Advertise on podcast: Talking Early Years with June O'Sullivan

This is the first hour I’d spent with Professors Chris Pascal OBE and Dr Tony Bertram since they stopped supervising my PhD, and the conversation was every bit as energising and engaging as ever. Affectionately dubbed our “National Treasures” by the study group, Chris and Tony are as generous as they are sharp. We set out to talk about ‘quality’, but it quicky widened into pedagogy, community inequality and the digitally-saturated world children now inhabit. What emerged was a deeply human, deeply practical account of what quality really looks and feels like for children, families and educators.

SEND, Social Justice and the Question We Keep Avoiding  Everyone is talking about SEND. Inclusion. Rising need. Pressures on schools and nurseries. But I am not convinced we all mean the same thing when we use those words. In my latest Talking Early Years podcast, I sat down with the wonderfully energetic Catherine Mole, CEO of Dingley’s Promise and one of the sector’s most passionate advocates for children with SEND, to unpack what is really going on.

Kindness Is the Work: A Conversation with Salas Balde for the Next Generation of Early Years Educators  Every now and then, someone walks into your professional world and reminds you why you care so deeply about Early Years, community, childhood development, and humanity itself. For me, one of those people is Salas. He was last on Talking Early Years in December 2023, and even then, he was a burst of optimism and purpose. Since then, he has done so much more that I felt it was time to bring him back and let him tell the next chapter of his story.  Listen now!

Is giving a young child unrestricted access to digital technology like handing them a vape?  In my latest podcast, I sat down with digital safety expert Katy Potts to confront what many of us are reluctant to say out loud. There is no app to replace your lap.  Listen to the podcast. This matters more than we think!

Social justice can sound lofty. Abstract. Something discussed in policy papers or parliamentary chambers. But the truth is, the seeds of fairness, compassion, sustainability and community are planted much earlier than that. They’re sown in the nursery, long before children learn the language of politics. And if we don’t plant them early, we risk raising a generation who see inequality as inevitable rather than something they can change.  That was the heart of my conversation with Susan Santone, author of Reframing the Curriculum and one of the thinkers who most shaped my own PhD journey.

Learning by Living: Barbara Rogoff on Sociocultural Learning Listen now  In this episode of Talking Early Years, I’m in conversation with one of the most influential thinkers in developmental psychology, Professor Barbara Rogoff, whose work on sociocultural learning in early childhood has reshaped how the world understands children and learning.

This week on the podcast, I’m joined by Howard Roberts, a creative strategist whose superpower is curiosity. The real kind—the kind that asks why, digs deeper, challenges the status quo, and isn’t satisfied with surface-level answers. In the Early Years, we know just how powerful curiosity is. It’s the engine of learning, the spark of joy, the heart of play. But what happens when we apply that same thinking to big public issues—like how we help people truly feel why the Early Years matter?

I’ve just finished recording a podcast with Professor Sam Wass, and I’m still buzzing. He is Director of the Institute for the Science of Early Years at the University of East London. You may also know him from The Secret Life of Four-Year-Olds. His research is fascinating because it brings neuroscience right into the nursery, helping us understand what children’s brains are telling us about their experiences. Sam’s research brings neuroscience directly into early years settings. He uses microphones, cameras and stress monitors to measure how babies and young children actually experience the environments we create for them. This is not guesswork. It’s science showing us what their brains are trying to tell us.

Why Nursery Chefs Are Our Unsung Food Champions I recently spoke with Catherine Lippe, a registered nutritionist with more than 18 years’ experience in Early Years nutrition. She reminded me that nursery chefs are far more than cooks; they are “food champions” whose work directly supports children’s development and helps address wider issues of health inequality. With the new EYFS nutrition guidance offering clearer direction, there’s a real opportunity to place food firmly at the heart of nursery life. But guidance alone won’t cut it; we need training, funding, and recognition for the people who make it happen.

Early childhood education is not a neutral or technical service—it is a deeply political space and this is the focus of my podcast guest Professor Peter Moss, the well-known and outspoken academic critic of the UK Early Years policies.  He argues that every decision about how we organise, fund, and value the early years reflects our collective beliefs about children, families, and the society we want to build. Yet in England, political action often avoids asking the most important question: What is early education for?

Risky Play or Not Risky Play - That is the Question! Ellen Sandseter is a well-known professor at Queen Maud University College for Early Childhood Education in Trondheim, Norway but we all know her for her thoughtful and challenging work on risky play. If you are interested in a conversation about risky play from a leader in the field, listen here!

The Power of Intergenerational Nurseries In this podcast, I speak to Sue Egersdorff, co-founder of the intergenerational Ready Generations Nursery at Belong, in Chester.  Her work is a powerful reminder that early childhood settings are not just educational spaces – they’re deeply embedded in the wider social and political landscape.

Are children deprived of the opportunity to play?... ...is not a new question, but one that continues to be tackled on many levels. Greg Bottrill’s book 'Can I Go and Play Now?' remains a catalyst for the conversation and highlights the importance of adults as loving companions, advocating for children’s right to a childhood.

If you have been frog marched through books, why would you ever read for pleasure? asks Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the Children’s Book Laureate.  The award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cotterell Boyce is the 13th Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, a role created by The BookTrust to champion every child’s right to a lifetime enriched with books and stories – recognising the transformative power of reading  in children's lives.   Join us on the podcast and hear Frank talk about the rights of children to stories, books, libraries and what he would do with a magic wand.