Rachel and Margaret McMillan created an open-air nursery in Deptford, London that has influenced early years education for 100 years. Their vision for young children living in poverty and deprivation to have access to fresh air through outdoor learning, nutritious meals, and an enriching environment to explore and develop has been embraced and…

This article looks at the impact of the Education and Childcare Minister on the provision of early childhood education and care in England. Policies being developed and promoted by Elizabeth Truss predate her appointment as a minister and are consistent with the radical neo-liberal agenda pursued by Secretary of State Michael Gove. The author…

This article presents a study in which the author researched her own practice as the teacher of a reception class in a large primary school in England. The research focussed on the challenge of articulating what was tacitly or intuitively known: how, and why, the myriad of choices and decisions of which teaching is constituted could be made and…

At a time when the relationship between early childhood and compulsory school education is high on the policy agenda, this article questions the dominant, often taken-for-granted, relationship--school readiness; and offers two alternatives, a strong and equal partnership and the vision of a meeting place. Both are potentially transformative,…

This account considers the need for qualified teachers and headteachers in Children's Centres in England. It describes the ongoing decline in the importance of nursery education, and the concurrent expansion of childcare. The author argues that the best response to increasingly formal approaches in the early years is to maintain the role of the…