Without Early Years, Our Education System Fails

"Because It Wants to Be a Circle"

There's a moment in this webinar where early years specialist Pam Mundy describes asking a four-year-old to explain the difference between a circle and a square. No matter how she phrased the question, the child wouldn't engage with "properties" or "sides" or any of the language adults reach for.

Eventually the child looked her straight in the eye and said: "Because it wants to be a circle."

Pam still has nightmares about that moment, not because the child got it "wrong," but because it revealed something every early years practitioner on this panel circled back to again and again: the gap between how children actually think and the frameworks adults impose to measure them.

What this conversation is really about:

Dr Helen Wright brings together four practitioners with a combined seventy-plus years in early years education — across the UK, Southeast Asia, the UAE, and international school systems worldwide — to make the case that early years isn't a "nice to have" stage before the real education starts. It's the foundation everything else is built on.

Pam Mundy, who works with schools, governments and ministries worldwide on early childhood policy, makes the case for "relationship architecture" as the defining feature of outstanding provision. Jan Dubiel, an independent early years specialist with 35 years in the sector, introduces the concept of "mattering" — the idea that successful children are, fundamentally, children who know their voice counts. Charlene Carrett, a former Head of Foundation Stage turned early years advisor and school inspector, talks about depth — what it actually looks like in a two, three, four, or five-year-old, and how to build environments that allow it to develop. And Claire Leyshon, who trains the next generation of early years practitioners at a UAE university, brings the perspective of what's missing from how new teachers are taught to observe, assess, and respond to what they see.

Inside the full recording, the panel gets into genuinely practical territory: how to "speak truth to power" when early years is treated as the least important part of a school, why senior leaders — even those with no early years background — need to understand what good practice actually looks like, and what it means when a child doesn't notice you've walked into the room because they're that deep in their own thinking. There's also a sharp discussion of role play areas that are "badly used" rather than underused, why resources need to be visible and accessible rather than locked away for adults' convenience, and the panel's closing advice — including Jan's reminder that trusting your instinct as an educator is "your most powerful and assailable tool."

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Without Early Years, Our Education System Fails is part of the Outstanding Schools webinar series. Featuring Pam Mundy, Jan Dubiel, Charlene Carrett and Claire Leyshon, hosted by Dr Helen Wright.