Mandy Wilding - nasen’s Early Years lead - holds a B.Ed (Hons) degree and specialised in the teaching of 3-7 year olds at Nene College, Northampton. She has 32 years of primary school experience, teaching children from Nursery to Year 6 and held the position of SENCO for 9 years and Assistant Headteacher for 7 years.

Mandy leads the DfE - funded Early Years SENCO Award Project and nasen’s part of the Early Years SEND Partnership Project. She has produced webinars, webcasts and downloadable resources to support group-based and home-based practitioners and LA teams in the Early Years sector to meet the needs of children with SEND. She has spoken at national conferences and events and joined a DfE workshop in May to discuss the implications of the EYFS reforms on children with SEND.

Alistair is an award-winning Early Years author, blogger, product designer and advocate of PLAY. His work has been published in a number of books and magazines and he has worked as an Early Years advisor for various film and television projects. Alongside support and training for a range of settings, schools and parents, he also works internationally and with Local Authorities across the UK. His most recent project is the co-creation of a child development app for parents called My First Five Years (mffy.com). Alistair has an MA in Education and is currently studying for his Doctorate in Early Years.

Eva is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Education, Social and Life Sciences, University of Chichester. Her work seeks to broaden current views on early childhood education and care (ECEC) in England with the aims to produce a more generative, ethical, and political way to enact ECEC. Her research interests focus on exploring the role of emotion in professional practices in addition to examining gender discourses in the ECEC field.

Sigrid Brogaard Clausen is a Danish Social Pedagogue, who works as Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies, University of Roehampton.  

Children’s wellbeing and democratic participation is at the forefront of her work, and she has carried out and published research into young children’s wellbeing (including assessment and professional and parental understandings thereof), early childhood professionalism & identity, and comparative curricula policy studies. Empowering democratic professionalism is part of her aims as academic tutor, researcher and member of the Early Childhood Studies Degree Network (ECSDN), where she currently holds a role a vice chair for Professionalism in Early Childhood.

Janet is the Sector Manager for Education and Childcare at educational charity NCFE and plays a crucial role in developing new and existing qualifications under the CACHE brand, ensuring they are market leaders. Janet’s previous work has involved management in both Further and Higher Education across care provision and within social services and education.

Dawn has a wealth of experience working to improve outcomes with individuals from all different backgrounds. Before joining educational charity NCFE, Dawn supported people in the Asylum Seekers’ Unit of Newcastle, whilst completing some arts projects with a Young People's Service. Working as a careers advisor for the National Careers Service led to working in homelessness full time at a Young People’s hostel and with adults with multiple barriers. Since then, Dawn has worked in welfare to work, in front line youth work roles and, more recently, in a position which enables Dawn to ‘help the helpers’. As the Communities Manager for CACHE Alumni, Dawn manages careers support, resources and CPD for the collaborative association in care and education.

Andy Burt is an experienced EYFS Teacher and School Leader who has explored open-ended, creative and innovative approaches to learning over a number of years. Research done in collaboration with Professor Pat Broadhead, focusing on Andy’s work, led to the exploration of ‘the whatever you want it to be place’ and the co-written text “Understanding Young Children’s Learning through Play” which was published by Routledge in 2011.

Matt is writing this bio in the third person because he’s not famous enough to have someone else do it for him (but he'd like to pretend). He spent his first four years at Famly looking after the Famly blog, but now spends his time on the story of what makes Famly different, helping them get to their mission to make early childhood truly valued. More recently, he's been looking after the project to entirely reinvent how people can use Famly to note, understand, and share child development, without interfering in it.

Vanessa Chandler is Business Development Manager at ILT Education, which owns ‘Polylino’ the multilingual digital SaaS book library.  Vanessa began her career as a qualified Early Years teacher, and has since moved into the EdTech sector where she draws on her vast hands-on Early Years teaching experience. Vanessa is an SSC Community Governor, and an advocate of educational inclusion with a strong focus on reading and literacy. At ILT Education, Vanessa works closely with nurseries and primary school settings across the UK, to ‘bring the magic of story time to every child’.

Mandy Wilding - nasen’s Early Years lead - holds a B.Ed (Hons) degree and specialised in the teaching of 3-7 year olds at Nene College, Northampton. She has 32 years of primary school experience, teaching children from Nursery to Year 6 and held the position of SENCO for 9 years and Assistant Headteacher for 7 years.

Mandy leads the DfE - funded Early Years SENCO Award Project and nasen’s part of the Early Years SEND Partnership Project. She has produced webinars, webcasts and downloadable resources to support group-based and home-based practitioners and LA teams in the Early Years sector to meet the needs of children with SEND. She has spoken at national conferences and events and joined a DfE workshop in May to discuss the implications of the EYFS reforms on children with SEND.

Alistair is an award-winning Early Years author, blogger, product designer and advocate of PLAY. His work has been published in a number of books and magazines and he has worked as an Early Years advisor for various film and television projects. Alongside support and training for a range of settings, schools and parents, he also works internationally and with Local Authorities across the UK. His most recent project is the co-creation of a child development app for parents called My First Five Years (mffy.com). Alistair has an MA in Education and is currently studying for his Doctorate in Early Years.

Vanessa Chandler is Business Development Manager at ILT Education, which owns ‘Polylino’ the multilingual digital SaaS book library.  Vanessa began her career as a qualified Early Years teacher, and has since moved into the EdTech sector where she draws on her vast hands-on Early Years teaching experience. Vanessa is an SSC Community Governor, and an advocate of educational inclusion with a strong focus on reading and literacy. At ILT Education, Vanessa works closely with nurseries and primary school settings across the UK, to ‘bring the magic of story time to every child’.

Andy Burt is an experienced EYFS Teacher and School Leader who has explored open-ended, creative and innovative approaches to learning over a number of years. Research done in collaboration with Professor Pat Broadhead, focusing on Andy’s work, led to the exploration of ‘the whatever you want it to be place’ and the co-written text “Understanding Young Children’s Learning through Play” which was published by Routledge in 2011.

Eva is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Education, Social and Life Sciences, University of Chichester. Her work seeks to broaden current views on early childhood education and care (ECEC) in England with the aims to produce a more generative, ethical, and political way to enact ECEC. Her research interests focus on exploring the role of emotion in professional practices in addition to examining gender discourses in the ECEC field.

Prior to joining the University, Su worked as an advisor the for the local authority, led the early years programmes within a further education college in Derby, UK and was the nominee for two early years nurseries, with an ethos of forest school. Su’s interests and research includes the outdoor environment, inclusion and SEND.

Matt is writing this bio in the third person because he’s not famous enough to have someone else do it for him (but he'd like to pretend). He spent his first four years at Famly looking after the Famly blog, but now spends his time on the story of what makes Famly different, helping them get to their mission to make early childhood truly valued. More recently, he's been looking after the project to entirely reinvent how people can use Famly to note, understand, and share child development, without interfering in it.

Described as the UK’s leading “Super Manny”, Hackney’s Joss Cambridge-Simmons (he/him) is taking modern childcare to the next level. Multi-talented Joss is founder of Jossy Care, a specialist childcare enterprise that focuses on the importance of gender representation. He’s now a spokesperson for the multi-faceted roles men can play in the child care system, speaking on topics such as men’s mental health to best practice in early years education. Since the launch of Jossy Care, Joss has been featured in numerous publications and podcasts and also went on to win The National Diversity Award 2019 for Positive Role Model. He has also appeared on TV’s Men's Talk addressing mental health which was aired on Sky and CBBC.