The research also reported how employees would double their performance if they were working for their ‘best ever’ boss; scary statistics were quoted such as how an increase in motivation can go from 11% to 98% and high performance from 5% to 94% if employees had a really good boss.

Naturally enough, some employees (45%) said they could do a better job than their boss but they did not want to be a manager. (Too much stress, responsibility and pressure.) At the same time, 2 out every 5 employees left because of their manager. What really grieved these employees was managers failing to ask for ideas and input, limited work-related conversations and insufficient feedback on their performance leading to poor employee engagement.

In another quite separate report, the attributes of those leaders who consider themselves ‘truly gifted’ (despite being at the helm of failing companies) were identified as:

• They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environments, not simply responding to developments in those environments;
• They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and corporate interests;
• They seem to have all the answers, often dazzling people with the speed and decisiveness with which they can deal with challenging issues;
• They make sure that everyone is 100% behind them, ruthlessly eliminating anyone who might undermine their efforts;
• They are consummate company spokespersons, often devoting the largest portion of their efforts to managing and developing the company image;
• They treat intimidatingly difficult obstacles as temporary impediments to be removed or overcome;
• They never hesitate to return to the strategies and tactics that made them and their companies successful in the first.

Right! So how do we act on all of this to make sure everyone is happy at work, successful and performing to the best of their abilities?

As someone who wrote a book on leadership in 2009, as an attempt to understand its complexities, I have a great deal of sympathy for those brave souls who decided to go for management jobs. This in part is why we are always looking for ways to improve leadership at LEYF, from the perspectives of both managers and staff.  And the issue is even more crucial when you consider the children at the mercy of our abilities everyday. (Well led Early Years settings lead to better outcomes for all children, hence our ambition to build a better future for London’s children.)

Either way, such research is always a good wake-up call (like when the mystery shopper comes calling). And so finding it makes the fact we are putting real effort into getting leadership right at LEYF even more reassuring – with a plan to roll out improved performance management systems to help managers lead and motivate their staff, whilst also trying hard to improve communication.

Of course, as a boss, I have sympathy with leaders and managers: it is a tough job, and quite a different one to being a nursery officer or teacher. So I am keen to move away from the traditional vertical approach to promotion, which often means staying on long enough to end up managing the setting by default.  This is simply the wrong approach, since being a manager is a completely different job. Luckily for me, our managers respond well to the challenge of how to lead the fabulous LEYF curriculum, while running their nursery as a social enterprise. It’s a tough call.

I think our plan for LEYF leadership teams is the only way to go. Being a leader at the top of a pyramid is a lonely place, listening to the groaning of the Pharaoh ghosts trapped in their sarcophagus and with no one to talk to (not even Harrison Ford). As a CEO, I know this and I am grateful to have a supportive team who can be kind and helpful, but who also love to bring me back to reality. (Well, they try anyway!)

In my optimistic way, I would take a punt that leadership and management is much more successful at LEYF than this report would suggest. But at the same time, we can only keep it good if we keep our eye on the ball – keep engaging with staff and remember how easy it is for them to begin to feel disengaged.

For those who know me, it won’t surprise you to know that I obsess about LEYF all the time, as I want to ensure we give the highest and best quality to our children, staff and parents. For me, thinking, talking, listening, researching and praising are the watchwords of LEYF leadership. No one wants staff to leave because they dislike their managers. Instead, I want to make sure any LEYF staff that do leave retain warm and positive memories of their time with us, and so continue to promote what we do as they become the next leaders in their field.

(For those of you looking for further reading on the subject of happiness, you may find this report from the Young Foundation worth a look.)

One of my many habits (the number increases with age) is listening to Desert Island Discs.  It’s a great place to hear what people think about their lives.  I was very touched by a woman who talked about her loneliness since being widowed.  She said:

I have plenty of things to do with people but I have no one to do nothing with.”

It’s an expression used this week by Esther Rantzen who is setting up a helpline called the Silver Line for older people to share worries, get advice and maybe get linked into local services. I am not sure about the name though, sounds more like a bus network to me.

Still, it was the horror of loneliness that made me so passionate about doing things from a multi-generational perspective. Just take a moment to look out the window and it does not take long to pick up the loneliness vibe.  We are not helping either by introducing those awful self-service check out machines at supermarkets. Apart from the fact that they don’t seem to work most of the time, some people have no interaction with another human being for days on end – so imagine when they finally get to the supermarket, only to find they have to talk to the woman from the Sat Nav school of communication. No thank you.  It’s another nail in the loneliness coffin: no bus conductors, few officials to chat to, limited local police officers on the street and so eventually barely a soul it seems to even pass the time of day. Humans are social.  We need to be social to survive.

Staff at LEYF have responded remarkably well to our multi-generational way of doing things.  For instance, last week saw Julie Weiss and her nursery team at Luton Street begin a series of six weekly activity sessions with older people (above), spending time together to make things with the children. Some people may think this all a tad trivial, but I remember how Jo Lax (our manager at Holcroft) found herself shocked and rather distressed at the end of one Pancake Day she had hosted for older people in her nursery’s community, as an elderly lady came and said

Thank you. This keeps me wanting to stay alive, otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”

But we know that isolation is not just about being old; again why we have a multi-generational approach.  We are always meeting people who have moved to London, only to find themselves isolated and not knowing what to do.  That’s why we are starting a TimeBank.  We have lonely Dads, especially those who are no longer working, at home with their children and not sure how to engage with other parents.  Dad’s sessions like those run by Marion at Carlton Hill are as much about this as giving Dads a safe space to play with their children.

Some of our apprentices, barely 17 years old, come to LEYF feeling isolated and very alone in a crowd. It takes the skill of the tutor to engage with them and help them become part of a friendship network.

Our Children Centres have to be multi-generational, as we have to find ways to help people make friends and get to know one another; so many mothers are lonely, especially those who have come from abroad, either with their high flying husbands or as economic migrants.

Loneliness is the scariest thing out there. We can’t build a better future for London’s children if we don’t at least try to create ways of reducing loneliness.  And we can’t afford to fail, lest it also become our own inevitable fate.

Footnotes:

I must remind every reader of this blog that children, staff and the occasional parent from our Carlton Hill Community Nursery will soon have their 15 minutes of fame on Channel 4, as part of the three part series ‘Daddy Daycare‘. So make sure you set your Sky+ or Freeview recorders for 8pm. Starting this Wednesday, February 15, Carlton Hill will feature on episode #2 (Feb 22), so please do tune in – and let us know what you think in the usual channels!

Final mention this week must go to one of currently two male nursery managers at LEYF, David Stevens at the Angel, who is using findings from our own action research to present for a second time at BECERA. In fact, he’s not the only member of LEYF staff (male or female) presenting this year. So thanks and congratulations to you all – simply fantastic stuff!

Absolute poppycock! The report actually said that it was probably too soon to tell, adding how there has been improvement in the Foundation Stage but this has not carried on into Primary School. Dare I say it’s maybe the hallowed Primary Schools that need addressing; or perhaps we need a serious conversation about what we as a country want for our children?

Unlike our contemporaries in Europe, we have never fully considered what we want for our small children; instead we simply react to external reports and anecdotal observations. What does measurement actually tell us if we are measuring the wrong or non-compatible things with the same set of measurements?  Apparently, we want children to be happy, whilst at the same time ‘school ready’ and successful.

Perhaps, someone should listen to the many commentators suggesting that maybe schools are not the right place for children as young as three, and that if they were in nurseries for longer (like their apparently more successful counterparts in Europe) there would be even more improvement, sustained for much longer.

In addition to improvement, the report looked at the hoary chestnut of funding, unsurprisingly concluding that the Department and its partners do not yet sufficiently understand the relationship between this and local performance – including how far variations in rates paid to providers reflect legitimate local factors – to be confident that funding arrangements are efficient. For example, certain local authorities use funding to provide limited incentives for providers to improve quality, despite finding no links with take-up rates or quality. It’s no surprise to see the report noting how funding formulae are complex, yet despite this, transparency and fairness of funding was improving. (Although funding remained insufficient to cover the costs for some providers, nursery schools received a much higher level of payment than the rest of the sector.)

The report concluded that the Department for Education (DfE) needs to address variations in take-up when it comes to accessing high-quality provision – along with the impact on attainment in later years – if it is to achieve value for money and get the best possible return for children from its annual investment of some £1.9 billion. I vote this should become a central strategy to the current work being done and the reviews being undertaken, so that every DfE activity weaves together to deliver a coherent service, one which parents can both understand and buy into without all the confusion that is raised by so many emotive headlines.

I would caution that if we are to truly measure the longer term benefit, we must remember what we are measuring. Our children (including the two-year-olds) are babies and must be allowed to enjoy their childhood.  Value for money is important, of course, but if we are showing improvement already let’s start from that premise; measure the right things in the right way.  What we want is for children to have a happy childhood; Early Years is a crucial step towards that, but not a stick to be beaten with if children do less well in Primary Schools.

Mr Gove, I urge you again to take more interest in the Early Years and stop assuming that Primary Schools are perfect.  Be as critical of them as you are of Secondary Schools, and let’s have a more in depth look at transition. Remember what this report says: there has been improvement in the Foundation Stage.

Outside of LEYF, the world remains a rather unsettled place. The economy is not recovering, the Eurozone is a disaster, child poverty continues to grow as does unemployment among the young. There is an edgy feel about.  The politicians talk about creative capitalism or moral capitalism.  Young people apparently consider the whole thing ‘Peak’. So we have a choice: we sit tight and ride the storm, keep calm and do nothing, whinge, run for the hills or see things like the Chinese do, that every crisis is just as much an opportunity. Interestingly, we have just entered the year of the Dragon: a time for wisdom, strength, benevolence and good fortune.

Back at LEYF, we have decided we can expand our pioneering approach across London. It’s a simple enough model: community nurseries with a range of fees, alongside apprenticeships all wrapped within a multi-generational approach. This ambition is only possible because I trust that LEYF staff will come with me.  We may lose a few people along the way, but that may be right for both them and us; working for a small organisation is not quite the same as a big group or a network of internal franchisees.

Why do it? Why risk upsetting the apple cart? Because we have a duty to share what we do well for small children. Child poverty continues to rise to the detriment of the child, the family and society as a whole. Many people are lost and lonely, so why should we not roll out our way of doing things to benefit many more people?  The bankers and many other private businesses are growing despite often appalling records; they appear to show neither remorse nor a duty of care to their customers. So if we can do something that brings a social good, it is only right that we make the effort to do more of what we already do well.

The risks are immense. Can we keep the quality? Will staff remain motivated? Can we create the right support structure? Will parents abandon us? The signs are that none of this will happen anymore than it would happen in a smaller organisation. The success is having sharp, intelligent, knowledgeable, skilled and entrepreneurial leaders across the organisation, individuals who also come with a natural and clear sense of social duty, coupled with the ability to connect with the community.

It’s probably a big ask, but when 650,000 children across London live in poverty, it’s probably the right question.

As Goethe says:

Seize this very minute; what you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Inspecting the Early Years

Ofsted is now under new leadership, so in keeping with the arrival of a new leader, we see a bit of a shake-up; and in the true spirit of change management, we start with a consultation.  (This one has just begun, and we have until Friday 6 April 2012 to share our views.)

The changes are to coincide with the revised EYFS, which the Government intends to publish in September. And so this will be a busy and interesting time for those of us due to be inspected around that time.  In the case of LEYF that is about three nurseries.

Over the years we have known a raft of different Ofsted experiences; some good and some pretty terrible. Success always lies with the attitude, personality and competence of the inspector and how they interpret the guidance. Some inspectors bring intelligence, knowledge and sensitivity to the process, whilst others are jobsworths in their approach and get a reaction similar to Marmite: you either love it or hate it.

With the new EYFS emphasising personal, social and emotional learning, communication and physical development, I hope we see inspectors well versed in knowing how to judge the opportunities and experiences the children receive to develop in all those areas, especially the two year olds. Hopefully, that would mean more inspections held with staff and children rather than looking at paperwork.  Many a time I hauled inspectors, anxiously filling in long reports in the office, outside to see children in action.

The consultation wants to ensure inspections reports are helpful to parents.  In that case, they need to be written in a way that tells parents something useful.  Nowadays, inspection reports are so anodyne they tell you next to nothing.

Finally – and this is just a starter for ten – I hope they dump ‘satisfactory’ as a category; it’s so dull and depressing, and just makes one feel lacking and limp.  (Let’s not forget how very important outcomes are for morale and affirmation.)

Of course, there is and should be a monetary factor attached to an Ofsted judgement these days, with some local authorities giving extra funding for good or outstanding  outcomes when allocating the NEG; for example, 40 pence extra per child per hour for getting an outstanding can help make the NEG add up to the real cost of the place.

There is much more to say about Ofsted, and so we must all respond to the consultation. If it was up to me, I would give it back to the Queen and make it Her Majesty’s Inspectorate; an independent, high calibre service staffed with highly intelligent, experienced and capable inspectors. It might give it back its credibility and potency … but hey, imagine the cost!

Back in the 1970’s I joined the feminist movement with all the zeal of youth. I had left an economically bankrupt Ireland and an oppressive place for young women. I was eager to experience a city where women were keen to overcome the gender inferiority expressed so beautifully in the seminal book The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1949).

So I came to London and became a feminist,  buying my monthly Spare Rib, reading Betty Friedan, Marilyn French, Nancy Friday, Anne Oakley and  anything published by Virago Press as well as frequenting the Irish Women’s Group in Stoke Newington and the South London Women’s Centre.  I was excited by the prospect of gender and economic equality.  I absorbed the principle that the personal was political, and I marched on the night rally to Reclaim the Night. It took a while for me to become uneasy with some aspects of feminism – including motherhood, divorce, boys and men, childcare and poor women. I realised, somewhat slowly, that the price we would paid for our so called equality could be very large and self-destructive.

So now that we have the vote, divorce, jobs, training and contraception why do I still have the same powerful sense of uneasiness, especially about our role as mothers? Maybe it’s because I know that pay is not guaranteed to be equal, because women suffer from such sexist pension laws, childcare remains the predominant responsibility of women, domestic violence is increasing and because many young women have confused sexual independence with laddishness.

As a female leader in a female dominated sector, where the majority of our customers are women, I feel we should lead a debate on the role we expect mothers to play in today’s society. Even more so, since women are suffering more severely in this economic disaster – with a higher proportion losing their jobs and pensions, whilst at the same time facing the challenge of keeping their families out of poverty. Their jobs are not for extras; the majority of all homes now depend on two incomes. In a report Families Experiencing Multiple Disadvantage: Their Use of and Views on Childcare Provision (Speight, Smith, Lloyd; 2010), the authors found that 62% of poor parents would like reliable childcare to go to work. And if women are to work once they become mothers, they logically need to find good childcare. But this course of action is complicated and tainted by the societal confusion about what we want for our children.

It is noticeable that countries which have had a meaningful philosophical debate about what they want for their children have a much healthier attitude to motherhood. Christine Lagarde, the first female CEO of the IMF was interviewed by the Financial Times recently. In the article, she claims to have never worried about leaving her children while she worked, thanks to the very good nursery at the IMF, adding how she liked to hear the sound of children in the building.  Instead, she says that she was most honoured when her child told her how proud he was of what she was doing. It is a very positive interview and one I wish we could have more of here in the UK.

By contrast, here in the UK we remain twisted up in guilt and confusion about how to do the right thing by our children.  The national attitude ricochets from describing motherhood as a saintly vocation to blaming all mothers – especially single mothers – as the cause of all our social and economic woes (too many women working, no jobs for men or we don’t know what our children are doing because we are always out).

So, in celebration of Little Women’s Christmas 2012, let’s start this week by thinking through our post modern, socially constructed feminist approach to being the mother of a child under 5 in 2012. And before anyone says Dads matter too, I know they do; but right we need to spend some quality thinking time examining our attitudes to motherhood as a first step in a renewed analysis of what we want for our children, the family and the future. It will lead to us to consider a myriad of aligned issues – including what is good quality childcare, what does early childhood education mean for us, and should our children be in school at 4.

Visiting our Eastbury nursery the other day, I met Grace who is a LEYF parent currently completing her Early Years Professional Qualification while on placement in the nursery. As someone with a view from both sides, I was interested to hear that what she wanted was to be able to develop a meaningful career, knowing her child is getting the best care in her nursery. Not so different to her feminist sisters in the 1960s – or is it?

Let me know what you think in the comment box below. In the meantime, I look forward to engaging with you on this and many other ideas throughout 2012.

As I recover from cooking, eating, talking, reading and watching TV (little different there then, except this time a lot of it was done with my extended family, including the delights of my youngest brother and my nieces and nephews who are placed on this earth to remind us about our duty to listen to the young), I have checked out the predictions of Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, the I Ching and various political pundits in order to sound informed. Ironically, the best advice came from RiRi, my favourite pop singer of the moment, who in Fading (Away) tells us that life is too short to worry. The only downside to the lovely RiRi is her acceptance of lyrics which lack any reference to women’s rights or suffrage! She is certainly no feminist.

Back to the gloomy predictions of 2012: deflation, interest rises to 8%, employment increasing to 4%, tougher economic year than 2011, crazy election results, Eurozone debacle, cyclones, volcanoes, storms… and frankly more of the same. Hey ho.

Of course, here at LEYF we work with children – preparing them for this very future – so let’s take RiRI’s more optimistic, pragmatic view and challenge this dire outlook with a positive attitude. (We know that optimism breeds positive attitudes and a better chance of successful outcomes; in my book that means balance risks but don’t ignore the opportunities.)

For us, irrespective of the bigger issues, this year I hope to do more around our core LEYF values: being child focused, collaborative, courageous, creative and constant.

First and most important of all, we will strive to be even more child focused than ever before, as we know children are the ones most hurt by poverty and stupid adults.

We will collaborate more, particularly with parents. I learned a lot from a meeting I had with parents at our Noah’s Ark community nursery recently, and it’s a lesson I won’t forget. Parental perspectives matter and need to be valued and understood.

Even greater courage is required as we discover how many more children are suffering economically and emotionally from some of our leaders’ dim-witted policies. We really must do things differently, and so I hope we get our LEYF research hubs motoring in 2012. I want to have Meet-ups with parents and all those who want to talk about new ideas or anything that will get our little grey cells operating. (Yes, you guessed it – I received a box set of Poirot for Christmas!)

Creativity is a fascinating value and one that is demonstrated in many ways. For example, I have just finished the biographies of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton and his wife Isabel Burton, both great Victorian travellers. He was an irascible character with a fascination of the East and wrote prolifically, including a translation of Arabian Nights and Kama Sutra. He showed creativity in how he overcame the challenges of exploring and brokering relationships across unknown places; his grasp of languages and understanding of cultural behaviour was a clear means of ensuring that he could broker a mutual understanding. However, his creativity was less well received by the stuffy and hierarchical hide-bound Victorian society. When he died he was snubbed by the establishment and refused a burial place in Westminster Abbey, so his stalwart and loyal wife Isabel persuaded the British public to fund a mausoleum in a cemetery in Mortlake in the shape of a Bedouin tent, one that she designed. She was both constant and creative in her efforts to support her husband in a way that celebrates what we struggle with today; a genuine and honest appreciation of east and west.

So, whatever Nostradamus and his pals say, here at LEYF 2012 will be shaped by the 5 Cs from a positive, creative and optimistic outlook.

And if you don’t believe me, I completed the I Ching and asked what we might need to tackle. The answer came in the form of the hexagram KU. The translation is:

• Work on what has been spoiled
• Has supreme success
• It furthers one to cross the great water
• Afterwards there is order

Good Advice; let’s go forward. Happy 2012.

“Ha,” said Rudolf chortling, “we have heard that before – it will take more than the fears of obesity to get him to stick to his diet. Anyway, we all know that one glass of red wine reduces the risk of strokes and dementia. No, the only answer is to get the Health and Safety brigade to ban chimneys.”

“Not on your life,” says Chris Grayling MP, “chimneys, decorations, conkers and common sense are all coming back in 2012.”

Back up the chimney, Santa has decided to trust his team led by super leader Rudolf to come up with a plan to release him.  (Leadership is apparently the modern answer for success; nowadays branded as system leadership, we just have to get it right. And with plenty of precedence for getting it wrong, those committees trying to define leadership will need lots of luck.)

Either way, Santa was always sure of a positive outcome, simply as the key holder to the stationery cupboard – a sure fire guarantee that he would be rescued, as Rudolf and the team knew what else was stored in there (and we’re not just talking treasure baskets here).

Scratching his beard, and now covered in soot, Santa contemplated what his look-alike Karl Marx would make of the current economic situation and Eurozone debacle. What would he say to those camping out at St Paul’s or to all the young people who ricochet from anger to despair?  What hope would he give that we can find a new way of doing things?  Would he mock David Cameron’s call that traditional values will save us? In an optimistic moment Marx said that

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.”

So to be happier we need to be more equal, less acquisitive and more community minded? “Result!” thinks Santa. “My sack will be a lot lighter and I won’t have to carry so many toys.  I can dump all the PlayStations and join Pink Stinks and rail against all the pink packaged toys for girls.  Social capital here I come! I better join a Time Bank, start volunteering and get a load of apprentices into my workshop: I could become the biggest social enterprise in Lapland!”

Getting colder up the chimney, Santa decided to sing to keep himself calm and rapped out his situation, only to bring more soot on his head. “I will submit this song to Simon Cowell,” he contemplated, “and see if I can be the next winner of the X Factor. On the other hand there is always YouTube.”

So let’s all sing out with Santa:

When Santa got stuck up the chimney,
He began to shout.
You girls and boys, won’t get any toys,
If you don’t pull me out.
My beard is black, There’s soot in my sack.
My nose is tickly too.
When Santa got stuck up the chimney,
Aaachooo, achoo, achoo.

When Santa got stuck up the chimney
He began to yell
Oh hurry please it’s such a squeeze
My sack is stuck as well
Oh dear oh dear it’s cold up here
And Rudolph’s nose is blue
When Santa got stuck up the chimney
Atchoo! Atchoo! Atchoo!

A couple of weeks ago I sent David Stevens, manager of our Angel nursery, off to Dublin to the Men in Childcare Network Annual Conference.  It was held in Ireland in the Wicklow Hills and in Dublin city, so I knew that David would have a good weekend come what may. I was right, he did have a very interesting and positive experience and the hospitality was good.  Most importantly, he was pleased to be able to connect and talk with other men interested in childcare, as they also like caring for and teaching young children and see themselves as members of a professional Early Years sector. Interestingly, David was the only man from the UK – his colleagues were Irish or Scandinavian. In any case, the remit of their debate was wide ranging.

Having gone there to represent LEYF, David felt obligated to come and give me feedback.  He was grateful for my insistence that he fly Aer Lingus.  I was worried that if I sent him on Ryan Air he might end up at an airport in the west of Ireland and never be seen again. Our subsequent conversation confirmed some of my anxieties that the debate about us needing men in childcare seems a bit nebulous. David has been examining the issue for a number of years and has given many presentations about the subject.  He comes at it from a very particular male perspective (to help you picture David, he is a shaved headed, tattoo wearing, Chelsea supporting vegetarian) and is clear that getting men into childcare has to begin from the principle that we need men who want to do the job. He also accepts that men are joining a female dominated workforce. We both agree that this type of workforce is not a bad thing, but some arguments make it seem that we need men to be part of the workforce in order to improve our pay and conditions because men won’t work for low status jobs. David and I both agreed that this is a slippery slope, as it undermines the whole sector, patronises those women who have developed the sector and sets men up as being knights on white chargers when in fact we join childcare because we like working with children, do a good job and want to make a difference.

With this in mind, if we are to develop the right strategies to attract the right kind of men, we need to have a better, more informed and intelligent discussion about why we want men in childcare. For example, I had taken the view that we need to share the men out among the nurseries. However, since David has been running his male team at the nursery, I have learned a great deal from him and changed some of my thinking and strategies about how I recruit and deploy men. For example, I no longer place men in a nursery alone if possible, rather place two together. I realised it was unfair to expect one male to reverse significant societal issues – such as family breakdown and some children neither seeing their Dad or having any male role models in their lives. By asking male staff directly, I also found that many disliked being the only man in the team.  They found it a bit scary and at times uncomfortable (easily done, as after a while women tend to forget men are men in the team and just make them part of the group).  Some men cope whilst others don’t, and find being one of the girls a bit much!

If we really want men to join us in the sector, we need to talk to them a bit more and perhaps develop the argument more coherently.  We need to think carefully about what we are asking from men, since in our zeal to increase the number of men in childcare, we may find ourselves inadvertently driving them away. Men have a tremendously important  role to play in providing children with a well rounded experience. But to expect them to readdress the gender imbalance, provide positive role models for children who had negative or no experience of men in their family and rebuild trust with women who may have been hurt or abandoned by their child’s father is asking too much.

Instead, let’s start sensibly. As women we need to welcome men into the team as colleagues and equals, not to be a particular role model.  As women who lead a female dominated sector, let’s gather our confidence and experience to lead a sector where men can play a part, but where women still lead the charge. If we think that by welcoming men into the sector we will change pay and conditions, and suddenly be seen as a more viable option, we are doing our selves a disservice.

Early Years has a history and a heritage that is female dominated.  It has a pattern of great women leaders.  It has room for men, but they are men not superheroes.  We need to encourage them because we want team members for both sexes, and we want a range of skills and interests that can be best achieved by men and women together.  We need to temper the debate for men in childcare with a rational and considered understanding of what men can do to add value.

If you have any direct experience or thoughts on how we can improve the current gender imbalance, only for the right reasons and in the right way, David and I would love to hear from you – so please use the comment box below, or drop David a line directly.

Good job for Mr. Osborne and a possible sop to many disenchanted women who are bearing quite a lot of the brunt of the ongoing economic slump.

The arrival of more two years olds under the free offer may be good news for many settings, especially as the grant for two year olds currently covers the real costs of provision, unlike the grant for the three and four year olds.

The rationale for providing places for those two year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds must be predicated on the research, showing how good quality childcare can improve the child’s life chances and pay dividends to the child, the family and society as a whole. It’s clearly an investment with a serious social return. Sarah Teather MP tells us that

Our priority is to increase social mobility by helping children from the poorest backgrounds in their earliest years. High quality early education is the key to making a difference early on in a child’s life. It’s crucial for their healthy development and means they’re not falling behind before they have even started primary school.

Sarah Teather MP

However, the most powerful words here are good quality. There is also a raft of research that demonstrates what good quality needs to look like, only it’s not always either interpreted or applied consistently. Ofsted still find that the lowest quality childcare remains in the poorest and most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. It’s shockingly unacceptable.

One aspect of quality is the ability to understand the developmental stages of children.  For two year olds this means recognizing and celebrating the twoness of two.  There has been an inclination to overly focus on education to the detriment of care (yes I know the two are integral, but I fear not everyone knows that!), pushing small children into an inappropriate and unsuitable curriculum or environment.  Two year olds are just recent babies, and this needs to be considered as we welcome them into our nurseries and help them become independent and confident little people. It’s a skilled and sensitive role for those adults working with this group of children, and one not to be underestimated.

The experiences children receive in their early years are crucial to overall brain development. When a child has an experience, connections are formed between brain cells; so the cells are dependent on experience to create these connections. After eight months a child exposed to a nurturing and stimulating environment may already have 1,000 trillion connections created; so again these connections physically grow and develop the brain.

As such, it is primarily the early experiences and warm and consistent parents, who cuddle and talk to their children and provide fun learning experiences, that largely determine the basic strength and function of the brain’s wiring system and so promote healthy brain development for their children. By contrast, babies who do not receive consistent and caring responses to their cries, or those whose cries are met with abuse, develop brain connections to prepare them to cope in that environment. As a result their ability to learn and respond to nurturing and kindness may be impaired.

The brain organizes through a ‘use it or lose it’ process: the brain eliminates or strengthens connections in an effort to become more efficient. So, experiences that are repeated frequently lead to brain connections that are retained. It is Repetition That Makes Strong Connections. And consistency is key. The brain feels comfortable when it knows what to expect. When children learn, through repetition, that a parent (or care provider) will be there for them when needed, they can relax and feel safe.

In short, providing loving interaction, adequate amounts of sleep, healthy nutrition, time playing outdoors, physical activity, lots of creative play and exploration contributes to a child with a healthy brain.

To further explore this crucial aspect of development in the early years, we are starting a working group of staff at LEYF who care for and really understand two year olds.  We have already learnt from the Two Year Old pilot that we need to set simple benchmark assessment, help people revisit their understanding of what it means to be two and figure out a way of engaging parents to better understand and support their two year olds at home. But we cannot stop there.

If you have any thoughts or specific experiences in relation to this topic, please do add your comments below.