What this is
Little Minds Magazine is about how children learn. Not how to raise them, not how to fix them, and emphatically not how to assess them. It treats learning and development as a subject in its own right, in the way a good science magazine treats geology or astronomy, and it is written for adults who enjoy thinking.
It is published by Northbank Media. Pieces are written by the editorial team and are not attributed to invented authors, because we would rather not put a fabricated name on a judgment that belongs to the publication.
What it is not
It is not a health publication. Nothing here diagnoses, screens for or treats anything. We do not write about a child's illness, therapy, medication or safeguarding, and we do not publish warning sign lists, because a list of that kind invites a worried adult to reach a conclusion that only a clinician is placed to reach. Where a subject comes near that line, the piece stops and points to the GP, the health visitor or the school's special educational needs coordinator.
It is not a parenting advice title either. We do not issue routines, techniques or schedules, and we try never to tell a reader they are doing it wrong. The evidence in this field would not support it if we did.
How it makes money, exactly
Two lines, both declared on every page.
One. Paid listings. Museums, libraries, learning organisations and children's cultural programmes may buy a listing. Listings are sold on disclosed, verifiable facts about the organisation, published in alphabetical order, labelled as paid, and carry no score, star, badge or editorial comment. They are not a ranking and they are not a recommendation, because we have not assessed anybody's provision. The criteria, the price and what the money cannot buy are published at criteria and rates, along with what we refuse to list at any price.
Two. A newsletter sponsor line. One clearly labelled sponsor line per issue, positioned after the editorial content, at a published rate. It buys placement of that line and nothing else.
What we do not do
We recommend no products. We take no affiliate commission and carry no affiliate links. We run no advertising network and no AdWords. We do not publish sponsored articles. We do not sell links. We do not accept payment for editorial mention, and no organisation sees a piece before it is published. We do not rank organisations we have not assessed, so where a ranked list would be the obvious format we publish criteria instead.
The reason for all of this is specific rather than pious. Recommending things to buy to anxious parents is the dominant business model in this subject, and it is the exact incentive that produces the coverage described in why the parenting press gets it wrong. A magazine that criticises that incentive while running on it would not be worth reading.
How we handle evidence
We describe research qualitatively. We do not invent studies, authors, statistics, effect sizes, experts or schools, and we do not present an average age as a rule. Where a claim rests on a body of work we can name at institutional level, we name it and link to it. Where the evidence is thin we say so, including when that leaves a reader without an answer.
Two structural devices appear throughout. What the research can and cannot say sets the popular version of a claim against what the evidence supports and where it stops. Wider than you think gives the real spread around a milestone, framed as reassurance rather than assessment. Neither contains numbers, deliberately, because a figure lifted out of a study and set loose in a magazine stops meaning what it meant in the study.
Getting in touch
Corrections, listing enquiries and sponsorship all go through contact. Our full working rules are at editorial standards.