes at talkRADIO the other week about a news story that commented on our intention to try and ensure that of the…

I was visiting a LEYF nursery on the Wandsworth Bridge Road and Shandrika the deputy manager was engaging a in a deep pedagogical conversation with me.  Then she stopped, sighed…

Last week I gave a seminar at the Nursery World Show about pedagogy, and I particularly referenced the importance of Early Years teachers being able to name and describe the…