The Early Years Love and Nurture Rating Scales

by Aaron Bradbury and Tamsin Grimmer

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We have now worked together several times over the years and have found that our ethos is aligned in many ways. We both keep children at the centre of practice and see them as competent learners who grow and develop from a foundation of love and loving relationships. We believe adults who work with young children are in the privileged position to be able to nurture this growth and work closely with families to enable children to meet their potential. We are both passionate about inspiring and supporting early childhood educators in their role as they create nurturing environments and build loving attachments with the children in their care. After we published Love and Nurture in the Early Years we were blown away by the amount of support and encouragement we received around this area of work. Countless practitioners and educators got in touch and said that Love and Nurture encapsulated their loving pedagogy and nurturing practices. We have had numerous conversations about what love and nurture looks like in terms of interactions and practice everyday. We have also discussed how to implement this approach within daily practice. Many of these ideas are drawn together in this rating scale and we hope that it becomes an essential resource which enables adults to deepen their understanding of loving and nurturing practices in the early years.