Talking Early Years: June O'Sullivan and Julian Grenier

Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan: In conversation with Julian Grenier

I was very pleased to talk to Julian Grenier, Headteacher of Sheringham Nursery School in Newham. He and I have always had a mutual respect for our work, but we have not always seen eye to eye and I hope that continues. Great practice comes from robust debate and critical, serious thinking where we have the mutual respect to listen and consider each other’s points of view and counter the arguments rationally, honestly and openly... read the full post on leyf.org.uk 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:20

Welcome to talking early years. Today, I am delighted to have Julian Grandiose talk to me about many things, but I'm sure pedagogy will come up because both Julian and I have quite a passion on this on this subject. Julian, as you all know, is well known in the sector and is the headteacher of research school in in new him. And I'm hoping that soon leaf will join him and knew him. And we will be partners in many things with any luck. So thank you, Julian for coming and talking about what sometimes it's quite a contested and emotive subject, the early years foundation stage, the changes to it, the merging early years goals, and, and the kind of narrative around it, which has become, sometimes I think, a little toxic. Just walk us through where you're at with that, and the work on development matters, and how you see it panning out really great. So first of all, of course, massive thank you to June and team at y f, kind of for having me here, it's really a thing to look forward to on Friday afternoon to have a discussion with pedagogy with someone who's got such interesting views and so much to say about it. So it's it's a real pleasure. And, yeah, it couldn't be happier than to to have you join us in the year. And that would be a real positive, we'd love to see leave continue. And then I really hope that that comes off. So you asked about how where things are up to with the why Fs and development matters. So I guess, just just to say, a few things that I hope will be useful and interesting about that. The first thing is that with the foundation years website, I've been doing a lot of work with local authority officers, about the Y Fs reforms and also been talking at various different events. So for example, this week, the London South teaching school Alliance, ran London Ed, which is the GLA Greater London Authority funded education conference, and I was really pleased to talk about the changes to the Y Fs at London, I tend to take questions at the end of that. And this is how I really see the changes to the Y. So if you had to put it in a nutshell, there's, there's three big things that need to change in the early years. One is workload. So we know that people have really suffered with workload, and especially in the area of kind of tracking and assessment data. And there's lots of reasons for it. And I've kind of being quite honest, I think we put my hands up and said, I think there's a whole lot of people in the frame for this people like me, had teachers who wanted all this progress data and evidence to do well in our Ofsted inspections, Ofsted for looking at it and asking for it and making it so central and the DFE and local authorities too, for making so many demands. So lots and lots of people have contributed to a sub optimal situation that we found ourselves in. But what's really positive now is that the DFE is saying that they really want to tackle this issue. Ofsted have made it clear that they won't look at any internal data or progress measures when they're out on inspection. So now the ball is back in our courts around workload. So workload is my number one. My number two is communication. The revised development matters focuses very much on children's early communication. And it's it's really deliberate for a few reasons. Firstly, lots of practitioners tell us that this is a concern of theirs. Secondly, we're clear about the research and evidence that it's communication and language that underpins children's thinking that play their ability to solve conflicts between each other. It's the bedrock of early literacy. If you want the best predictor of how well a child is going to do in school, look at how well but communicating fine. So communication is is really key to improving things for sure. And the earliest. And then number three is the gap, the huge gap between disadvantaged children and the rest, children with se and D and the rest. It's a shame on our education system in this country, that how well you do in the early years, and how well you doing school is so heavily associated with how well off your parents are. It's complex. And education and early years can't be the solution to everything. But we can do things and we must do things, this is where we can make a difference. But actually, since 2012, the gap between disadvantaged children and the rest has remained pretty much exactly the same. And it actually widened a bit in 2019. So we have a job of work to do there. So that's, that's in a nutshell, what the reforms are about, and what development matters, is aimed at tackling. And the reception from conferences and practitioners in the LA offices and all sorts of other people has been really positive on those themes. So I'm really heartened by where we're at at the moment. It's very interesting, these these issues, you know, when you when you read back into the history of early years there, there there's a consistency in this. And it's try, I don't understand, and it strikes me as slightly odd as to why there's any dissent amongst us at all, but we do appear to be unable to align ourselves to what your you you quite rightly, say, quite, you know, if we were to be quite simple about it, you know, let's get everything right. So we get language and literacy, you know, solid, really solid and supported. And let's do the things that we know, will drive the quality that children from poorer families need and all children deserve. So if you get it right, for, I always think we can leave, you know, if you get it right for the poor children, you can't go wrong with the rest of the children, you know, because everyone's going to benefit. What do you take, therefore, we seem to be I don't know, whether it's almost unwilling or incapable. I did a locked into so many different thinking and ideologies, that we can't seem to get that very clear message out there. Yeah, it's, I think that I could spend hours picking this because I find it really difficult to what would what would I say? I guess, first of all, the great strength of an earlier system, its diversity. But that is also sometimes our problem that we're so diverse, and we have such a huge range of different qualifications. And, you know, we're all in the why Fs, but our funding streams are so different depending on whether we're PVI setting or a maintain setting. So this system is a bit of a mess. And I guess a messy system, isn't itself going to produce the kind of mess that you've just just out just outlined. So there's so many inconsistencies in our approaches to early years, the way it's funded, the objectives that that different different people have. It's, it's, it's tricky, but but to me, I unbid simple minded about this really, I kind of look at the fact that disadvantaged children have had been so far behind for so long by the end of the early years. And I just think we have to take a moment here and be really humble and say, Well, we've been working hard on this since 2012. But let's try something new here. And the other thing I just say is that, you know, there are people who are very sceptical about some of these measures at the end of the why Fs and really want to think about the unique child and they worry about us having a deficit model of some children. And actually, I really sympathise with all of those concerns, but because there's a lot of legitimate arguments to be had on every single one of those apples. But what we've got to not do is have such a complicated take on the situation that we miss the really obvious thing that's right in front of our noses, which is a whole load of kids that really missing out, and we've we've not done right by those children yet. So we've sometimes got to be, you know, a bit blunt about just facing up to the fact that we've got a problem and yeah, there are complexities and how we might see it and understand it, and those debates and discussions are valid, but let's not lose sight of how on equal our schools. system is in this country that's not reciting. I could never be accused of not being blunt. Julian, it's true. It's had me excluded for many a meeting and many a discussion. But you know, integrity versus bluntness versus being accepted? I don't know, they're all there. There. There are there's, there's a dilemma in there. I do wonder, though, about, you know, the political opera, you know, the way we operate in the political space, and the ideologies of the so many different ministers, and, you know, and not operating within a national strategy, or having had a national conversation about, you know, what does a happy childhood look for look like for all children in the UK right now? And I do wonder how we might get that conversation going. So in a way, it's, it gives a space for the, for the, for a warmer conversation, because you're right, I mean, I often myself complain about the, the kind of concept of the deficit model of, you know, you know, we work with the poor, you know, Wilbur Ross around, it's like, all marvellous, and a marvellous, you know, they do all this marvellous work, and it neither helpful, you know, one is patronising, and one is deficit. And also, it means that the interpretation of your pedagogy becomes more than more poor, important, doesn't it because, frankly, you know, if you follow the lead of the child, you have to put input something, if they come from a starting point, that's, you know, weaker, are more more challenging than a child who doesn't, and that might look like you're kind of confirming situations, but if the follow the, the actual follow the needs of the child and the needs of the child, then there should be a balance between that I think some of that discussion gets kind of caught up in people's pockets, particular views. And, and, and, you know, when it's then watered down, or cascaded down to the direct, you know, teachers delivering on the ground, they get confused about what is good look like. And that's, I think, why you have people hiding behind cohort tracking and measures and everything else, so that they can feel like they're doing something. But actually, in doing that, I think we've taken away the the kind of pedagogical confidence of knowing what does fake look like in early years and those conversations, I really wish we were having more of them, where we're all talking together about what does great, earliest practice look like, you know, and what are the elements of it. And when do we use the language of teaching and, you know, demonstrating and narrating and all of those words that describe the art and craft art and the science of actually working in the early years, I'd really agree with so much of what what you've said there. And, in particular, what really makes a difference for children is in the space of pedagogy, and curriculum, it's what we do with children minute by minute, the way we interact with them, the way we listen to them and have conversations with them the way we introduce ideas and take part in sustained shared thinking, the enabling environment, our big picture of what we want children to experience, to learn to be able to do, that's what really makes a difference to the children. And assessment and tracking are important, to the extent that they help us do that better. So they help us pick up which children need a bit more help with something or which bit of what we're doing isn't going so well, or which children need some additional specialist help. That's what assessment is there to do. It's to help children's learning. But what we've ended up with is a situation where it's assessment and tracking that has taken the centre stage and it's driving. So many of us it's our main activity, we spend 10 times more working on assessment and tracking than we do on thinking about the planning and the experiences with the children and all of those things. So the the horse in the cars are in the wrong place at the moment. And I think this is a good moment. We know a lot about what works for young children because of big projects like DFC project, to go back to something you said earlier, for example, we know that children need a mix in the early years of child initiated, play which we support an adult guided learning which has to be playful and engaging for the children and some direct teaching. We know that it's really well established in research, that the whole argument is over for any serious person who reads the research about early years. And what we need to do is put our efforts in exactly the space you just said those conversations about what got this really great early years pedagogy look like? What what would what's a great day in an earlier setting per child? What are the features of that? How do we inspire and motivate our brilliant workforce, to absolutely have high expectations for every single child, but particularly help those children who struggle with their learning who need that extra help? That seems to me a really good focus for our efforts in the in the early years, and I've been really heartened by the conversations I've had recently. But increasingly, that is, what a lot of people want to do is actually seize that opportunity for greater professionalism in the early years, in exactly the way that you've really just outlined, Jim. I mean, to me, I mean, pedagogical leadership is, you know, the opportunity, and the way we can kind of capture that and build it into our systems and processes to make it happen. But, um, but I mean, I just wonder about how, what, how we how we do that, and how we make that strong? Because there was a time I think it was 2017, when there was the graduate leadership, oh, no, must be in 2013. Actually, when there was the graduate leadership course, our funding, and there was an acceptance wasn't there, that, you know, you could use that you could develop that. And then that would build the kind of confidence of the of the other practitioner, what I have to tell you, I hate the word practitioner, it makes my mouth water, when I say it, I'd much prefer the earliest teacher and anyone working for leaf is always called an odious teacher. And by just giving them confidence to be to accept that word and assume that care is part of that. It builds their confidence immediately. So I just wondering how, you know, how do we get the policymakers to, in a way invest in stuff that's going to develop strong pedagogical leadership, you just talking about the decision at least to have early return early years, teachers? Yeah. And I know, some places have copied us now in terms of calling our staff earlier as teachers. And I did it really, because I wanted to give them the credibility but the confidence to be pedagogical leads in this and to feel that teaching and care are so integrated, but you know, depend on how they're applied, obviously, but I was I kind of was fascinated by how we've allowed policymakers to, in a way, abandon things that we know work in research, and not actually fund them that would drive the kind of practice we both we both would like to see, such as the pedagogical leadership. I think it was called the graduate leadership fund back in 2013. You know, how do we how do we tackle that sort of thing? How do we get a coherent voice behind that, that actually, there's no, there's no way they can hide from that sort of thing. So I think that I think both you and I were on the nutbrown review on June. And I don't think anyone's come up with a better blueprint, and Kathy nutbrown did for the coalition government back in that back in the day, it was just really regrettable, but like a number of really good reports on the earliest, that one just got put on a shelf somewhere, and it was really implemented. So I would take pretty much the same view now that that was taken then, which is that we need really much higher quality of initial qualification and training for all of our teams and a much clearer career ladder for people that includes graduate level qualifications, and that those should be ubiquitous across the whole of early years, not just mostly in the school sector. I think that there should be a national pay scale. So it doesn't really matter where you're a qualified teacher or a qualified early as educator, you would get the same pay, you'd be on the same pay scale, because I don't understand how you can ask people to do basically the same job on so much less pay, because they're in one sector rather than another. And it's really depressing that, you know, no one would seriously accept this sort of situation and primary or secondary education. But we just do as a society in early years. And it's wrong that we're sitting here. Now having this conversation about such basic things, as equitable salaries for everybody, or proper initial qualifications. You know, I think in qualified teaching in schools, for example, you know, you have your training year you have your newly qualified teaching year, where you continue to get that support and the mentoring and then there's a kind of formal check that you've reached the required standards. And these sort of things should be ubiquitous across early years as well, they shouldn't just be for schools. And until we've got that coding system workforce, properly paid across the piece, I think we're gonna struggle. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, in some ways, we have actually quite a good model, the the maintain nursery schools, you know, looking at their history, and maybe the way they were shaped are a good model that we can actually work with. Me, for me, of course, I want to overlay them with the sort of social enterprise, but you know, where parents pay something towards the contribution, and then, you know, it's phased. But effectively, instead of throwing all of that away, it seems to me that we should be modernising the maintain nursery school model, and, and also building into it the opportunity to take children from a much younger age. So I feel I feel slightly sad that, that when I started in, I can't think when now, but Margaret Hodge was the childcare minister, and there were 1000 maintained nursery schools. And I think there's 398 now, and I think you've gotten a reprieve for a bit longer. But it's a crazy thing. That's something as you know, perfectly formed in lots of ways, amended to take in children's children's centre model and the shortstop model, which could be perhaps reframed within a sort of social enterprise lens, and built up, at least for areas of where there's deprivation and stuff, if they didn't want to go, you know, they didn't want to mess up their market model. But I've never known a market model to actually really address issues with the problem of poverty is easily are fairly, are completely. So to me, I just think, how do we manage to get conversations across the piece where we're actually thinking about providing kind of practice based solutions, rather than all of these policy people? You know, I was at a meeting the other day with the head of this and the head of thorough and the head of the other and now you just think, well, who's here actually, who delivers on is this? Yeah, there was three, three of us. And one of them was an academic, and one of them was in a membership organisation, and one of them was me. And I just think these people are coming in, they've got this idea design and test and innovate and all that sort of stuff. I actually look to our past. It seems to me foolish that we don't. Yeah, take I completely agree with that. And one one of so of course, you know, I remember the Margaret hogere. And at that time, I was head teacher Kate Greenway, nursery school and Islam to me, we don't reach them research points way is excitingly enough. And under her leadership in Islam, 10. And then later, post nursery schools had really transformed themselves. So at Kate Greenaway, we had babies, we had toddlers, threes and fours, we were open eight to six, we had all sorts of social enterprise elements in a way, like he say, but within the basic structure of a maintained school. And it was a really good model. And the government of that time, put quite a bit of money into testing that model through a programme called be early, excellent centres. And really, the early excellent centres worked very well. And then, in my opinion, they got it all wrong, which was instead of looking at something they'd done on a small scale, and really learning the lessons. And then in a sensible way, scaling that up across the country based on the best evidence, it was like, right, let's have 3000 integrated children's centres by this time next year, or 4000 5000. And the numbers just kept on pushing up. And you've got this focus on quantity, not quality, and to focus on blue sky thinking and innovation, rather than scrupulously looking at what worked and what didn't work in the past, to give you the best bets for planning your future. So, you know, in it, it to me, it just really went wrong from that, from that moment, and we really need to learn those lessons. And I often sit in meetings and hear that this and that person is coming into leader strategic change process or whatever. And, and I always put my head in my hands a bit and I just think most of this is unnecessary. Most of what we We've already got, we've just got to sort out a few issues, and really focus our energies not on some massive new project and structure and fancy label. But just the basics of getting it right. For Children and Families. I agree. And I think one of the things that grieve me at the time about the early excellence as well was we weren't allowed to be part of it. Because we weren't, you should have, you should have things. But I could see the benefit of it. And also, I know that for many small little cosy nurseries that provide lovely care and probably nice education for their local neighbourhood completely excluded, almost in that kind of patronising way, or what would they know, you know, this place, even though they've been going for 40 years, they knew the neighbourhood they knew the community and as you bring them in, would have advanced, I think and deepened some of the learning we could all do together. So I guess, I guess we have to kind of find a positive way through this now. So before we finish, so I'm just wondering if, you know, if we were to put together not a manifesto, but a sort of plan of action, based on what we know, and what we currently do. How do you think that it could look, even if it was just started in one bar in London, are one county or one county town now one anything? We know? Where do we Where should we go to because we can't go to our grave studio with the same argument that we had 15 years ago, we must go and have left something structured behind us that actually makes things better. Yeah, so that nice, sort of nice image there of us go into our grave. I feel like fill in and, you know, we're off we go after, you know, fighting with all that. I mean, that's the irony, when you read back about some of this, and I had been recently because I one of the women that was part of ours, you know, Marvin horn that I kind of do the annual debate about every year. Yeah, they fought, you know, they fought so many fights within the London bureaucracy and stuff. So it gives you hope that they fought it, but they got through it. So what do we need to do to get to a point where we end up with some amazing Sara service based on what we do already, not something new and, and, and fancy pants, you know? Yeah, I do. So the pension of Margaret Mellon that that just makes, makes me think that there is some an important thing that that I think about a lot at the moment is that we're sometimes too in Thrall to our past and the early years. So Margaret Macmillan, who was a Fabian and a socialist and a brilliant, brilliant educator, and must never be forgotten in this story. But she also held hideous views about working class children, and you know, of our time, language that they use wasn't even a proper language at all. And you know, we've moved on a long way since Margaret McClelland, so let's honour what she did, and not be quite so in Thrall to the past. And similarly, Susan Isaacs, you know, I love reading Susan Isaacs, and I often turn to her and my partner Caroline has written a great book about Susan Isaac's wise words, but Susan Isaacs, you know, again, in primary schooling, she believed that all children should be IQ tested, and then put in a stream according to their IQ. So we honour Susan Isaacs, but we're not in Thrall to we've, we've moved on a long way. Since that time, and we mustn't look back so much in the earliest we need to look confidently forward. So I think the second thing I'd say is that, in the recent period, there has been a real blossoming of research and evidence around the learning. And we actually know quite a lot more than we did, say 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. But that knowledge is not well shared and understood. And we need to find ways of engaging our whole load all of our settings and our workforce in being critical readers and understand as of that research and information and people who can confidently debate it and use it and reject what they think they should reject. And I think that comes through what I would call joint practice development, which is where we get away from the idea that here is this star nursery or this great nursery school or, you know, come here and see how to do it the kind of beacon school model, I think that is something to consigned to history as well. And what we need to do is work together like we do In New and where we've got about 100 PVI set he was working in collaborative, but it's funded by the Greater London Authority. That's the way forward is collaborating and learning together and putting our focus on the best bets. What's the evidence telling us? What's the best bet? If we want to solve this problem, and we got to have properly funded settings and properly trained and qualified practitioners, and decent, high quality, professional development, not the faddy rubbish that is out there, where you go for one day and kind of get inspired by something, but it doesn't actually ever make a real difference to the, to the children you're working with. So it's about incremental, incremental improvement, that's careful, and focused, partnership, joint practice development, being humble, learning from me from each other. And the final thing I'd say, and I think this might speak to you as well, June is that, you know, in 1800 40%, infant mortality was 40% 40%, it was almost normal to lose your baby in childbirth. Now, in England, I think it's about naught point 4%. And that is because of the very, very careful and incremental improvements in practice and safety and learning about new drugs. And then of course, anaesthetic and antibiotics, and so on, and incrementally, we've got better and better and better. And now, it's a rare tragedy for for a baby to die in childbirth, and it's a terrible thing. But it's a rare tragedy. And we got to have that same ambition in early years, that it's an extraordinary tragedy for a child not to get to the end of the why Fs with all of the experiences, and the attitudes to learning and the dispositions they need, it's going to happen, but it's going to be vanishingly rare. But what we accept is something that it's almost normal that half the kids or a quarter of the kids don't don't get everything they need, through the early years education they receive, and we just shouldn't tolerate it. I would totally agree with you. And you make me smile, actually. Because I often in the days when you could go onto a stage or into a meeting I often talked about, you know, let's not let's honour our dead pedic pioneers, but let's let's name our live ones, because some of us are alive or thinking about all of those things as well. Who Who would you think of people really struggle a bit about? Can you name people who have necessarily written books, but you know, are thinkers about stuff. I mean, luckily, people remember the works of Tina Bruce. But you know, there are some great people out there that we read and can debate, I would say to any academic would be much better if you could write in a way that's accessible, that would encourage our students and our, our staff to read more of that sort of stuff. But sometimes I think academics right for each other, rather than write for practitioners. And then actually, to me, it's all about practice. To me, it's about the fact that nobody has given honour to practice and practice is actually the beautiful result of that sort of practices, where it's the theory of the research and the practice being made together in those learning communities where people are confident to talk about their skill, and their craft, and the art of being an early years teacher. Yeah, and I think I must, by the way, just say that, that arguments around kind of infant mortality and obstetrics has come from a really fantastic opportunity, I've had to read a book by Rachel McFarland, who's head of hartfordshire, learning hearts, hearts, hearts of learning, which is really moved my thinking on in this space. But picking up on what you were just saying that June. One of our principles as a research school is that traditionally, you know, we've had the academic space, and we've had the practice space, and academics come into our space, and they observe and they do bits of work, and then they go away, and they turn it into papers and journals and conferences, and, and, and so on. And we don't accept that anymore. And we're interested in the third space, which is that we work collaboratively with academics, to deepen our insights that will improve our practice that will make a difference to the children. And we're both learning together in any research project, and academics to speak and write in plain ways that work for us as a team. So As a research school, we focus on that third space. It's not academia. And it's not practice. It's its own space that's in the middle of all that. It's in the middle of all of that. And I find that a really good way forward. I don't know if I want to read another journal article that takes us through codium perspective on the early learning goals. Because it's not going to change anything for any child. I know that could sound a bit crass and anti intellectual. But I'm just being honest there. I don't want to read it. No, and I love the notion of partnership, we partner with two universities really, yeah, Middlesex and Wolverhampton. And we've In fact, developed our degree with Wolverhampton and we're now looking at a top up this morning, in fact, we were writing our sustainability module. And But for us, I've always been keen, and I have to all you know, kind of honour Chris Pascal for this, because 15 years ago, or 12 years ago, I got to understand the Syrah and we've tried to bring some team every year to that to to to give them the space to be practitioners in an academic research space and to feel confident about talking about listening, standing. As a consequence, our action research is really powerful across the organisation, and people want to do it. And it definitely tries what I call more confident pedagogical conversations where you can explain that because in so without using terms like paradigm, they are going to be a paradigm anywhere near it, our conceptualizations and all those favourite words, they like throw up, but just to say, we're doing it like this, we've tested it like this, children were interested in like that, because and so we're doing this. And I think those things bring alive and bring sort of pedagogical leadership right to the core of what we do. And I think it's really inspiring to hear about that kind of culture of practitioners feeling that confidence to be part of an international research conference like a Syrah. But kind of respectfully, really, I'd take a bit of a different line, which is that I'm not convinced of the merits of action research as a way forward for our sector. Because I think that we've, we've we've got some pretty good evidence about what's effective, or what looks promising. And my focus at the moment is about really road testing that and seeing what works in our own contact are in context, the kind of intelligent adaptation of robust research that's carried out international internationally, but implementing it in a way that works for our children. And my worry about action research is that it's very hard to make it robust, but it also kind of implies a constant reinvention of the wheel. And, and, and that is, I mean, I've been really excited in my professional career to do action research. And I don't want to dishonour that phase of my development, but it's not where I'm at at the moment. And this is why we need these conversations. Because for at the moment, it's working for us really well, because it's getting anyone from an apprentice to a senior member of the team to ask a question, and then to be allowed to develop that question and to consider that question, particularly involving the children. So like, for example, when we were wanting to know whether our bike lending scheme was working for parents, but actually what we did is we step back and back and back. And actually what we asked ourselves in the end was, are we using bikes? How are we using bikes? Are we using the word enough? What are the children use about bikes? Are we exploring bikes as a means of thinking more broadly about the other learning the roleplay, the language that comes from bikes, and for me, that allows those kinds of conversations that are not necessarily engaged are encouraged or they seem to be trained to do in their courses and stuff that actually, you know, enlivens people and make some people feel quite empowered, I think in terms of what they do, as, as pedagogical leaders are, you know, as they're learning along that pathway. Yeah. And I couldn't be more excited in a way than hearing about that, especially as you know, I'm kind of mad keen bike rider myself. And, and I love that emphasis you've put lead from children being fitter and healthier. And if they don't have the opportunity to practice on a bike at home, then let's see if we can lend them one or Give. Give them one. Let's just be practical, that overcoming the barriers that children and families face. Let's just just do things. Yeah, yeah. Right. I think we have to wrap up although we could go on and talk about this. Do you have any wise words for For anyone before you leave, and anything that you want to pay attention to are to, you know, take note of that I could so easily walk into a sinkhole couldn't I think I think what I'd say. Now we want to set up a connection here, I think these are some things that are on my mind at the moment. First of all, you know, the 21, department matters has been really carefully put together, a lot of practitioners were involved in it and the road tested, and it's the first time it's being led by a serving practitioner. It's short, it's two thirds of the length of the previous one. And it's also written in very accessible English, so you can sit down and read it in 90 minutes. And I really hope people will do that. And, of course, it's not going to be what everyone wants. And every document like this is a compromise between different views. And I'm keenly aware of that fact. But we mustn't make to quote Voltaire perfect into the enemy of the good. We're never going to get this perfect. But we can make it as good as possible. And we can build on it. And it's guidance, and it's brief. So it leaves a lot of space for people's own professional judgement. So let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Let's do what we've always done, which is take the framework and the guidance we've got and really make it work for our children, let's not make this field get really, really noisy, so that people don't know where to turn or what to do or what what they're drawing for, for guidance. That's what I really hope will happen in the sector, as we go forward. And I couldn't be more heartened by the responses that there have been in all of those training events and conferences and discussions about development matters and how onboard people are about improving children's early communication, about tackling the problems of workload about thinking again, about the best way to give good life chances to every child, not 75% of children, but every child so so I am really heartened by what's by what's happening at the moment. Well, thank you. Let's have another one of these conversations later on. Our next our next big action will be the OBC London where we all prepare for the return of offside into the nursery. Thanks, Julian. But those of you interested in our next podcast, I will be talking to Dr. Linda Greenwald from the dental wellness trust about the issue of dental decay in small children. Thank you for joining me today. If you liked what you heard, please share it. Check us out on our website big.org.uk