By Penny Tassoni

Continuum pound;8.99

Amid the welter of advice and debate about the early years, here’s a book that’s actually going to help teachers of young children. It’s a godsend to anyone who doesn’t instinctively know that you should, for example, “Sing songs and do action rhymes if children have to wait for any reason”. That is just one of hundreds of lifesaving ideas from early years trainer Penny Tassoni.

They’re all here: maths with the aid of fairy cakes, a teddy who needs help with problems, ice hands (frozen water in a rubber glove), stretchy dough.

The serious stuff’s here, too, of course: looking for signs of illness or abuse; how to make home visits.

This is the ideal survival handbook both for new teachers and for those who want to - or have to - gain experience in the early years. It doesn’t stop there, though. There’s a real need in education for the early years philosophy to spread upwards through the age range. For that reason, the book deserves a wider readership than its title suggests.