Welcome to the FSF October newsletter

Early Years News

Last week in Liverpool, the Labour Party held their annual conference. Shadow Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, shared Labour’s plans to drive up standards for our youngest children and lift up the amazing people who support and teach them. Phillipson explained that the Labour Party will develop an Early Years Plan, led by former primary teacher and former Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir David Bell. Helen Hayes, Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, spoke extensively about early childhood education at a number of conference fringe events.

Coming up on 14^th November is the first of five sessions on a course with Kerry Murphy: Supporting Neurodiversity, Disability, and Special Educational Needs in the Early Years. This course is part of the Early Education Learning Circle which offers the opportunity for in-depth, tailored professional development through facilitated peer learning. You can find out more here.

Laura Henry-Allain MBE has written a set of free resources to support her new book, My Family, Your Family, illustrated by Giovana Medeiros. You can access the resources from this link.

FSF articles and podcasts

This October we have a couple of new articles for you. Early years educator Richard Waite takes a closer look at how experiences in the early years can help to prepare children for a future of rapidly changing technologies, including AI. And in this Q&A, Caroline Vollans chats with Sue Egersdorff and Liz Ludden, now into their second year of running Belong, an intergenerational nursery in the Northwest.

We have two podcast episodes this month. Stephen chats with baby massage specialist Josette Sticher about the importance of representation when it comes to massage for babies. And in a special edition of the podcast to recognise Early Years Wellbeing Week which took place earlier this month, you can listen to Professor Eunice Lumsden, Warda Farah and Kate Moxley in a conversation about developing an intersectional approach to wellbeing. Find all our podcast episodes wherever you like to listen, or from this link.

Tapestry news and resources

As well as the special edition of the FSF and Tapestry podcast, Kate Moxley also created a new free resource for Early Years Wellbeing Week 2023. Championing Wellbeing – A Toolkit for Early Years Educators is designed to help you build your own bank of practical ideas to support your wellbeing and compassion resilience. You can find out more and download it here.

Over on Tapestry CPD you’ll find a new course about Parental Engagement. Created by members of our education and product support teams, the course covers topics such as the benefits of using an online learning journal, how to encourage parents to engage with their child’s learning, and how to communicate effectively with parents through Tapestry. You can find it, along with our other free CPD opportunities, via https://cpd.tapestry.info/

Wishing you all a safe and happy October

From Helen, Steve and all of us at the FSF and Tapestry.