Claim OwnershipTalking Early Years with June O'Sullivan
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© 2026 Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan
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An inspiring, outspoken speaker, author, podcaster and regular media commentator, Dr June O'Sullivan OBE is Chief Executive of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), one of London’s largest and most successful charitable social enterprises, operating 40+ award-winning nurseries in some of London’s most disadvantaged areas. Her monthly ‘real talk’ and no-holds-barred podcasts dive into the questions, topics and debates on all things Early Years, Parenting and Social Business – plus much, much more.
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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 same thinking to big public issues—like how we help people truly feel why the Early Years matt...
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 their experiences. Sam’s research brings neuroscience directly into early years settings. He uses micr...
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 guidance offering clearer direction, there’s a real opportunity to place food firmly at the heart of nu...
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 want to build. Yet in England, political action often avoids asking the most important questi...
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 transformative power of reading in children's lives. Join us on the podcast and hear Frank ...
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 word ‘love’ in the professional context. I was delighted to replace the word ‘care’ with ‘l...
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 of Twos report to raise awareness about our role in ensuring two-year-olds thrive in ever...
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 environments in their design for example where they are situated, and how they support local communities...
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 issues, led her to work with organisations like the Women’s Budget Group and Pregnant Then Screwed. Sh...
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 about from many quarters are of concern. But are these facts or rumours and setting out...
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 Jaynaide Powis about their comprehensive polling of over 2,000 parents conducted by Savanta and the C...
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 a research report on babies especially with the expansion of childcare to include little babies o...
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 positively impacting on the children and they in turn were slowing down th...
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 childcare expansion. From September, babies from nine months will be ab...
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 resources to achieve her or his full potential. Now, why don't we have that being articulat...
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 opportun...
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