Best Beginnings – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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Best Beginnings

Babyzone

Kids & Family

Frequency: 1 episode/8d. Total Eps: 20

Best Beginnings is the podcast for everyone working in or caring about the early years. Hosted by George Looker, CEO of Babyzone, each episode brings together leading researchers, clinicians, practitioners, policymakers and parents to explore the evidence, ideas and innovations shaping how we support children and families in the UK. From infant mental health and attachment to workforce challenges and systems change, Best Beginnings goes beyond the headlines to have the conversations that matter most in early childhood. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Best Beginnings is brought to you by Babyzone, a national charity operating free, evidence-based family hubs across England for families with children aged 0–5.

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Apple

Data updated on 11/09/2026

Recent rankings

Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
11/09/2026
#60
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
26/08/2026
#60
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
30/07/2026
#94
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
25/07/2026
#78
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
24/07/2026
#54
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
23/07/2026
#51
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
21/07/2026
#99
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
15/07/2026
#70
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
14/07/2026
#60
🇬🇧 Great Britain - Parenting
25/06/2026
#73

Spotify

No recent rankings available

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RSS feed quality and score

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RSS feed quality

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Score global : 69%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

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Latest published episodes

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Dr Sanjiv Nichani OBE: Why the Young Brain Was Never Built for This

Episode 18

Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 32:25

Dr Sanjiv Nichani OBE, consultant paediatric intensivist and author of Movement is Medicine, joins Best Beginnings to explain why young children's brains are evolutionarily defenceless against smartphones and social media and what the science says about the antidote. He shares what he started seeing in his own clinic, the neuroscience behind why the developing brain cannot resist addictive algorithms and why physical activity works on the brain's neurochemistry through exactly the same mechanisms as medication for ADHD and depression. He also discusses Healing Little Hearts, the charity he founded that has performed heart surgery on over 4,000 children around the world.

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Best Beginnings Season 2 Trailer: New Season, New Voices

Tuesday, September 1, 2026 • Duration 02:27

Season 2 of Best Beginnings starts 8 September. This trailer brings together six of the voices joining George this season, moving from the science shaping a child's biology to the systems and relationships shaping their everyday life. New guests will be confirmed throughout the season, with full episodes dropping from 8 September.

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Camilla Reid: What School Readiness Really Means

Episode 17

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 • Duration 41:11

Camilla Reid, author of Pip and Posy and I Am Ready for School, joins Best Beginnings to talk about what children really need before they start school. In a wide-ranging conversation with George, she makes the case that school readiness is about confidence and self-management, not academic preparation, and explains why five minutes of shared reading a day from birth to five can add nearly 1.5 million words to a child's vocabulary. She also talks about screens, cortisol and the case for lending libraries in every early years setting.

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Sally Hogg: Why Early Childhood Change Never Sticks

Episode 16

Tuesday, July 21, 2026 • Duration 52:51

Sally Hogg, founding director of Start Strong and founder of the 1001 Days Movement, joins Best Beginnings to explain why early childhood investment keeps cycling through without lasting change. She discusses the gap between what the British public believes about early years and what they demand from government, the "feckless parent" narrative that holds back political action, and what a new government should prioritise to make early childhood a permanent part of public infrastructure. She also reflects on building the 1001 Days Movement, working with the Royal Foundation and the Princess of Wales, and what gives her genuine optimism about the next ten years.

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The Richmond Project's Lizzie Gaisman on the maths anxiety we pass to our children

Episode 15

Tuesday, July 14, 2026 • Duration 41:02

Lizzie Gaisman, CEO of the Richmond Project, joins George to discuss the findings from the UK's largest ever survey on how people feel about numbers and what it reveals about a confidence crisis that starts early, falls hardest on mothers and travels between generations.

They cover why maths anxiety leads to real skill decline, why low-income mothers are both the most affected and the most motivated to change, and how our Everyday Maths programme is working to interrupt the cycle before children reach school age.

A practical, evidence-led conversation about one of the most underweighted problems in early years.

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Home Start's Jodie Reed on the 1 in 5 parents the system can't reach

Episode 14

Tuesday, July 7, 2026 • Duration 35:37

Jodie Reed, co-CEO of Home Start UK, joins George to talk about what 9,000 trained volunteers do for over 60,000 families every year and why that work can't be replicated by statutory services. They cover why family isolation is a structural trend that didn't recover after the pandemic, what the data reveals about the families Home Start reaches, why most families will never engage with a formal parenting programme, and what Jodie's lockdown baby blind spot research found about the systems that protected families in a crisis. A clear-eyed, personal conversation about the gap between what family policy promises and what families actually need.

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Trust, Stigma & Why People Don't Use the Care That's There | Dr Ingrid Katz

Episode 13

Tuesday, June 30, 2026 • Duration 36:45

Dr Ingrid Katz, Director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, joins George to talk about one of the most important questions in public health and early years: why don't people use support that's free and available? Drawing on 20 years of research in perinatal HIV clinics in southern Africa, she explores trust, stigma, community co-creation and the practice of humble inquiry — and what all of it means for reaching the families who need help most.

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Domestic Abuse & The First 1001 Days | Lauren Seager-Smith

Episode 12

Tuesday, June 23, 2026 • Duration 39:54

Lauren Seager-Smith, chief executive of the For Baby's Sake Trust, talks with George about the programme working at the intersection of domestic abuse and the first 1001 days of a child's life. In this episode, they discuss why pregnancy is a critical window for intervention, why working with fathers protects babies and what the evidence says about love, connection and the prevention of violence.

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Anna Heuschkel: What the Evidence Says About Early Years and the Children Being Left Behind

Episode 11

Tuesday, June 16, 2026 • Duration 27:34

George spoke to Anna Heuschkel, policy researcher and early years lead at the Centre for Young Lives, about the state of childhood in England and what it will take to close the gaps. From the dismantling of Sure Start to the risks inside the government's 75% school readiness target, this is an honest conversation about what the evidence shows, why it keeps being set aside, and why getting early years policy right is one of the most consequential things government can do.

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Why Reading Starts Before a Child Can Read | Laura Henry-Allain MBE

Episode 10

Tuesday, June 9, 2026 • Duration 44:56

Reading enjoyment among children is at a 20-year low. Only one in three children now say they enjoy reading in their free time. So what will it actually take to reverse that decline and why does it start in the earliest years?

In this episode, Babyzone CEO George Looker is joined by Laura Henry-Allain MBE, creator of Jojo and Gran Gran, the first Black British animation produced for CBeebies, National Year of Reading ambassador and one of only 49 educators worldwide named a Global Master Leader in early care and education.

In this episode we talk about:
The National Year of Reading and what going all in really means
Why parental confidence is one of the biggest barriers to reading at home
The Jojo and Gran Gran origin story and what it took to get a yes from the BBC
Dyslexia, neurodiversity and a lifelong love of reading
Why representation in children's books benefits every child
What children understand that most adults have lost

Best Beginnings is a podcast from Babyzone, the UK's fastest-growing early years charity, dedicated to giving every baby the best start in life.

Subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday.

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Best Beginnings – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Best Beginnings – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify