Gill and June became friends under the most usual circumstances. June was very fed up with Ofsted and the attitude they had towards the Early Years sector. Gill was appointed the Director of Early Years and she listened. She heard what the sector was saying and has been listening ever since.

Have a listen to Gill talk about her fourteen years at Ofsted, her passion for music and how she thinks the Early Years will continue to thrive.

 https://leyf.org.uk/podcast-gill-jones/

Children's mental health: In conversation with Kate Silverton

Mum to two young children, journalist and children's mental health advocate, Kate Silverton shares her ground-breaking new approach to parenting under-fives that helps to make family life so much easier with her best-selling book: There’s No Such Thing as ‘Naughty’.

Listen to the podcast and enjoy a conversation which also asks if we know so much about supporting children to become emotionally literate, why are so many Government policies rejecting all this research?

https://leyf.org.uk/podcast-kate-silverton/ 

The Importance of Storytelling : In Conversation with Trisha Lee from Make Believe Arts

Trisha is passionate about Gussin-Paley but she is even more passionate about the rationale for storytelling and why its so important. She rails against the schoolification which squeezes out storytelling in favour of learning the structure of writing so now children can tell you what an adverb is but are writing in a way that will never be listened to.  

Listen to Trisha talk about storytelling as oral stories, poems, formal books and audio books. She reminds us that Gussin Paley read books like Charlotte’s Web to four-years-olds. She sees children able to understand much more complex ideas through stories. Because of COVID-19, she has recorded stories and poems with music to share with people on her website. 

Listen to June O’Sullivan talk candidly with Dr Linda Greenwall – founder of the charity, Dental Wellness Trust about the urgent need for free supervised tooth brushing programmes to be implemented across Early Years settings and schools.

According to the latest figures by the Local Government Association which show nearly 45,000 hospital operations were performed to remove children’s rotten teeth during 2018/19 as a result of tooth decay and high sugar diets – never has there been a more pertinent time to address this preventable crisis. 

Although tooth decay does not discriminate, it is strongly associated with deprivation and social exclusion says Dr Greenwall. This was made worse during 2020 when dental practices were forced to shut and many children were unable to attend appointments as well as their nursery. Alarmingly, almost three-quarters of children have not seen a dentist since the start of last year – despite recommendations that children have annual check-ups. 

Better dental hygiene taught at an early age will have long term benefits for children’s teeth, fewer nursery days lost and better overall health and wellbeing of our children. 

Click to find out WHY prevention is better than cure…

Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan: In conversation with Julian Grenier

I was very pleased to talk to Julian Grenier, Headteacher of Sheringham Nursery School in Newham. He and I have always had a mutual respect for our work, but we have not always seen eye to eye and I hope that continues. Great practice comes from robust debate and critical, serious thinking where we have the mutual respect to listen and consider each other’s points of view and counter the arguments rationally, honestly and openly... read the full post on leyf.org.uk 

June O’Sullivan meets Chefs in Schools CEO, Naomi Duncan who is leading a new revolution in school food, recruiting and training chefs with pedigrees from some of London’s top restaurants such as Nopi & Noma to take on food and food education in schools. 

Backed by leading chefs and restaurateurs including Henry Dimbleby, Prue Leith and Yottam Ottolenghi, they have changed the face of school food for more than 10,000 pupils already.
 
As with LEYF’s Chef Academy, they too believe that children have an absolute and vital right to enjoy and learn about fresh, nutritious food - and most importantly, get excited about it! Equipping the next generation with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves and their families well, should be a central part of the education offered in both nurseries and schools. 

June O’Sullivan meets CJ Bowry, CEO of Surrey based charity, Sal’s Shoes which has distributed an impressive two million pairs of shoes in the UK and across the world in a bid to tackle the rise in shoe poverty.

In a world whereby 300 million children are often walking without shoes – risking foot injures and disease, the charity avoids waste by sending a pair of clean, good quality shoes to another child who will benefit and may be able to share them onwards.

Having discovered Sal’s Shoes on Twitter when a LEYF nursery manager noticed that many of the children returning to nursey after lockdown were wearing inappropriate, badly-fitting or broken shoes, Sals Shoes kindly responded by generously donating 25 pairs of new shoes to Angel Pre School (LEYF) in South Westminster – all of which were greatly received.

Shoe poverty is the kind of poverty that impacts children’s confidence and their self-esteem. Never has there been a greater need for children’s shoe donations and put a Spring in Their Step.

Listen here to what CJ has to say…

Join June O’Sullivan in discussion with the Book Trust’s CEO, Diana Gerald who helps transform lives by getting children and families reading.

With a deep understanding of the role that education plays in creating opportunity, which is at the heart of BookTrust's work, Diana talks about how she got the best job in the world and how challenging it can be to get children to read, despite the golden age and the rich diversity of books available. 

They discuss the importance of why parents should be encouraged to read with their children daily (despite the reality of many varied lives and work patterns) and how Early Years settings can be utilised to get books back into the home. 

The discussion also focuses on how the number of people who come to work in the Early Years have never been taught how to read a story and asks should there be more guidance? Whilst the assumption may be that everyone is an instinctive storyteller - that’s not always the case… especially when storytelling to a group or storytelling to an individual. However, according to Diana there is no right way – it’s about what you do that really matters… Let us know what you think.

To be honest, cultural capital is not the usual conversation piece. But it is both a conscious and unconscious part of our everyday lives. Now that Ofsted has introduced the concept into the new inspection framework, cultural capital will become more conscious for many people based on the essential knowledge that children need to be educated citizens. 

 Here, Helen discusses why cultural capital should be inclusive and driven by language and literacy whereby everyone, regardless of their background, has something valid to contribute and that the interaction between children and their families is where they will learn the best.

Of course, cultural capital cannot be separated from the home learning environment. Every home has cultural capital, it’s just that society values some culture more highly than others.

June O’Sullivan meets Dr Lala Manners who has enjoyed a long and varied career in the field of Early Years movement studies and physical development: as a teacher, trainer, educator, consultant, researcher, author and broadcaster. 

Here, they debate the importance of practitioners engaging in physical development and overcoming the fear by getting ‘stuck in’ whilst allowing children to just be. To sit still. To stand still. To observe the here and now – all vital components of improving a child’s mental and physical health development.

Poor physical development in young children has been shown to impact readiness for school, behaviour, social development and academic achievement which is why daily movement, tailored to particular ages and groups of children, must be placed at the heart of the curriculum in order to support all aspects of learning.