British Association for Early Childhood Education
The British Association for Early Childhood Education [1] is ‘a national charity supporting early years practitioners with training, resources and professional networks, and campaigning for quality education for the youngest children’. It produces publications, training and consultancy, and runs national events and conferences as well as local branch meetings – it has over 3,500 members, and many non-members also use its materials. Early Education also works to improve policy in early childhood education (advocating for and campaigning to raise awareness on key issues) and trials new approaches and shares best practice [2]. There are 20 local branches [3], and there is a core strand of activity around helping the small number of remaining maintained nursery schools to survive and thrive (including a 2015 report, State of Play) as well as resources for families with very young children [4].