Talking Early Years: In Conversation with Sally Hogg

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 able to access a nursery place. Getting it right from conception to two years is more crucial than at any other stage of learning. The brain development in babies is startling. Just imagine the baby brain as a firework of synaptic connections, fizzing across brains and forming strong cerebral pathways.  

Sally and I reflect on the paucity of research about how to run a good Baby Room. The introduction of the Treasure Baskets and the Key Person roles which came from Elinor Goldschmied’s work was back in 2004. We had the Baby Room research in 2015  led by Kathy Gooch and Sasha Powell but I am not sure how this has impacted practice.  or changed the culture of Baby Rooms. Nowadays, the 1001 Days is currently  driving policy including the Family Hubs Start for Life approach, but I question whether any of this is filtering into Baby Rooms. These observations are set within a new reality that many new staff know very little about theories of babies’ development and learning.  There was a time when everyone knew the name John Bowlby or Mary Ainsworth and could describe the theory of attachment. Can you imagine knowing nothing about attachment when working with babies? 

This led to our discussion about the needs of babies. What does a baby need? Sensitive, responsive nurturing care, continuity, and positive relationships. They need adults who are  “baby whisperers” able to read the cues, clues, emotions  and movements of the baby. In other words, being totally tuned in and able to read the baby. They need to know what makes a great environment for babies and avoiding babies receiving a watered-down version of the EYFS. 

This is of concern to parents, especially in the light of some horrific situations where a child has died in a nursery.  They need to trust the team who will deliver what their babies need. They need to know that we love their child, and this is a good thing not something to cause insecurity or fear that the staff member replaces the parent in their affections. 

Finally, we touch on baby training. One of the most popular LEYF training courses at the London Institute of Early Years (LIEY) is “Baby You’re Fantastic”.  It highlights the need to design and deliver training that covers the complexity of running a Baby Room, being a great baby teacher/educator/practitioner and being able to communicate with parents which is complex. We need more training to ensure we know how to extend staff knowledge with every team member about baby development, how to do lovely activities with babies, run a Baby Room and building relationships with everyone but especially parents and communicating all of this using all the different communication channels. 

So, if you are interested in the Under 2s and what makes great practice, listen to my conversation with Sally Hogg and share it widely.  You know the drill!