Our concept “me before three” honours the self-hood and completeness of being of children aged from birth to three years and acknowledges the importance of emotional security as the foundation of the enormous growth that takes place in the early years.

As Donald Winnicott says, “ ‘I am’ must precede ‘I do’, otherwise ‘I do’ has no meaning for the individual” (1971).

Our ethos seeks gently to challenge our society’s tendency to perceive the characteristics of early childhood as “those things that are not yet part of the state of adulthood” (Lorenz, 2010) and to highlight to parents/carers the critical importance of building warm responsive relationships as early as possible in the lives of their children.

Winnicott, D.W. (1971).  Playing and Reality. London and New York: Routledge Classics Edition

Lorenz, C. (2002). The Rhetoric of Theatre for Young Audiences And Its Construction of the Idea of the Child. Youth Theatre Journal, 16(1), 96-111. DOI: 10.1080/08929092.2002.10012544