Ruth Andrews
Founder, Team Leader & Chair of Trustees
Ruth's journey over the years has been one of love, care and focus on young children. Qualifying as a Primary teacher, she worked in various London schools during which time she met and married Brian.
She set up Samuels Christian Nursery in 1990 with members of the Broadmead Baptist Church, Northampton where Brian was the minister and managed a great team for twenty exciting years of Early Years education! During that time she qualified as an Ofsted inspector, through which she came into contact with Care for Education, enabling her to set up the first Early Years conferences for Christians at Samuels nursery. Two years later, in partnership with a colleague, Christian Initiatives in Early Years Education was launched.
Since that time she has been connected with Christians in many areas of the UK, New Zealand and United States. Since retiring from Samuels nursery, she has moved to Ipswich to be nearer to her grandchildren, enabling her to continue being creative with ‘little people’!
Brian Andrews
Administrator and Treasurer
Brian trained as a Maths teacher before responding to God’s call to serve as pastor to two Baptist congregations over 37 years in Surrey and Northampton.
Over the past 10 years he has become more convinced of the vital importance of the early years in a child’s spiritual development and believes we all have much to learn from young children. He serves as administrator and treasurer of Love Early Years.
Peter Michell
Editor of Early Days Magazine and Trustee
Peter, a Congregational minister, is Director of Mr Noah’s Nursery School, in rural Kent.
For forty years he has combined his work as a minister with a commitment to education at different levels ranging from early years through to secondary schooling. He is a great advocate of outdoors and the forest school approach.
Angela Msumba
Trustee
Angela has spent all her career working in the field of Early Years. She became a lecturer and assessor in Further Education colleges in Nottingham, teaching and assessing on a variety of childcare courses.
The arrival of her first child led her to become a child minder. She sees the early years of children as precious and wanted to make the most of it welcoming, loving and caring for other children in her home.
Angela is the owner of Heart Preschool and is delighted at how God led her to set up her first Christian Nursery in Nottingham. ``I pray God will continue to use me to impart love, learning, and lots of laughter in the lives of young children.``
Tamsin Grimmer
Trustee
Tamsin Grimmer is a director of Linden Learning, an associate of Early Education, Principal Lecturer at Norland College and an Emotion Coaching Practitioner for Emotion Coaching UK.
She has a wealth of experience supporting Early Years Teachers and educators. She is passionate about young children’s learning and believes that all children deserve educators who are inspiring, dynamic, reflective and loving. Tamsin was a member of the Inclusion and Equalities working party for the Birth to Five Matters materials and has written several books aimed at educators and is a true advocate for adopting a loving pedagogy.
Helen Kear
Trustee
Mary Hawes
Trustee
Mary Hawes has been part of the Love Early Years journey for a long time, and finally joined the Trustees in 2022.
Having trained as a primary school teacher, she has worked with Scripture Union, Rochester Cathedral and the Diocese of London. Ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 2001, she serves a parish in south London, and until 2022 was the National Children and Youth Adviser for the Church of England.
Her time is now taken up with church ministry, Godly Play, being a school governor and volunteering with the Bookmark charity (supporting children online with their reading).
Lucy Waterman
Volunteer
Lucy Waterman is a volunteer with Love Early Years who has worked with preschool children for over 30 years.
She loves her new role as a Grandma, and exploring the South Wales coastline. Lucy continues to follow her passion of supporting families and young children, and works part-time for the paediatric Speech Therapy department of Swansea NHS - mainly running groups for parents and babies.