Children are whole people who deserve to be nurtured as the individual they are.
I’m Josie, a nursery teacher and mumma of two with a passion for early childhood development.
I believe in a holistic approach to childhood, combining science and research with the heart of a mother and a passion to provide every child with the best start in life.
It’s my goal to share the most effective, research-based approaches to fostering early learning through play, literacy, movement and connection.
Children are whole people who deserve to be nurtured as the individual they are.
I’m Josie, a nursery teacher and mumma of two with a passion for early childhood development.
I believe in a holistic approach to childhood, combining science and research with the heart of a mother and a passion to provide every child with the best start in life.
It’s my goal to share the most effective, research-based approaches to fostering early learning through play, literacy, movement and connection.
My mission began almost a decade ago as a disillusioned, quietly outraged newly qualified teacher. Coming from a background in psychology and with years of working in day nurseries under my belt, as I made the move into primary school teaching I found myself utterly baffled as to why our education system was completely ignorant to neuroscience and child development research!
Although I quickly chose to return to working with children before they reached formal schooling age, my time working in schools wasn’t completely wasted. For the first time, I had been able to witness first hand the outcome of deficits in early childhood experiences. This time I wasn’t working with children under five and ensuring they were being given all of the experiences required to set them up for future success, I was working with children of school age who had already been failed in their preschool years and were already (in Foundation and Year One!) struggling to keep up with the demands of our education system. And the saddest part was – and still is – that there truly isn’t enough understanding out there of how to support these children or how to prevent these issues from arising in the first place. Learning doesn’t start when a child gets to school.
My mission began almost a decade ago as a disillusioned, quietly outraged newly qualified teacher. Coming from a background in psychology and with years of working in day nurseries under my belt, as I made the move into primary school teaching I found myself utterly baffled as to why our education system was completely ignorant to neuroscience and child development research!
Although I quickly chose to return to working with children before they reached formal schooling age, my time working in schools wasn’t completely wasted. For the first time, I had been able to witness first hand the outcome of deficits in early childhood experiences. This time I wasn’t working with children under five and ensuring they were being given all of the experiences required to set them up for future success, I was working with children of school age who had already been failed in their preschool years and were already (in Foundation and Year One!) struggling to keep up with the demands of our education system. And the saddest part was – and still is – that there truly isn’t enough understanding out there of how to support these children or how to prevent these issues from arising in the first place. Learning doesn’t start when a child gets to school.
90% of brain development happens in the first five years of a child’s life.
It has been shown time and time again that high quality experiences in the first five years of life makes a critical difference as children’s brains develop, providing either strong or weak foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life.
Nurture in Nursery is my little attempt to simplify the science and raise awareness of the importance of early childhood experiences.
I want to empower parents and Early Years practitioners to shun the idea that “younger is better” when it comes to academic success, and support them in properly laying the foundations for the future.