Men in Early Years: Proven Power to Inspire

Men in Early Years: Proven Power to Inspire

by | Oct 5, 2026 | Company News

Men in Early Years: From Nursery Floor to Training Room

Men in early years remain rare: walk into most nurseries in England and the chances are every member of staff you meet will be a woman. That's not an impression. According to a House of Commons Library briefing citing 2024 Department for Education data, 97% of staff at school-based providers and childminders are female, rising to 98% at group-based providers such as nurseries.

Put the other way round, men make up somewhere around 2 to 3% of the people caring for and educating this country's youngest children, and that same imbalance follows through into who trains, coaches and leads within the sector too.

Men in Early Years: Harry's Story

Harry Wren has spent his career on both sides of that number. He ran his own nursery before moving into further education and training, and now works as a Development Coach at Parenta, supporting apprentices and practitioners across the sector.

His route in started early: with older siblings, he became an uncle at a young age and often found himself helping out and babysitting. “I realised how much I genuinely enjoyed supporting children and watching them develop,” he says. That early experience eventually led him to open his own nursery, “where I could create an environment that reflects my values and gives children the best possible start in their early years.”

It's Not Just Nappies and Naps, and It's Not Just Curriculum Either

Harry is clear that the biggest misconception about early years work is that it's simply about caring for children, or, from the training side, that it's simple and instinctive enough not to require much thought. “A lot of thought goes into what we do, even during what might look like simple play,” he says.

Practitioners are constantly interacting with children, asking questions, extending their learning and helping them make sense of the world around them. As he puts it, “being an early years educator is about much more than looking after children. It is about helping to lay the foundations for their future.”

That same principle carries straight into how he coaches.

An apprentice trained by someone who's genuinely run a setting, managed a team and made the daily judgement calls brings a different kind of credibility than one working purely from a curriculum document, and Harry uses his own experience on the nursery floor to push apprentices to observe, plan and reflect on their own work rather than just complete tasks.

That skills mismatch matters for recruiting men in early years too. Men already working in sport, youth work, hospitality or health and social care often have a head start without realising it.

If the sector talked about the job in terms of the skills it actually needs, rather than the tasks people assume it involves, it might reach a very different pool of potential recruits, both into nurseries and into training.

What the Research Shows, at Both Ends

The picture is more interesting than the usual assumptions about men in early years suggest, on the child-facing side and the training side alike.

LEYF's own research into men in childcare found that children didn't necessarily gravitate to male staff for football or rough-and-tumble play, the opposite of what most people would assume, though superhero play stood out as one activity nearly every child chose to do specifically with a man. It's a reminder that the value men bring isn't always where you'd expect it.

That's backed by more formal research on the workforce and training side too. GenderEYE, a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and carried out with Lancaster University and Norway's Queen Maud University College, looked specifically at what male-inclusive approaches to recruitment and retention actually achieve in early years settings.

Visible role models in training and leadership roles, not just on the nursery floor, are part of what that research points to as making a measurable difference.

A Career, Not a Stopgap

One of the quieter barriers is the assumption that early years is a dead end, or at best a stepping stone to primary teaching. It isn't. There are real routes upward and sideways: from practitioner into management, into SEND specialism, into further education training roles like Harry's own, into youth work, or into support roles across education more broadly.

Harry's own career is the case in point. Running his own nursery showed him just how many opportunities exist in early years beyond working directly with children. “Running my own nursery made me realise just how many opportunities there are for men within the early years sector beyond working directly in a nursery,” he says.

Moving into coaching felt like a natural next step: “I wanted to show that the skills and experience gained in early years can open doors to many different roles, including coaching, mentoring, training and professional development.”

The biggest myth he'd like to bust is that early years has one single career path. “You can progress into leadership and management, coaching, mentoring, training, consultancy and many other areas, using the knowledge and skills you develop along the way.” For men in early years specifically, that progression is often invisible until someone models it, which is exactly what Harry's own move into coaching does.

Harry Wren, one of the few men in early years, coaching an apprentice in a nursery setting

A visible, credible route from practitioner into training and leadership roles gives apprentices something concrete to aim for, and having that route modelled by someone who doesn't fit the sector's usual demographic sends its own message about who this career is actually for.

What the Sector Can Do Next

A few things would move this faster than good intentions alone.

  • Show, don't just tell. Real stories from men in early years, in their own words, do more to shift perception than another statistic ever will, whether that's a man on the nursery floor or a man leading training.
  • Talk about impact honestly. The evidence base is real, on both the child development side and the recruitment and retention side, and it deserves wider circulation than it currently gets.
  • Build bridges, not just job ads. Settings without any male staff could partner with local youth organisations, sports clubs and community groups so children still get exposure to male role models, even while the workforce itself is being rebalanced.
  • Make progression visible from day one. Recruitment and training messaging that shows a 5- or 10-year career path, not just an entry-level job, will land very differently with someone weighing this up.

Harry has never experienced being a man in the sector as a barrier. “Parents, colleagues and the wider community have always been very supportive and welcoming,” he says, and he's noticed that many parents specifically value having a positive male role model in the nursery. His advice to any man weighing up the career, whether that's stepping onto the nursery floor or into a training role, is straightforward: “If you're even thinking about it, give it a try. Give it a chance, get some experience, and see where it takes you. You might be surprised by just how many opportunities the sector can offer.”

None of this fixes itself. But a sector that's aware of its own numbers, honest about what's holding men in early years back, and willing to make the case for this as a serious and skilled career, at every level from the nursery floor to the training room, is a sector that can start to close the gap.

As Harry puts it: “The more men we have working in the sector, the more normalised it will become.”

Keen to explore career pathways like Harry's for your own team, or curious about training routes into early years? Get in touch with our friendly team today, and we'll be happy to help.

How to Build Powerful Parent Communication in Early Years

How to Build Powerful Parent Communication in Early Years

by | Sep 26, 2026 | Childcare News

Parent Communication in Early Years: How to Talk to Families with Confidence

For many early years practitioners, the hardest part of the job isn’t the children. It’s the conversation at the door.

Think about the last time you stood at the nursery door as a parent was leaving, and you had something important to say but let the moment pass. Perhaps a child had been unsettled all morning, and you weren't sure how to raise it.

Perhaps you had noticed something that needed mentioning, but pick-up was chaotic, and the opportunity slipped by. That hesitation - the gap between knowing something and saying it - is one of the most common experiences in early years practice, and it costs more than most practitioners realise.

Parent communication in early years shapes what children experience at home, what families trust about your setting, and what practitioners feel equipped to do. It’s not a peripheral skill or a personality trait you either have or don't. It sits at the centre of good practice, and - like every other professional skill - it develops with attention and support.

Why Every Exchange Carries More Weight Than You Think

Parents are a child's first and most enduring educators, and when your observations reach them, children benefit directly. The parent who hears that their child struggled at drop-off can give them extra reassurance that evening.

The practitioner who learns that a family had a difficult night can adjust the day accordingly. Information flowing freely in both directions creates care that wraps around the whole child, not just the hours they spend with you.

Strong parent communication in early years also protects you professionally. Clear, consistent records of what you observed, what you discussed, and what was agreed support safeguarding decisions, SEND referrals, and Ofsted inspections in ways that a vague memory of a doorstep exchange simply cannot.

The relationship works both ways: parents who feel genuinely heard tend to raise concerns early, before they escalate into formal complaints, and to trust that you will address problems openly rather than manage them quietly.

Research consistently shows that parental involvement in early education is one of the strongest predictors of a child's long-term outcomes: when parents see practitioners communicating with warmth and specificity, they start to participate more actively in their child's learning.

That engagement, in turn, shapes what happens at home - and it starts with a practitioner being willing to share what they have seen.

You Have More to Say Than You Realise

Many practitioners underestimate the professional value of what they know; however, you spend more waking hours with some children than their parents do. You notice developmental changes, social patterns, and emotional shifts that families miss entirely - not because they are inattentive parents, but because they are simply not there to see them.

Your observations matter, your concerns are legitimate, and your reassurance means something to the people who have placed the most important thing in their lives in your hands.

The practitioners who communicate most effectively tend to share small, specific details rather than polished summaries. "She tried the zipwire for the first time today and was absolutely beaming" reaches a parent in a way that "she had a great day" never quite does. Specificity is what makes parents feel seen rather than processed - it tells them that someone has been paying real attention to their child, not just supervising a group.

If you find yourself hesitating before sharing a concern, one question cuts through the overthinking faster than any framework: would you want to know this if you were this child's parent? In almost every case, the answer is yes.

When the Conversation Is Hard

Every childcare practitioner will eventually face the conversations nobody wants. A child is struggling to settle, a family's circumstances are affecting their behaviour at the setting, or an accident happened on your watch.

The instinct in these moments is to soften, deflect, or delay - but parents almost always find cushioned or postponed bad news harder to process than a clear, honest account delivered at the right moment. They also lose confidence in practitioners who seem to be working around something.

A simple three-part structure helps. You could start with what you observed: "I've noticed this week that Callum has been very unsettled at drop-off - he's been crying for around 20 minutes each morning, which is longer than usual." Then describe what you've already tried: "We've been pairing him with his key person from the moment he arrives and keeping his favourite book at the door. It's helped a little, but he's still finding the transition difficult."

Finally, invite the parent in: "I wanted to check in with you - has anything changed at home, or have you noticed the same at other times?" This keeps the conversation factual and collaborative, meaning you are sharing what you know and asking for their expertise about their own child, rather than presenting them with a verdict.

Timing matters as much as structure. A difficult conversation started at the door during a busy collection rarely ends well for either party. It’s better to ask a parent to come back at a quieter time, or offer a brief phone call, than to rush something important.

Before a planned review or follow-up meeting, spending five minutes writing down the key facts - what you observed, when, what you have already tried, and what you need to learn from this family - gives you the anchors that keep you steady when the conversation becomes emotional.

Where safeguarding is involved, never manage a conversation alone. Follow your setting's safeguarding policy and speak to your designated safeguarding lead before and after any discussion that touches on welfare concerns.

The Small Habits That Build Trust Before You Need It

Confidence in parent communication grows through repetition, and the practitioners who find it easiest tend to communicate little and often rather than saving everything up for a weekly update. Greeting every parent by name signals that they are a person to you, not a handover slot.

Sharing one specific observation at each collection - something you genuinely saw, not a polished summary - builds the habit of noticing and narrating. When a face-to-face conversation isn't possible, a brief note in the child's learning journal or a message through your nursery management software preserves the moment rather than losing it.

It’s also worth asking parents, early in the relationship and again at review points, what they actually want from you. Some families want daily detail and feel reassured by frequent contact; others find that volume overwhelming and prefer a broader weekly picture.

Asking the question is itself an act of communication - it tells families that their preferences matter to you. And some of the most trust-building conversations are the unexpected positive ones: a message home about a breakthrough, a note about something funny a child said, a moment shared purely because the parent would want to know. These small investments are the ones that make difficult conversations considerably easier when they eventually come.

When Parents Disagree

Not every conversation will go smoothly. Parents sometimes challenge your observations, question your judgement, or become emotional in ways that feel hard to manage from the other side of the door.

The thing worth holding onto in those moments is that a parent who pushes back is almost always a parent who cares deeply about their child. That energy - even when it presents as confrontation - is far easier to work with than disengagement.

When a parent disagrees with you, your role isn’t to win the argument but to understand their concern. "Help me understand where you're coming from" is one of the most useful phrases in a practitioner's toolkit - it slows the conversation down and shifts it from confrontation into dialogue.

You can hold your professional position while acknowledging their view without surrendering it: "I can see why that's worrying for you, and I want to make sure we're working on this together" is something very different from simply dropping your concern. If a conversation becomes heated, pausing it’s a professional response, not an avoidance tactic. "I want to give this the attention it deserves - can we find a time to sit down properly?" keeps the relationship intact and the issue on the table. Document every significant conversation: the date, what was discussed, and what was agreed.

For further guidance on managing challenging parent conversations, the Early Years Alliance offers practical resources and support for practitioners across England.

Building a Team That Communicates Well

Confidence in parent communication in early years doesn’t arrive fully formed with experience. It develops through practice, peer support, and the kind of professional training that gives practitioners language for conversations that might otherwise feel out of reach. Courses covering attachment theory, EYFS, communication skills, and SEND are not just professional development boxes to tick - they change what you feel able to say, and to whom, when it matters.

Peer observation is one of the most underused tools in early years settings. Watching how a more experienced colleague handles drop-off conversations for a week, then debriefing together afterwards, surfaces habits and phrases that have been built up over years but rarely consciously articulated. It costs nothing and develops skill faster than almost any other method available.

For managers and room leaders, it’s worth examining the conditions before examining individual performance. Do your practitioners have any protected time for parent conversations? Are they supported after a difficult exchange, or left to absorb it alone?

Settings that invest in communication training - and that create a culture where difficult conversations are discussed rather than buried - improve faster than those that leave practitioners to develop the skill in isolation. When senior staff model open, specific, and confident communication with families at the door, in meetings, and in written updates, the whole team takes its lead from that.

Parenta's childcare training programmes cover child development, EYFS, communication skills, and SEND - designed for practitioners at every level, from apprentices to room leaders. If you would like to find out how we can support your team, get in touch today. We would love to help.

Join the conversation: what's the hardest parent conversation you've had to navigate, and how did you approach it? Share your tips in the comments below - we would love to hear from you.

4 Simple Movements That Shape a Child’s Whole Future

4 Simple Movements That Shape a Child’s Whole Future

by | Sep 25, 2026 | Guest Authors

Stretch. Bend. Jump. Turn. Why Movement Matters for Life

If you go to a ballet, it can look extraordinarily complicated. Yet if you strip away the music, costumes, choreography, and look at the movement itself, much of what we see can be broken down into four simple actions: a stretch, a bend, a jump and a turn.

These are movements young children instinctively explore. They stretch to reach something interesting, bend to investigate the floor, jump because there is something exciting to jump over and turn simply because spinning feels wonderful.

As a movement teacher, I have spent many years watching what happens when we slow these movements down, repeat them and, importantly, give children a reason to do them.

A stretch can become placing a dino egg back in the arms of a gigantic dino mummy. A bend becomes ducking underneath a bridge when a dragon flies over. A jump becomes leaping over the Amazon River, avoiding all the hungry piranhas. A turn becomes swirling through the air like a snowflake at the North Pole on our search for Father Christmas.

The fundamental movement remains the same, but imagination changes the experience.

Movement needs time

Fundamental movement skills, including running, jumping, balancing, throwing and catching, provide important foundations for children’s physical development.

But perhaps we sometimes move too quickly towards the finished skill.

Children need opportunities to explore movement, repeat it and discover how their bodies work. And repetition doesn’t have to mean doing exactly the same thing over again, and again.

We can repeat a movement at different speeds, at different levels and in different directions. Imagination allows us to practise the same skill within countless situations.

We might jump over a puddle today, leap between rocks tomorrow and blast off from the Moon next week.

The child is still practising how to jump, but it doesn’t feel like practice.

Don’t forget the middle!

Before we get too excited about jumping and skipping, there is another important piece of the movement puzzle - core strength and postural stability!

Children need postural strength and stability to hold themselves upright, control their head and body, maintain balance and coordinate their arms and legs. Those foundations support everything from sitting and reaching to running, jumping and eventually skipping.

We’ve probably all watched a young child enthusiastically launch themselves into a jump… only to discover that their top half and bottom half hadn’t quite agreed on the plan.

Cue the faceplant!

It’s a funny moment (once we know they’re okay!), but it reminds us that a jump is much more than two feet leaving the floor. The child has to bend (push down to go up), generate force, organise their body in the air and then control the landing - all while keeping their balance.

So before worrying about how high or how far a child can jump, give them plenty of opportunities to strengthen the foundations: reaching, crawling, climbing, balancing, pushing, pulling, twisting, bending, and moving in lots of different ways.

Sometimes the skills we can’t immediately see are the ones making the visible movement possible.

Try this with your team…

Ask one person to teach another adult how to skip - without demonstrating it.

Words only!

Explain what one foot does. Then the other. Explain the transfer of weight, the travelling, and the rhythm. Now add the arms, moving in opposition to the lifted leg - and remember, you're still not allowed to demonstrate!

It is surprisingly difficult.

Yet we can sometimes expect a 3- or 4-year-old, whose balance, coordination, body awareness and language are all still developing, to understand a movement simply because we ask them to do it.

Children need opportunities to see movement, experience it, repeat it, and gradually discover what it feels like within their own bodies.

That is particularly worth considering for children with additional needs, children learning English as an additional language and children who process spoken instructions differently.

Movement has a vocabulary too

Movement also provides wonderful opportunities for developing language.

Think about the words:

over, under, around, through, high, low, fast, slow, stretch, squeeze, creep, stomp.

We can explain what under means or show a child a picture.

But what happens when that child becomes an explorer and crawls under a soft, furry Red Panda Bear’s tummy to keep warm while exploring Mount Everest?

The word suddenly has a physical experience attached to it.

Combine movement with stories, rhythm, repetition, gesture, and imaginative play, and children hear language while experiencing its meaning through their bodies.

Movement and communication don’t need to sit in separate boxes. Movement can be one of the ways through which children discover language.

What is happening in the brain?

While all this jumping, stretching and pretending is happening, the developing brain is extraordinarily busy.

Children’s brains continually develop and refine networks in response to their experiences. Myelin is a protective insulating material around many nerve fibres that helps signals travel efficiently through the nervous system. Think of it a little like superfast broadband for the brain.

We shouldn’t simplify this to say that repeating a movement simply ‘creates myelin’. Brain development is far more complex than that. But repeated, meaningful experiences are an important part of how children learn and refine skills.

Think about what the brain may be processing during one simple movement: balance, body position, vision, touch, sound, timing, memory, language and emotion.

That little jump over an imaginary puddle is actually rather impressive!

Participation doesn’t have to look the same

One of the things I love most about movement is that there doesn’t have to be only one way to participate.

One child might jump over our imaginary puddle. Another might step across it. Another might lift their arms and imagine flying across. A child with complex physical needs might experience the rhythm, anticipate what happens next or make a movement that is achievable for them.

Different does not mean less.

Our role isn’t always to make every child perform an identical movement. It is to create opportunities where children can participate, explore and experience movement in ways that are meaningful for them.

Sometimes that means slowing down. Watching. Repeating. Changing the story. Trying another way.

Before asking, “Why can’t this child do it?”, perhaps we could ask:

“Have I given this child enough different ways to experience it?”

And movement doesn’t stop mattering when childhood ends

There is an even bigger picture.

Movement isn’t something we need only while our bodies and brains are young.

Recent interest in dance and healthy ageing has highlighted research into the potential relationship between dance and cognitive health.

Think about what happens when we learn a dance. We listen to music, remember sequences, coordinate our arms and legs, transfer our weight, balance, respond to rhythm, change direction and navigate the space around us - often while interacting with other people.

Our bodies are moving, but our brains are working too.

Research into dance and older adults, including those with mild cognitive impairment and dementia, is promising, with studies reporting potential benefits for areas including cognition, memory, balance and wellbeing. It is an evolving field, so we cannot say that dancing prevents dementia, but it gives us another fascinating reason to consider the value of movement throughout life.

Perhaps, then, movement deserves a little more space in childhood.

Not simply because we want children to become good at running, jumping or catching.

But because through movement they are discovering their bodies, exploring language, building confidence, connecting with others, using their imaginations and learning about the world around them.

So get ready to…. Stretch. Bend. Jump. Turn.

And then do it all again tomorrow - just imagine somewhere completely different next time.

Movement isn’t just for childhood. It is for life.

 

What Parenta Has to Offer

If this has got you thinking about how movement shapes every part of a child's development, our childcare courses cover physical development alongside the full breadth of early years practice, helping you build the confidence and knowledge to support every child in your setting. Give our friendly team a call on 0800 002 9242 to find out more.

Join the Conversation

We'd love to hear from you: how do you currently build movement into your setting's daily routine, and what has helped a reluctant child join in? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Holistic Learning

Discover more: About Gina Bale

Other Articles:
The Social Power of Play
Playful STEM: Spark Creativity in Early Years
The importance of not having a narrow view of imagination and authentic learning
What is Creativity in Early Childhood? Definitions & Real-World Examples
Imaginative Play: A Proven Path to Emotional Well-being

Menopause and Retention: Why Support Matters Now

Menopause and Retention: Why Support Matters Now

by | Sep 24, 2026 | Childcare News

The Quiet Struggle: Supporting Staff Through Menopause in Your Setting

With 97% of the early years workforce being female, menopause is already present in most childcare teams. Most employers just don't know it yet.

One of your most experienced practitioners has been with your setting for eight years. She knows every child, every parent, every difficult pick-up and tricky morning routine. Lately, though, she’s been struggling: exhausted despite sleeping, too warm when everyone else finds the room comfortable, losing confidence in herself in ways she can’t quite name.

She hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, because she doesn’t know if she can. That is menopause. And in most childcare settings, it’s playing out right now, in silence.

Around 6 million people in the UK workforce are currently experiencing menopause, and the early years sector is 97% female, so several people in your team are almost certainly among them. Yet 70% of those going through menopause say their employer offers no meaningful support.

For a sector already stretched by recruitment and retention pressures, supporting staff through menopause is not a nice-to-have. It’s part of keeping your team together.

Why Childcare Makes This Harder

Menopause affects people differently, but the nature of early years work makes its symptoms harder to manage than in many other professions. Your practitioners spend the full day on their feet, in warm rooms, lifting children, navigating noise, and holding emotional space for the families in your care.

A hot flush in a busy baby room is not a minor inconvenience, and brain fog, when you are responsible for the welfare of young children, can shake a practitioner’s confidence in ways that linger long after the symptom passes.

3 in 4 people going through menopause experience symptoms. For 1 in 4, those symptoms are severe: hot flushes, fatigue, anxiety, and disrupted sleep, night after night.

UK businesses lose an estimated £191 million a year to menopause-related absenteeism and presenteeism, and around 10% of employees leave their jobs altogether when symptoms go unmanaged. In early years, where losing one experienced practitioner costs weeks of recruitment and months of onboarding, that loss goes deeper than any figure captures.

It’s the trust built slowly between a key worker and a child. It’s the institutional knowledge that leaves with them.

What the Law Now Requires

Menopause isn’t a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, but that doesn’t mean employers face no legal exposure. Where symptoms are severe and persistent enough to affect a person’s ability to do their job, they may qualify as a disability - and at that point, making reasonable adjustments becomes a legal duty, not a choice employers can opt out of.

Employment tribunal claims citing menopause tripled in recent years, with payouts frequently exceeding £60,000. The Employment Rights Act, which received Royal Assent in December 2025, adds further pressure: employers with 250 or more staff must produce Equality Action Plans that explicitly address menopause support, with the requirement becoming mandatory from spring 2027.

Smaller settings are exempt from that reporting obligation, but the underlying legal duties apply to every employer, whatever the headcount.

What Good Support Actually Looks Like

Childcare practitioners having an open conversation about menopause support at work

 

You don’t need a large HR function or a complex policy to make a real difference - the most effective changes tend to be simple ones, done consistently - and the first is making it safe to talk.

Many women wait months before telling anyone at work about their menopause, worried their manager will see them differently or assume they are winding down their career. Managers don’t need to become experts in the topic; they just need to be approachable.

A line as simple as “I want you to know we’re supportive if you’re going through any health changes” opens the door. Most practitioners aren’t looking for a formal process - they're looking for permission to have the conversation.

From there, flexible working is one of the most practical tools available. Since April 2024, all employees have had the right to request it from day one of employment. For someone managing night sweats and broken sleep, an adjusted start time or a shift swap can make a measurable difference to how they function across the day.

Childcare ratios and rotas limit how much flexibility is possible, of course - that’s a genuine constraint - but where adjusted hours are offered, and where requests are handled with care rather than dismissed, staff take notice. It tells them something important about where they work.

Environmental adjustments often cost almost nothing: a desk fan, access to a cooler room for a short break, a uniform policy that allows breathable fabrics, and separate recording of menopause-related absence so that practitioners don’t unfairly reach disciplinary trigger points during a difficult few months.

All of these are practical tools for supporting staff through menopause in the day-to-day reality of an early years setting. The Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes clear, free guidance on workplace adjustments - worth having to hand when you sit down with an individual team member to agree a plan.

Finally, a written policy changes the conversation before it even starts: only 24% of UK employers have a stated menopause policy. A single plain-English page - stating your commitment, naming available adjustments, and telling people who to speak to in confidence - signals that this is a setting where staff can ask for help.

The UK government’s guidance on workplace adjustments for menopause at gov.uk is a practical starting point.

October Is a Good Moment to Start

World Menopause Month runs throughout October, with World Menopause Day falling on the 18th. It’s worth remembering, though, that you don’t need to overhaul your HR approach overnight.

Try committing to one thing: a team conversation, a policy review, or a change to how you record menopause-related absence. Each step builds a workplace where your most experienced practitioners feel able to stay.

Building a culture where people can talk openly about their health is part of building a setting where staff choose to work for the long term. Supporting staff through menopause is also an investment in the quality of care your setting delivers.

When your team feel supported, they stay longer, take fewer unplanned days off, and bring more to the workplace.

The practitioner who has been with you for eight years, who knows every child by name - she deserves that from you. And your setting needs her.

If you’d like to explore how our childcare training programmes can support your team’s development and well-being this Menopause Awareness Month, get in touch with our friendly team today. We’d love to help.

Join the conversation: does your setting have a menopause policy yet? Let us know in the comments what's worked well, or what support you wish you had.

How to Build Strong Parent Partnerships for Early Years Success

How to Build Strong Parent Partnerships for Early Years Success

by | Sep 23, 2026 | Guest Authors

Parent Partnership in Early Years: Why It Truly Matters

A parent can answer every message, attend every event and still feel like a visitor. Another may seldom come to an event, yet know exactly what their child is exploring, talk about it at home and share thoughtful observations with the key person. One is easy for a setting to count. The other is easier to miss.

Working across different educational contexts has taught me not to confuse visibility with commitment. In early years settings, we often measure family engagement through what we can see: who attends, replies, volunteers or joins a meeting. These things matter, but they do not tell us whether a family feels recognised, respected or able to influence what happens around their child.

I have come to see family inclusion not only as a partnership between adults, but as part of the child's daily experience of the setting. Children do not leave their family identity at the door. The relationship between home and the setting becomes part of the environment in which they learn whether they, and the people who matter to them, truly have a place.

A welcome is not yet a partnership

Goodall and Montgomery's work invites us to look beyond what parents do in relation to the setting and consider how closely they are connected to their children's learning. In practice, that distinction matters. A setting can have a welcoming entrance, a busy calendar and a well-used communication app, while still deciding the subject, timing, language and acceptable form of almost every exchange.

Inclusion asks something more demanding:

Does the family's knowledge have a legitimate place here?

Families know things that no observation sheet can fully capture: How a child communicates when tired, what brings comfort, which words carry meaning at home, what has recently changed and what the family is hoping for.

Reciprocity does not ask practitioners to set aside their expertise. It asks us not to assume that ours is the only expertise in the room. Professional judgement is stronger when it is informed by people who know the child in different places and in different ways. This is consistent with research in which families from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds emphasised communication, trust and feeling comfortable within the partnership. In one South African early childhood centre, parents described participation as something more than being present: they wanted their contributions to influence the life of the centre.

What the child picks up

Young children may not understand every conversation between the adults who care for them, but they notice the quality of those encounters. They notice whether their parents' names are known and pronounced properly. They see whether a home language is welcomed or treated as a problem. They experience whether information from home changes what an adult does next.

This does not create a neat cause-and-effect line. A child's participation is shaped by temperament, development, relationships, previous experiences and the wider context. Even so, the relationship between home and the setting belongs inside that context, not outside it. Intervention studies in the early years have found benefits for aspects of children's language and social and emotional development when practitioners and families work together in structured, reciprocal ways.

For me, the child receives a simple relational message: the people who know me belong here, and what they know about me matters. That message cannot guarantee participation, but it can help to make participation feel less risky.

When the same families always take part

There is a leadership question here. When the same families repeatedly participate, and others remain less visible, it is tempting to attribute that difference to motivation. In my experience, that is rarely the most useful place to begin.

Working hours, transport, language, disability, digital access, previous experiences of education and culturally shaped expectations can all affect how a family responds to the opportunities offered. A family can care deeply and still not fit the timetable, language or format that the setting has chosen. Low visibility is not reliable evidence of low interest. Presence, meanwhile, is not proof of genuine inclusion.

As a leader, I am interested in the pattern before the label. If our preferred forms of participation work particularly well for families who speak the dominant language, have flexible working arrangements and already understand the system. Then the pattern is telling us something about the design of our provision.

The questions then change:

Which forms of participation do we make most accessible?

Who is continually expected to adapt to us?

Whose knowledge reaches planning and decision-making, rather than simply being collected?

Designing inclusion from the inside out

The answer is not necessarily another family event. Sometimes it is a translated conversation, a flexible appointment, continuity with a key person, a voice note rather than a form, or a question about what the child is learning beyond the setting. Most importantly, families need to see that what they have shared has made a difference. A brief exchange that changes how a child is supported can be more meaningful than attendance at a large celebration.

This is where family engagement becomes a matter of organisational quality. It can be traced through induction, staff deployment, translation, meeting times, key-person practice, curriculum planning, additional-needs processes and the way leaders respond to family feedback. One exceptional practitioner can make families feel welcome, but if inclusion depends entirely on that person's warmth or initiative, it is fragile. Leaders must make reciprocal practice ordinary.

The form will not look identical in every community. I have worked in places where the expectations of the educator, the family and the institution differed considerably. The method must adapt, but the principle can remain steady: every family needs a genuine route to be known, to contribute and, where appropriate, to shape practice.

Perhaps this is why children participate differently when families feel included. It is not because every partnership becomes perfect, or because every child responds in the same way. It is because the child sees, repeatedly and in practical ways, that the setting recognises the world they come from rather than asking them to set it aside.

A setting that listens, adapts and shows families that their knowledge has mattered has built more than a family-engagement programme. It has strengthened the child's place within the setting too.

Join the Conversation

How does your setting build genuine parent partnership in early years, beyond the events on the calendar? Perhaps it is a small change to how you greet families at drop-off, or a new way of sharing observations that invites a reply rather than just recording one. We would love to hear how you are putting this into practice - share your experience in the comments below.

Further Reading

For readers interested in exploring these ideas further, the following publications offer valuable perspectives on family engagement, reciprocal partnerships and the ways relationships between home and early years settings can support children's participation and development.

  • Goodall, J. & Montgomery, C. (2014). Parental involvement to parental engagement: A continuum. Educational Review.
  • Sheridan, S. M. et al. (2010; 2011). Research from the Getting Ready intervention exploring the relationship between parent engagement and children's social-emotional development, early language and literacy. Early Education and Development and Journal of School Psychology.
  • Gaspar, C. R., Jahromi, L. B. & Rooney, M. E. (2025). Culturally and ethnically diverse parents' views of home-school partnership responsibilities. Journal of Early Childhood Research.
  • Connelly, A. S., Shaik, N. & Chigona, A. (2024). We grow together: Parent participation in an early childhood care and education centre. South African Journal of Childhood Education.

How Parenta Supports Parent Partnership in Early Years

Building genuine parent partnership in early years settings takes more than good intentions - it takes the right tools and the right training. At Parenta, we help nurseries turn reciprocal practice into an everyday routine, rather than leaving it to rest on one practitioner's initiative.

Our nursery management software makes it easier to keep families genuinely informed and involved, from two-way messaging to sharing observations that invite a response rather than simply recording one. And because sustainable parent partnership in early years depends on confident, well-supported staff, our childcare training courses cover inclusive practice, communication and leading family engagement across a whole team.

These principles sit alongside the expectations set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework, which asks providers to work in partnership with parents and/or carers. When your team is equipped to build that parent partnership in early years consistently, children feel it too.

Ready to help your whole team build stronger, more consistent family partnerships? Get in touch with our friendly team today to find out how our childcare training and nursery management software could support your setting.

children

Discover more: About Anabela Paulo

Other Articles:
Early Years Safeguarding: A Proven Path to Trust
Workforce Challenges and invisible inclusion
The Key To Inclusive Education In Early Years
Inclusion in Early Years – What is it?
From Inclusion to Participation: Supporting Neurodivergent Children in Everyday Practice

Expression of interest

Complete the form below if you are interested in joining our family. 

You have Successfully Subscribed!