ABSTRACT
The origins of parent partnership in the early years are quite tricky; for example, Margaret Macmillan was one of the first education pioneers to emphasise the importance of parental involvement, but her approach focused on the ways in which the home environment had deficits and positioned the early years space as the area of expertise. Equally, partnership can sometimes become a form of “surveillance” that checks on parents' engagement, judges it, but rarely seeks to understand why engagement may not be developing. Families needed to truly see themselves and their identities within the environment, including language and culture. A diverse range of resources and richness of culture provided a good indicator that the setting is expansive in their provision and not prescribing to one world view or cultural “ideal.” One way of checking how a child might be feeling that day is to have some key wellbeing checkers during handovers.
