Early Years: The forgotten age of development

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Early YearsThe forgotten age of development
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Workshop Objectives

• To understand the importance of physical
  development in the early years and the impact of
  motor skill difficulties on a childs life
• To understand how Start To Play can support cross
  curricular learning within Early Years Foundation
  stage
• To increase awareness and familiarity with Start
  To Play and Barnet resources

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It is crucial to their future success that
childrens earliest experiences help to build a
secure foundation for learning throughout their
school years and beyond (EYFS 2008)
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Physical Development (EYFS)

• Movement and Space is about how children learn
  to move with confidence, imagination and safety,
  with an awareness of space, themselves and
  others.
• Health and Bodily Awareness is about how
  children learn the importance of keeping healthy
  and the factors that contribute to maintaining
  their health.
• Using Equipment and Materials is about the ways
  in which children use a range of small and large
  equipment.

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Physical Literacy can be defined as the

• Motivation, confidence, physical competence,
  understanding knowledge to maintain physical
  activity at an individually appropriate level,
  throughout life.
• Margaret Whitehead
• Elizabeth Murdoch 2006

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Why is the development of motor skills important?
Indeed there is now a large amount of evidence
from a variety of studies and disciplines to show
that the body through its motor abilities, its
actual movements, and its posture, informs and
shapes cognition. Gallagher 2005
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Normal Development
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Normal Development provides a basis for strong
Core Stability

• Which requires strength in the
• Shoulder girdle muscles
• Pelvic girdle muscles
• Trunk
• All these are necessary in order to develop
• not only gross motor skills but the fine motor
• control needed for writing and other fine
• motor skills such as cutting.

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• School entry level of gross motor skills lower
  than in past.
• Sleeping position of young babies
• Car seats
• Baby walkers
• Reduced opportunities for outside play
• CBeebies 24 hour channel!

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The child in the classroom - motor difficulties

• Awkward movement -floppy/stiff, may be unable
  to hop or skip
• Inability to maintain a stable position while
  seated
• may fall off
  chair moving bottom around
• Exhibits high levels of motor movement in other
  parts of the body
• -facial
  expressions, licks lips
• Poor hand-eye coordination -expects a ball to
  land in hands cant kick
• a
  ball effectively
• Disorganised dressing -left/right and top/bottom
  confusion sequencing
• layers
  doing buttons
• Difficulty in sequencing ideas/responding to
  instructions cant do what is asked e.g. Get
  changed and then go into the gym

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The child in the classroom - motor difficulties

• Handwriting -pencil grip, letter formation,
  inability to stick to lines or
• margins, untidy, grubby,
  incorrect paper placement
• Scissor Skills -unable to keep to lines, chops
  heads off figures
• Messy worker -when pursuing practical
  activities/inability to translate
• ideas into outcomes,
  glue and paint everywhere
• Slow and disorganised in written work -often
  unfinished, starts half way
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  through a task
• May show bi-lateral confusion - not clearly
  left or right handed
• Inability to keep still -constantly moving
  fidgets nudges others
• picks
  things up from the desk

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Impact in other areas

• Self esteem lowered, can become angry or very sad
• Unwilling to try new activities or persist with
  difficult ones rushing to get through a task
• Concentration difficulties
• Social skills poor no sense of others
  expectations spoils games class clown laughed
  at not with
• Emotional outbursts and easily distressed when
  overloaded
• Impulse behaviour getting angry and having
  tantrums when overloaded
• And
• The development of avoidance strategies
  especially in PE and Games lessons

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Evaluation of intervention

• Anecdotal
• Published research
• Evaluation of all types highlights the clear link
  between improvement in motor skills and classroom
  performance.
• 12 children made 15 months progress in reading
  in 9 months (Micklethwaite J, 2004)
• In class there has been a noticeable improvement
  in their handwriting skills and in their overall
  dexterity and posture (McMinn 2001)
• And not just handwriting movement and the
  development of motor skills releases the
  chemicals serotonin and dopamine associated with
  attention, processing, motivation, concentration,
  memory and an elevated mood.

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The Barnet Resource

• Key activities stability
• Skill Development locomotor and manipulative

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Start to Play

• Aimed at those engaging with children between 0
  and 5 years old
• Provides fun resources to encourage play and
  physical activity opportunities for young
  children, their parents, guardians and carers
• Replaces YST TOP Tots and TOP Start programmes
• Supports the key outcomes and goals in the
  framework for the new Early Years Foundation
  stage standards and guidance.
• Links with Every Child Matters, Literacy and SEAL

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Start to Play Resources

• A bag of play equipment
• A series of Fizz and Friends come out to play
  story books. 4 stories and 8 books. 4 books for
  0-2 yrs old and 4 books for 2-5yrs old.
• Each book contains 5 activity/game cards which
  provide ideas and activities for the children and
  parents to play.
• Audio CD of the story books, narrated by Denise
  Lewis

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Contacts

• Gila Parris - PE Sport Consultant
• Derbyshire County Council
• 01629 530501
• gila.parris_at_derbyshire.gov.uk