BECERA 2026

Dear BECERA friends,

Welcome to BECERA 2026!

We are delighted that BECERA conference time is here again! How wonderful that we can be together to share our ideas, learning and knowledge at the start of a year which will see the roll out of the Best Start in Life Strategy in England and continued expansion and development of early years services across the rest of the UK. We are clearly living through an age of transition and transformation in the way we all live and work. At this time of transition, it is important that we meet together with hope, optimism and joy as we realise our shared mission to transform life chances for the most disadvantaged children and those with additional needs. It is time for us to re-build, re-connect, re-create and re-vision a different future for children. At BECERA we recognise and celebrate our activism and the political nature of our work. The issues of power, agency, access and voice that lie at the centre of our work continue to challenge us but become even more vital during times of change. With new government policies becoming clearer, it is time to come together and feel and feed our capacity to make change, ensuring that any expansion in provision is of quality and enables children, and those that contribute to their lives, to flourish and thrive. We know that our BECERA community has extraordinary amounts of energy, creativeness, strength and compassion and hope these qualities will be at the forefront as we meet together at this year’s BECERA conference as we look ahead to a brighter and more equitable, inclusive future for all.

Appropriately, our theme for BECERA this year is Childhoods in Transition and we are thrilled to have Professor Peter Moss to deliver our keynote lecture on this theme. As Peter so eloquently argues, transitions are not confined to a linear process of moving through the school system. Transitions permeate all life experiences and can be circular and complex, demanding attention and careful consideration as life-worlds change and evolve. We believe the early childhood sector is uniquely placed to support these transitions and has the capacity to help children to navigate transitions with strength, agility and wellbeing. As we address the current realities and dynamics of our changing world, the 2026 BECERA conference seeks to reconsider and explore some of the most critical changes and transitions within the early childhood landscape.

BECERA 2026 provides a wonderful platform for sharing and discussing these ideas and considering ways in which children’s transitions can be empowering, developmental and positive experiences that promote their participation, activism and agency, helping them to realise their rights and abilities to shape, make and take control of their world and their place within it. The 2026 BECERA programme is larger than ever, rich and broad in scope, offering a generous array of thinking, research and practice focused strategies for working democratically and ethically with young children in a changing world. We are looking forward enormously to the opportunity to meet together and share our knowledge, research and passions about these issues at our 2026 Annual BECERA conference.

Professor Tony Bertram and Professor Chris Pascal

On behalf of BECERA Conference Committee