Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan June O'Sullivan

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 summary of her efforts to put small children's health and access to food right at the centre ...

“I see myself as the Benjamin Button of Education” In conversation with Dr Ger Graus. The power of play is recognised within the Early Years sector as essential to children’s development. Playing is a child’s right and is our main teaching tool. As Friedrich Froebel said so eloquently back in 1837, “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul.” Yet today, we are limiting children’s opportunit...

According to Barnardos, it is estimated that there are up to 310,000 children every year with a parent in prison in England and Wales. And for those children, this can lead to poor physical and mental health and significant trauma, especially as some of them will have witnessed some of the criminal activity or even the arrest of their parent. It is not unheard that no one collects a child from school because they have been convicted at a court hearing earlier in the day. Can you i...

My first Podcast of 2024 is an interview with the very delightful Matt Arnerich, Director of Brand & Comms at Famly – an Early Childhood Platform that bridges the collaboration gap between the grown-ups who raise young children. It supports around 6,000 Early Years providers and families to communicate, share information, run their business and learn new things. Whilst we don’t subscribe to Famly’s platform at LEYF, we are very supportive of its work. I wanted to talk to Matt about h...

Workout to Help with Salas… and Bring Kindness to the World Life is very serendipitous and leads to meeting some very engaging people who want to do something helpful with their time on this earth. Salas Baldas is one of these people. I heard about his work from a friend of mine who attended his workouts during Covid lockdown and then I discovered how he developed these workouts to support people all over the world through his project ’Workout to Help’. Salas was born in Guine...

Sarah Ronan, Director of the recently formed Early Education and Care Coalition (EECC) joined me to talk about the EECC. As a fellow Cork woman, she got a warm welcome!The Early Years sector is often criticised for not always speaking with one voice, a consequence of being part of a very fragmented sector. The Coalition has been developing over the past year and is the brainchild of Lucie Stephens who some people will know from her work at the New Economics Foundation.The Coalition has been s...