I was invited to attend the conference by the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY) as an attendee. It was very kind to be offered a place and I accepted the offer (which I usually would have declined) due to my ongoing mindset work of being grateful and accepting opportunities that come my way.

Some of the details: The conference was on Saturday 26th October 2024 and was held in the Bishopsgate Institute in London. Conveniently located a two minute walk from Liverpool Street station, even if google maps couldn’t direct me to it and I ended up going around in circles a few times. (It’s ok, think of the step count.) It seems I wasn’t the only one who encountered this issue and I managed to find myself naturally drawn towards a group of childminders having the same problem, we had never met before but Childminders can seek each other out within a 2 mile radius. I attended only the talks in the main hall, however there were also workshops available.

I arrived and was straight into a talk being delivered by Penny Tassoni (MBE). Tassoni is a relatively big name in the childcare industry. She wrote the course books for my first childcare qualification so has been a name known right throughout my career. She is currently the president of PACEY and supports the association through making practice content/advice for their members on their website and often speaking at their conferences. Tassoni has written over 40 books, many of which are textbooks for courses, so is a highly knowledgeable member of the Early Years sector. Tassoni was discussing two year olds and did so with much enthusiasm both with the challenges and highlights of working with this age group. Tassoni made her examples relatable and elicited some murmurs of agreement from the audience with stories about two year olds. Her main points seemed to be regarding the need for adults who have relationships with two year olds knowing the realistic expectations of their development and to not normalise struggles that parents face such as lack of sleep. Tassoni also prompted practitioners to listen for hints in conversations with them about things they might be finding difficult and actively support them with skills, advice and signposting where appropriate. She also encouraged attendees to extend that empathetic role by saying “I go out of my way to tell parents good job. I’m not that old lady on the bus who tuts.”

Without much pause the morning moved swiftly over to representatives from Ofsted, Samantha Sleeman-Boss and Wendy Ratcliff. They were quick to announce they were not taking Q&A time, which was probably for the best as childminders always have hundreds of questions for Ofsted, however they were holding one during their workshop later in the day. (I imagine this was a highly attended session.) Sleeman-Boss and Ratcliff were speaking about curriculum and pedagogy, and disseminating findings from Ofsted’s recent ‘Best Start in Life Research Review.’ Their message seemed to be one around myth busting; that Ofsted do not prefer one way over another towards curriculum or pedagogy. Ratcliff stated when talking about Ofsted desiring or not desiring a mud kitchen in settings. Apparently Ofsted don’t care about mud kitchens as a thing, because “The most important resource in the mud kitchen is you” [the practitioner]. This is something of a theme that I have been following through my podcast ‘Mind That Childminder’ as well as when I spoke at an early years forum earlier this year.

A swift tea break was had where I bumped into, I mean networked, with previous volunteer facilitators. I haven’t seen these caring people since before COVID lockdowns and I was met with such an emotion of joy of realising I was in a hall filled with people as passionate as me about making life better for the next generation. Isn’t that really something? Plus I ate a free bourbon biscuit, additional greatness.

Cheryl Warren from Aperion Training was up next speaking about creating a safe space for neurodivergent children. Warren walked us through the four pillars that we should be considering (Trust, Connection, Belonging and Emotional Safety) and was passionate about ensuring practitioners know that neurodivergence is not something to be ‘fixed.’ Warren made statements such as “Different is OK” and “It’s OK for children to do their life their way.” Before I knew it I was puffing up a yellow balloon, tying a knot and then sending it off into the room. (I personally was then distracted for a while about where my balloon ended up because there were lots of yellow ones and I would never be reunited with my exhaled air…). Warren was giving us a practical example of how we can help children who are sensory seeking, explaining that there are actually eight sensory systems we should be considering in our settings meant that a roomful of childminders were up on their feet hitting balloons supporting their own proprioception system.

A Panel discussion next. “Are we failing children from disadvantaged backgrounds” Everyone in the room already knew the answer that as a society, yes, before the panel had even had their table set up. However Helen Donohoe (PACEY) Catherine McLeod MBE (Dingley’s promise) Abby Jitendra (Rowntree Foundation) Shannon Pite (Early Years Alliance) and Meghan Meek-O’Connor (Save the Children UK) all took their seats and microphones up on the stage and joined our long said cries of how the access to early education based on income is wrong, that too many children are living in poverty and that the sector is too poorly paid to train and motivate people in the industry. They were preaching to the converted that the government have been making some pretty poor choices around the Early Years sector, and that ignoring the experts and the workers in the sector is what has led to the destruction of they very thing they desperately need. They had a very short Q&A session where one person was looking for solutions on how to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the midst of policy chaos. It seems that early years settings taking on the previous roles of SureStart centres of being somewhere that links and signposts to agencies, of being a hub of the community. Of course, all of this in addition to our massive roles, no funding, support or pay rise for this extra work, but we no doubt already do this and will continue to do this because after all, we don’t cut our noses off to spite the children.

At lunch time many left the building to buy something from the local food outlets. I personally had packed a very exciting cheese and pickle sandwich so opted to mooch around a little. I should say that I was wearing my brand new Mind That Childminder T-shirt that I had especially got printed for the occasion so was feeling relatively confident and in the mindset of talking to as many people as possible. However that approach changed when my natural sensitive skills came to the forefront and I spotted a fellow childminder who I could see just needed someone to notice them. I don’t want to explain the attendees situation in detail as it would identify them, but let’s say they were in a unique position in that conference and had their hands full, so I offered to carry their cup of tea for them. I stayed with them and we chatted over that cuppa and they told me how difficult they were finding things and I could see the impact it was having on them. It occurred to me in that moment, this is exactly the impact that I want my podcast to have. To sit with childminder over a cuppa and make sure they are not alone with the challenges or the rewards that life brings. That I can’t fix anything in someone’s life for them by talking, but they don’t have to be alone on their journey. I hope they felt a little lighter when we parted ways.

By this point my brain is getting full of everything. The words, the feelings of the speakers and the room, the balloons that still lay full and scattered under the chairs and the thoughts and questions that were filling up my notebook. While on the topic of notes, it seems that I am now old fashioned as the room was full of phones taking photos of the slides behind the speaker, when did this become the note taking norm? However on the day went and we dove into mathematics with Dr Sue Gifford and Sam Goldsworthy. Gifford and Goldsworthy (which by the way is amazing alliteration that pleases me immensely while I type) had very different strengths that they used together to create their presentation. This meant that Gifford could talk about theories, brain development and research while Goldsworthy could immediately back this up with ideas and examples of provision and interactions with young children. This technique of strength sharing meant that they are delivering really important scientific theories in a way that is accessible to people who might otherwise shirk off this information because it seems ‘too complex.’ I am passionate about people knowing the why behind doing things so I was pleased this talk was included in the line up.

Two more talks to go and I thought my attention was going to be limited. However Dr Stella Louis strode onto the stage with such an air of “woah” that she captured the room in an instant. The passionate delivery of her presentation of A Froebelian approach to working with babies was exemplar of the reasons of why she won the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Nursery World awards last year. Full of real life examples, history and regular reminders that “I don’t know your children, you do” had me come to the realisation that most of the day the speakers all referred to this concept of “your children.”

It hit me hard that they are right. These are ‘my children’ even though I don’t have any children of my own. When I talk about my work I always say ‘my children’ and then have to correct myself to ‘the children I work with.’ Why is it an instinct to say they are mine? In that moment I realised it’s because in our society we have believed for a long time that young children are the responsibility of all adults. We have policy and laws in place to protect them and we fund their education through our taxes. However this is getting lost. There are far more adult only spaces, and a fear of people getting in trouble for being around children that means we are as a society having less ‘our children’ moments. This distance between those with and without children is becoming cavernous and that is leading us to policy choices that are not putting the child first, instead it is putting work first. But childminders haven’t lost this. What an amazing thing that is that we are can welcome children into our homes and families and that they and their families become ours and we become theirs. I hope we never lose this.

Ben Kingston-Hughes had the tough job of standing up on the stage last in the day to give his talk. Kingston-Hughes is a self professed grumpy person who’s job it is to bring joy. (Talk about an oxymoron.) But it turns out he is pretty good at it, having the room in many bouts of laughter in the 40 minutes he was talking to us. They Joy of Stories- Building blocks for literacy was apparently his aim, and true he did talk about storytelling and the impact of literacy opportunities. However I saw through his guise. Kingston-Hughes’ real aim was to get adults to be more silly. To stop us being only rule bearers focused on educating children for outcomes. He wants us to open up the world for children with laughter and says that “play is profoundly lifechanging for children.” But I think if we stop and think about it, play is profoundly life changing for us adults too.

The Minister for Early Education Steven Morgan (MP) arrived with someone far less senior carrying all of his stuff and after a very brief moment of sitting in the front row was soon up on stage himself. As you can tell from my tonal shift I was less than impressed with his messages. Saying things such as “We want to reset the relationship with the sector” and in particular towards childminders “You play a unique role” and “You offer a homely environment to introduce them [children] to the world outside their family” you would think this would give me warm fuzzy feelings of hope and value. However this was massively undermined in my opinion with the undertones of expansion of current provision. With the excited informing to us of how we are being given the opportunity to have more adults in our settings and things being made easier for childminders to not have to work in a home environment any more it reeked of Morgan not actually understanding any of the praise he had been scripted to say to us.

Yes for some childminders this will be good news, but I am in complete disagreement that we should be making it the expectation that these bigger childminding settings should be the norm. I believe we should be protecting our small settings for the benefit of our children. I don’t think that making larger childminding settings the norm will be encouraging the sensitive, creative, inspirational people that we need into the sector. I am outraged that we are being fed the story of this being an opportunity for ‘us’ when really it is to help them meet the targets of the childcare places that governments have promised without a plan. It is not my responsibility to take on the under researched promises of other people. I won’t take it on. I hope you won’t take on that pressure either.

Let’s shift the mood back to the positive with the new PACEY awards. It would have been nice if the ceremony had a little more panache for the recipients, I hope the team make some changes on this for next time, positioning the person presenting the award away from the steps so the recipient isn’t stood behind the MP above while he talks would be a great start! Childminding settings did very well with the Rising Star award going to Charlotte Lear (an apprentice who I can tell from speaking to her personally is already a passionate practitioner), the Longevity award going to Alison Burt-Ryan and the Childminder of the Year award going to Amanda Calloway. These professionals have worked so hard and are highly skilled within their roles and have been dedicated to the care and education of young children. People like this make a huge difference and I hope they are proud of all of their achievements.

So in conclusion? It’s clear to see childminder numbers have vastly depleted. What once would have been a packed out hall was unfortunately more like half. However the professionalism and skills of childminders is only getting bigger. Policy is always behind where we need it to be, and I think that everyone is hoping the Labour government start turning that around as soon as possible. I feel reinforced that I have the power to bring joy to children and that I hope this is refreshed in my practice. The main take away for me is that childminders will keep doing above and beyond for our children. It’s what we are made of, and that no amount of society change or social media photos of fancy set ups can take away from the fact that it’s the skilled interactions and sensitive curriculum creations that make all the difference to children everywhere.