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School Readiness
What parents can expect from Among The Leaves in helping prepare their child for school. This year (April 2026), the government released the first definitive idea of what being ready for school looks like for typically developing children. For early educators, I think there was a collective sigh of relief that it did indeed focus…
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National Year of Reading 2026
2026 is the year that the Department for Education (DfE) has designated as the National Year of Reading. All kinds of organisations are supporting this effort from one of the partners, the Book Trust to sponsors including HM Prison and Probation Service. (I know a slightly odd sponsor for a childminder to highlight, but hang…
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PEDAL Conference 2025
When I saw the PEDAL conference announced earlier in the year, I planned my whole summer week off around being able to take that date off in order to attend. PEDAL stands for Play in Education, Development and Learning. A part of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, PEDAL is a centre for academic…
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PACEY Conference 2024
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…
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Skills. I’ve got them and so have you.
Today I’ve been working on the research for my podcast for childminders on the theme of valuing skills. It’s a strange subject to cover in a podcast for childminders one might say. It’s seems to be something that childminder’s don’t really think about much until some negative media attention happens and we all jump on…
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When a Childminder has time off sick
Having recently had my first full week off from work in almost two years due to ill health, I thought it would be worth a little write about
