This one day conference seeks to explore ways to address gender in early years education, promote workforce diversity, challenge restrictive stereotypes and raise the status of the profession.

The day will seek to address four key questions:
• How to effectively tackle gender imbalance in the workforce, just two per cent of which is currently male?
• How to remove restrictive stereotypes placed on children?
• Why does society not give the profession the status it deserves?
• What difference can be made to this, both within the profession and in wider society?

The event features inspirational speaker Professor of science and society and emeritus professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London Lord Robert Winston. He will be joined by author of Cleverlands: The Secrets Behind the Success of the World’s Education Superpowers, Lucy Crehan, and teacher Graham Andre, who featured in BBC2 documentary No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?

The event will also include a series of workshops on topics including freeing children from gender constraints, gender diversity and sexuality, making the most of a mixed gender workforce to challenge children’s gender stereotypes, parental perspectives on gender roles in the early years, and perspectives from recent trainees on the Early Years Teacher Status programme, among others.