Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan

  SEND, Social Justice and the Question We Keep Avoiding   Everyone is talking about SEND. Inclusion. Rising need. Pressures on schools and nurseries. But I am not convinced we all mean the same thing when we use those words. In my latest Talking Early Years podcast, I sat down with the wonderfully energetic Catherine Mole, CEO of Dingley’s Promise and one of the sector’s most passionate advocates...

Kindness Is the Work: A Conversation with Salas Balde for the Next Generation of Early Years Educators  Every now and then, someone walks into your professional world and reminds you why you care so deeply about Early Years, community, childhood development, and humanity itself. For me, one of those people is Salas. He was last on Talking Early Years in December 2023, and even then, he was a burst...

Is giving a young child unrestricted access to digital technology like handing them a vape?   In my latest podcast, I sat down with digital safety expert Katy Potts to confront what many of us are reluctant to say out loud. There is no app to replace your lap.  Listen to the podcast. This matters more than we think!

Social justice can sound lofty. Abstract. Something discussed in policy papers or parliamentary chambers. But the truth is, the seeds of fairness, compassion, sustainability and community are planted much earlier than that. They’re sown in the nursery, long before children learn the language of politics. And if we don’t plant them early, we risk raising a generation who see inequality as inevitabl...

Learning by Living: Barbara Rogoff on Sociocultural Learning Listen now   In this episode of Talking Early Years , I’m in conversation with one of the most influential thinkers in developmental psychology, Professor Barbara Rogoff , whose work on sociocultural learning in early childhood has reshaped how the world understands children and learning. 

 This week on the podcast, I’m joined by Howard Roberts, a creative strategist whose superpower is curiosity. The real kind—the kind that asks why, digs deeper, challenges the status quo, and isn’t satisfied with surface-level answers. In the Early Years, we know just how powerful curiosity is. It’s the engine of learning, the spark of joy, the heart of play. But what happens when we apply that sa...

I’ve just finished recording a podcast with Professor Sam Wass, and I’m still buzzing. He is Director of the Institute for the Science of Early Years at the University of East London. You may also know him from The Secret Life of Four-Year-Olds . His research is fascinating because it brings neuroscience right into the nursery, helping us understand what children’s brains are telling us about thei...

Why Nursery Chefs Are Our Unsung Food Champions I recently spoke with Catherine Lippe, a registered nutritionist with more than 18 years’ experience in Early Years nutrition. She reminded me that nursery chefs are far more than cooks; they are “food champions” whose work directly supports children’s development and helps address wider issues of health inequality. With the new EYFS nutrition guidan...

Early childhood education is not a neutral or technical service—it is a deeply political space and this is the focus of my podcast guest Professor Peter Moss, the well-known and outspoken academic critic of the UK Early Years policies.  He argues that every decision about how we organise, fund, and value the early years reflects our collective beliefs about children, families, and the society we w...

Risky Play or Not Risky Play - That is the Question! Ellen Sandseter is a well-known professor at Queen Maud University College for Early Childhood Education in Trondheim, Norway but we all know her for her thoughtful and challenging work on risky play. If you are interested in a conversation about risky play from a leader in the field, listen here!

The Power of Intergenerational Nurseries In this podcast, I speak to Sue Egersdorff, co-founder of the intergenerational Ready Generations Nursery at Belong, in Chester.  Her work is a powerful reminder that early childhood settings are not just educational spaces – they’re deeply embedded in the wider social and political landscape.

Are children deprived of the opportunity to play?... ...is not a new question, but one that continues to be tackled on many levels. Greg Bottrill’s book ' Can I Go and Play Now?' remains a catalyst for the conversation and highlights the importance of adults as loving companions, advocating for children’s right to a childhood.

If you have been frog marched through books, why would you ever read for pleasure? asks Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the Children’s Book Laureate.   The award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cotterell Boyce is the 13th Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, a role created by The BookTrust to champion every child’s right to a lifetime enriched with books and stories – recognising the transf...

Professional Love: The Beating Heart of Early Years Education and Care   On Valentine’s Day, there is much talk about romantic love, but we are talking about a very different kind of love; professional love , a term coined by Dr Jools Page and familiar to many colleagues across the Early Years sector.  Introducing the phrase professional love gave permission to Early Years colleagues to use the wo...

Unpacking The Twoness of Twos     The Government has agreed to continue the roll out of funded places for two-year-olds, with talk of putting them into schools. Many are concerned that this plan may ignore the uniqueness of the two-year-olds. To mitigate this, my colleague Louise Hannan, (currently researching the emotional environment for two-year-olds) and I have refreshed the original Twoness o...

A Right to be Children: The Importance of the Design Architecture   The importance of architecture to Early Years is often misunderstood. The building is part of the enabling environment and needs to be designed to support learning by creating the right environment and resources both indoors and outside. They are also integral to meeting the sustainability pillars; economic, social and environment...

Sarah Ronan is the director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) – an organisation made up of 35 members which represent children, parents, providers, the Early Years workforce and the wider business community. Like many others in the Early Years sector, Sarah's journey is deeply personal. Her own experiences with inaccessible childcare, combined with her passion for women’s...

There is a lot of concern about recently qualified staff who appear to find adjusting to the workplace a challenge and seem to have emerged with degrees which are low quality. As an employer of nearly 1000 staff, that is an issue, because my job isn’t simply to recruit staff but to succession plan ( and I don’t mean that in a Brian Cox sort of way!).  Therefore, these concerns which I am hearing a...

It seems strange that in 2024 parents feel the need to lead a campaign about healthy food, but with the help of the Children’s Food Campaign at Sustain , that’s exactly what they are doing. Indeed, they managed to get to meet members of parliament to share their manifesto with them. In this podcast I speak to Barbara Crowther, Children’s Food Campaign Manager at Sustain and parent ambassador Jayna...

Getting into your Ofsted Groove! In this podcast I talk to Wendy Ratcliff and Sam Sleeman-Boss from Ofsted about the Big Listen, refreshed handbooks, new complaints procedure and the research review series and how they are feeling about the Ofsted Academy and the future of Ofsted. While there are some things they cannot answer yet, like how will Ofsted reshape, I am holding them to the promise of...

Slow Pedagogy  Slow pedagogy calls for compassion where we actively do something to address suffering.  During Covid, the LEYF staff running our 15 nurseries for key workers had a call with me at 3pm every day.  I looked forward to our chats and it wasn’t long until they we talking about  how the reduction in numbers of children, time to play, less curricular demands and  fewer wider issues was po...

Baby, It’s Time   Do you think babies are a focus of care and education policy enough?  Do we have a baby policy blind spot?   We think so!   This is the subject of my conversation with Sally Hogg , Senior Policy Fellow at the Centre for Research on Playing Education, Development and Learning better known as PEDAL .  Why has this issue become so important now?  Well, because of the speed of the ch...

It’s fitting that this podcast is being aired on International Children’s Day because Sir Al is a huge advocate for children over his very busy and noteworthy 50 years.  His message is powerful, and he pulls no punches about his frustration over the failure of our country to take seriously the importance of children, and particularly those in the Early Years.  “Every child should be given the reso...

In this podcast with Prue Leith, we discover that Prue’s approach to life is summed up by her autobiography, “I'd Try Anything Once” and the more she talks the more you believe it! From posh white girl in South Africa  to judge on Bake Off,  food dominates Prue’s career. Her passion is undimmed as is her patience with the stupidity of politicians. She provides an entertaining but thoughtful s...