The UK’s top nursery professional is Sam McKenna, from Southend. Sam has just won the title 2014 Childminder of the Year in the national award scheme, organised by Nursery World magazine.
What were her winning qualities? Talk to Sam for even a few moments about her work, and the question becomes redundant.  
Her passionate commitment shines through everything she says. It certainly impressed the award judges. Nursery World writer Katy Morton, who covered the awards, said: “For Sam, childminding is not just a job, it’s her absolute passion.”
Sam is 32, with two children of her own. She looks after them alongside three under-fives and two children over the age of five. 
In Sam’s book, looking after the children includes looking after the family as a whole.
For instance, she regularly gives lifts to non-driving parents. On one occasion, when a parent’s car broke down hours before a planned holiday, Sam averted a crisis by driving the family 100 miles.
Sam takes a seriously professional approach to her work, and views it as a developing career. 
She has a degree in childcare, and is constantly embarking on new courses organised by her professional body, PACEY. “You never stop training,” she says. 
Recent subjects include “Safeguarding and welfare”, and “Enabling environments.” Next on the agenda is a university postgraduate course.
This will give her full professional status, paving the way for her to train others for the work. She is already an ambassador for Southend Adult Community College, an acknowledgement of her ability to inspire other adult learners.
Sam gained early experience in childminding when her mother gave birth to younger twin sisters. 
However, she initially planned a career in journalism. At university, in High Wycombe, she studied drama and media.
Her plans had changed, however, by the time she graduated. “By then I had met my husband and we were making plans for a family,” she says.
During that interim period, she took on a provisional job as a nanny, looking after three girls in a country house in Buckinghamshire. “I knew then that was what I wanted to do with my working life,” she says.
For Sam, the core satisfaction of the job comes from seeing a child develop, and being a part of that process.
“You are helping to progress them as they become individuals,” she says. “There are no half measures. You have to engage completely. Every child has their own individual needs, and sometimes there are issues which you have to grab by the horns.”
While Sam has learnt a lot from the academic study, there are some lessons which have come from direct experience. The most important lesson she has learnt on the job, she says, is that children “always behave in a particular way for a reason”.
She says: “Negative behaviour does not come from nowhere.” The childminder’s responsibility, she says, is to “get to the heart of where it comes from.”
The childminding profession is subject to its fair share, or more than its fair share, of red tape, and Sam spends a lot of her time keeping abreast of rules and regulations.
“The legislation is changing all the time, and part of the job is ensuring that you keep up with it,” she says.
A childminder, of course, carries a huge weight of responsibility, but in south Essex it is not a lonely responsibility. Local childminders benefit from strong back-up in two quarters.
Sam belongs to an informal group of local childminders which meets on a regular basis.  “We accommodate each other, for instance, if someone needs to go to a funeral, or is sick,” she says.
She is also strong in her praise for Southend Council’s Early Years team. She says they recognise the importance to the local community of a strong network of childminders, and “provide a lot of excellent support.”