The numbers are hard to argue with. The sector is losing people. But beneath the statistics sits a question that does not get asked often enough: what is it about the experience of working in early childhood that is making people leave? The answer points back, repeatedly, to leadership culture. And that is something that can change.

When an educator starts to disengage — going through the motions, pulling back from conversation, seeming present but somewhere else entirely — it is tempting to read it as a motivation problem. The neuroscience suggests something different. Disengagement is not usually a choice. It is a neurological response to an environment that is not meeting a fundamental human need.

A role shaped by whoever happens to be in it ends up absorbing everything the service has not had the conversation about yet. Curriculum questions. Interpersonal repair. Conversations that should have happened six months ago. Over a term, it shapes how the role feels from the inside, and the person holding it is rarely the one who gets to describe what just happened.