Greg Bottrill is the author of ‘Can I go and play now? Rethinking the Early Years’.

Greg Bottrill is the author of 'Can I go and Play Now? Rethinking the Early Years'. He discusses the Message Centre in this interview with Kathy Brodie

Learn evidence-based strategies for supporting children with visual impairments through Marvin's Storytime Shows research with Gwyn McCormack.

In this week's interview, Gwyneth McCormack from Positive Eye returns to tell us about Marvin's next new adventure – The Storytime Show, an online, multi-sensory experience for families and children with complex learning needs. The show is hosted by Marvin and is suitable for the whole family. We discuss how the show could be used in Early Years settings to engage children and aid concentration skills.

Learn simple, evidence-based techniques to improve story time engagement for children with vision impairments and complex needs.

Gwyn McCormack is a Qualified Teacher of Vision Impairments, has spent many years as a teacher, first in mainstream secondary school and then as a Qualified Teacher of Vision Impairments in a peripatetic support service.

In this interview, Gwyn explains how she creates and presents the Family Time story sessions, a TV show for children with complex needs in Deafblind programmes across 16 States (and growing!) in America. Dr Donna Carpenter describes how this helps and supports children and their families, including the use of sign language interpreters.

Open to access this content

In this session, Hayley explains what is meant by self-esteem in children and how it forms part of children’s holistic development. She explains the sort of traits that may indicate high or low self-esteem and shares lots of practical, easy to implement ideas for supporting and raising children’s self-esteem.

We discuss the many benefits for children who are supported in this way – and Hayley has an outstanding key piece of advice for supporting self-esteem.

Hayley explains the difference between traditional behaviour management strategies and the importance of focusing on supporting children's emotional and mental needs.

She provides various strategies to help children regulate their emotions and explains that it is important to allow children to feel their emotions.

Finally, Hayley suggests that it is important to start with the staff, to help them recognize their own emotional regulation, which will help them to support the children more effectively.

In this interview, we discuss Dr Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber's approaches and principles; mealtimes for the birth to three age range; ensuring we are respectful when feeding babies, toddlers and older children; top strategies be for practitioners and educators to ensure beautiful mealtimes, whatever the age of the children; advice for parents.

Helen Battelley explains why physical development underpins all learning and shares practical strategies for introducing more movement opportunities in any early years environment.

Helen is an internationally renowned consultant, trainer and speaker in Physical Development/movement in Early Education who has been working as a dance and movement specialist for over 19 years.

In this interview, we discuss how movement underpins all learning; the types of physical activities children should be engaged in; cultural awareness benefits of different types of music; linking music and movement throughout the curriculum; videos of music and movement sessions in practice.

Helen Hughes shares her purposeful play approach to swim education, moving beyond traditional methods to help children become confident, skilled swimmers through creativity, fun and child-led learning.

In this interview, we discuss the chapter in Helen's book on Stories and Healing. We explore how stories can be used as part of the healing process, even with babies and very young children, and in all types of settings.

Helen explains her comment ‘Our stories are not formed and told in isolation’ and why we need to understand this when working with children and their families. Throughout the interview, Helen gives examples of the ways that story can facilitate healing, build resilience and give comfort to adults and children.

Helen Woodward shares her top research-backed leadership skills on Early Years TV. Learn simple but powerful ways to listen actively, ask strategic questions & foster belonging. See how this benefits staff and children. Plus, hear about Helen's new online course to guide you to leadership greatness!

Discover practical leadership strategies for effective one-to-one meetings and managing transitions in Early Years settings, with expert guidance from Helen Woodward.

Ivana Beckett is the manager at St Vincent’s Nursery, Altrincham.

James Davolls shares practical, cost-effective ways to enhance vehicle play in early years settings, moving beyond simply wheeling out bikes to truly supporting children's physical, social and cognitive development.

In this interview, Jane explains how ‘Gentle Speech Therapy’ can be used every day in settings and at home to support children’s speech sound development. It is based on an amalgamation of many different, auditory based therapies, but can be easily incorporated into everyday activities, stories and interactions.

Jane demonstrates this technique with an example using readily available resources.